The original Constitution of the American Bar Association defined the purpose of the ABA as being for “the advancement of the science of jurisprudence, the promotion of the administration of justice and a uniformity of legislation throughout the country.”

While this Constitution still considerably shapes the focus of the ABA, today’s legal profession is very different from what it was when the ABA was first formed 140 years ago in Saratoga Springs, New York. When 75 lawyers from 20 states and the District of Columbia met to create the American Bar Association on August 21, 1878, there was no national code of ethics.[1] Most lawyers practiced solo. There were no universal standards for law schools because most lawyers did not have law degrees, and attending law school at that time was rare. Young lawyers learned their craft through apprenticeships and by reading classic legal texts. Improving diversity within the profession was almost certainly not a topic of conversation.

Today, the ABA is as committed as ever to improving the justice system and the rule of law. It works to serve its members, the legal profession, and the public by defending liberty and pursuing justice as the national voice of the legal profession.

Goal I: Serve Our Members.

Objective:

1. Provide benefits, programs, and services that promote members’ professional growth and quality of life.

Goal II: Improve Our Profession.

Objectives:

1. Promote the highest-quality legal education.

2. Promote competence, ethical conduct, and professionalism.

3. Promote pro bono and public service by the legal profession.

Goal III: Eliminate Bias and Enhance Diversity.

Objectives:

1. Promote full and equal participation in the Association, our profession, and

the justice system by all persons.

2. Eliminate bias in the legal profession and the justice system.

Goal IV: Advance the Rule of Law.

Objectives:

1. Increase public understanding of and respect for the rule of law, the legal

process, and the role of the legal profession at home and throughout the world.

2. Hold governments accountable under law.

3. Work for just laws, including human rights, and a fair legal process.

4. Assure meaningful access to justice for all persons.

5. Preserve the independence of the legal profession and the judiciary.

The ABA takes great pride in its mission, and these four goals are at the core of everything the Association does. For almost all ABA members, the continued existence of a free and democratic society depends upon a sound system of justice that is based on the rule of law. America’s lawyers are officers of the court who play a vital role in the preservation of society.

Goal I: Serve Our Members.

The ABA’s strength comes from its members. Over the years, the ABA has grown from 75 founding members from across the United States to more than 400,000 members worldwide. At the founding of the Association, seven committees were created, which included Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Judicial Administration, International Law, and Commercial Law. Today, the ABA has 3,500 entities, including 21 Sections, seven Divisions, and six Forums, as well as thousands of committees working on programs, policies, and member development. The ABA’s committees offer Association members essential information on emerging topics, skills enhancement, and timely issues facing the legal profession. Last year, ABA Sections, Divisions, and Forums hosted more than 300 live Continuing Legal Education programs and hundreds of webinars/teleconferences with tens of thousands of participants.[2]

In addition, the ABA and its members work continuously throughout the year to create original substantive content to advance the legal profession in the United States and around the globe. Each year the ABA produces more than 1,000 print offerings, creating one of the world's most comprehensive legal libraries.

Goal II: Improve Our Profession.

From the very beginning, the American Bar Association has been synonymous with American legal education. One of the ABA’s earliest committees was the Committee on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. Written bar examinations were just coming into vogue at the time of the ABA’s founding; while previously used and required by most states, the examinations had mostly been informal oral tests.[3] As such, legal education and subsequent admission to the bar have been intertwined from the very beginning of the ABA.

The ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar embodies legal leadership and offers services to those institutions and individuals that educate law students and admit lawyers to practice. The Section’s Council and its Accreditation Committee are acknowledged by the U.S. Department of Education as the national accrediting agency for programs that culminate with the juris doctorate degree.[4] Both the Council and the Section, in this accreditation role, are independent from the ABA, as required by DOE regulations. ABA-approved law schools are recognized by all state supreme courts as meeting the education requirements necessary to qualify for the bar examination.[5]

In addition, those in the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar are part of a group that is 10,000 members strong and aims “to improve legal education and lawyer licensing by fostering cooperation among legal educators, practitioners and judges through workshops, conferences and publications. The Section also studies and makes recommendations for the improvement of the bar admissions process.”[6]

In 2017, in response to the calls for change to our system of legal education, the ABA’s Board of Governors created the Commission on the Future of Legal Education to serve as the Association’s forward-thinking body on legal education. The group is charged with evaluating how we can do a better job of educating and testing the competency of the future lawyers of our country. This ABA Commission has the unique ability to bring together the disparate interests under the same tent – the bar examiners, the law school deans, the state bars, and others – to talk meaningfully about the best ways to educate the lawyers of the future. This innovative new group will thoughtfully consider what alternatives should look like and what modifications should be made to ensure that future lawyers entering the profession will be up to the task of providing the service and expertise their clients deserve. 

Furthermore, the ABA works to maintain and raise the standards of the legal profession far beyond the institution of legal education. In 1906, Roscoe Pound, who would later become a Harvard Law School dean, gave an influential speech on the “Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice” at the ABA Annual Meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota. In this speech, which was both controversial and admired at the time, Pound called for standards and reforms to restore public trust in the civil administration of justice.[7]

Today, the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility upholds professional and ethical conduct among judges and lawyers.[8] The Center, which was created in 1978, has become a national source of professional regulation, judicial and legal ethics, and client protection by developing, analyzing, and implementing standards as distilled from scholarly resources and current policies governing the regulation of the legal profession.[9] The Center does this in an effort to hold lawyers and judges to the highest standards, and to protect clients who are not as well-versed.

The Center for Professional Responsibility’s Policy Implementation Committee also assists states with the enactment of changes to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The Canons of Professional Ethics, adopted in 1908, were the first national standards for legal ethics. The ABA Model Rules of Professional Responsibility were adopted by the ABA House of Delegates in 1983 and, with amendments, continues to serve as a model for the ethics rules in each state.

The Association’s commitment to judicial independence is consistent with raising the standards of the legal profession. As the National Center for State Courts said, “Justice depends upon the ability of judges to render impartial decisions based upon open-minded and unbiased consideration of the facts and the law in each case.”[10] The ABA has a number of committees and task forces dedicated to preserving judicial independence; as such, recent ABA presidents have made the creation and maintenance of fair and impartial courts a priority. It is crucial to continue and support efforts to enhance public understanding about the role of the judiciary and the importance of impartial courts within the American democracy. The ABA Standing Committee on Public Education and the ABA Division for Public Education serve both ABA members and non-member attorneys by asking every practicing lawyer to further the public’s understanding of the legal community and the American justice system.[11]

Furthermore, in an effort to improve legal representation, the ABA is also committed to providing access to justice for all through the encouragement of pro bono legal services. Lawyers perform more pro bono service than any other profession. The ABA established its first Legal Aid Committee in 1920 with statesman Charles Evans Hughes as its first chair.[12]

It is interesting to note that the ABA’s biggest annual lobbying event, ABA Day, which is held every spring in Washington, D.C., was founded more than three decades ago to protect the Legal Services Corporation, the single largest funder of civil legal aid for low-income Americans in the nation, and to save it from being abolished.

Today, the ABA Division for Legal Services provides staff support for 10 ABA committees and commissions that promote access to justice for all and improvements in the delivery of legal services. These committees and commissions cover access to justice for poor and moderate-income people, and issues affecting the legal profession.[13]

Goal III: Eliminate Bias and Enhance Diversity.

Early gender statistics for lawyers are hard to come by, but we know that women’s participation in the legal profession has grown dramatically since Mary B. Grossman of Cleveland, Ohio, and Mary Florence Lathrop of Denver, Colorado, joined as the ABA’s first two women members in 1918. Women represented 3 percent of the legal population in 1951, and today female attorneys account for 34 percent of the profession and 33 percent of Association membership. Women make up nearly 48 percent of recent law school graduates.[14]  In 1943, the ABA, which had previously restricted membership to whites only, finally passed a resolution that membership was not dependent on “race, creed or color.”[15] Following this resolution, the first African-American lawyer was admitted to membership in 1950.[16]

Today, the Association is wholeheartedly committed to ensuring diversity and inclusion throughout the ABA. The effectiveness of all the ABA’s pursuits is weakened as long as the justice system does not adequately reflect the population it serves. The ABA has aggressively pursued strategies to diversify both the Association and the legal profession as a whole; these efforts should be at the forefront of every bar association’s agenda and is certainly at the forefront of everything the ABA does. Throughout its history, the Association has recognized that it has a duty to properly represent the legal profession and the interests of justice.

Goal III was adopted by the ABA House of Delegates in 2008, drawn from what was previously known as ABA’s Goal IX, which was “[t]o promote full and equal participation in the legal profession by minorities, women, persons with disabilities, and persons of differing sexual orientations and gender identities.”[17]

The ABA has several Goal III entities:

Commission on Disability Rights — promotes the ABA’s commitment to justice and full, equal participation in the legal profession for people with mental, physical, and sensory disabilities.[18]

Task Force on Gender Equity — addresses the continuing gender equity issues that exist in the legal profession and in society at large.[19]

Center for Racial and Ethnic Diversity — provides the framework to effectively utilize and coordinate ABA diversity resources and supports Goal III, which helps the ABA maintain racial and ethnic diversity as a priority.[20]

Commission on Women in the Profession — the national voice for women lawyers, which also ensures equal opportunity for professional growth and advancement.[21]

Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) — seeks to secure equal treatment in the ABA, the legal profession, and the justice system without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity.[22]

ABA Staff Diversity Council — works to promote full participation in the Association by all staff persons.[23]

ABA Hispanic Commission — addresses key legal issues facing Hispanics throughout the U.S. such as voting rights, immigration, civil rights, and access to the courts.[24]

The ABA Council on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Educational Pipeline (Pipeline Council) works to increase the number of diverse students who are on track to becoming lawyers.[25] The ABA also offers Legal Opportunity Scholarships to diverse law students, providing $15,000 of financial assistance over the course of their law school career.[26] Former ABA President William G. Paul started the scholarship fund in order to encourage racially and ethnically diverse students to attend law school. As Paul said: “We can best serve society if members of the legal profession come from all segments of the population, reflecting the diversity of the United States — and financial aid during law school must be a vital component of any effort to increase diversity in the profession.”[27] The first students received Scholarship awards during the 2000-2001 academic year. Since the program was created, 360 students from across the country (at 20 students a year for 18 years) have received an ABA Legal Opportunity Scholarship. These exceptional scholarship recipients have overcome adversity and gone on to practice at some of the most prestigious firms and organizations across the country. The scholarship program is important not only to the future of the Association, but also to the legal profession as a whole.

Goal IV: Advance the Rule of Law.

International law was the focus of one of the first seven committees established by the Association. From its inception, the ABA recognized the importance of international law in laying the foundation for what would become the largest voluntary professional organization in the world. The ABA International Law Committee eventually became the ABA Section of International Law (SIL) and has focused on its mission: advancing the rule of law in the world and enhancing the quality and outreach of the legal profession worldwide.

SIL has been a key player in many important international legal issues throughout its history, including the relationship between international treaties and the U.S. Constitution, and the creation of institutions like the Permanent Court of International Justice, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and their predecessor bodies. The SIL was also instrumental in the creation of a number of international bar associations and legal organizations, including the Inter-American Bar Association, the Inter-Pacific Bar Association, the American Society of International Law, and the International Bar Association. SIL’s international perspective also led to its involvement in technical legal assistance projects to advance the rule of law around the world.

Today, SIL has more than 22,000 individual members in more than 90 countries.[28] It serves ABA members, the profession, and the public through continuing legal education, publications, dozens of substantive committees, the International Legal Resource Center (a partnership with the United Nations Development Programme), outreach to the global legal community, interaction with the U.S. government, policy development, and advocacy.[29] SIL leadership also led to the creation of the ABA’s Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (CEELI)[30] and the Rule of Law Initiative (ROLI).[31]

            ROLI is committed to collaborative learning and innovative research that enables it to identify effective approaches to rule of law development, incorporate these into creative program design, capture lessons learned from our work, and share them with the broader development policy community. ROLI provides thought leadership through publications and events, sharing insights from our work in almost 60 countries around the world. In 2016, ROLI participated in consortia that produced an assess­ment of the justice system in the Central African Republic and a toolkit for advancing justice in the context of efforts to achieve the U.N.’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. From ROLI’s work to advance the rule of law over the past 25 years, it is clear that change comes from the creativity and drive of individual people committed to the cause of advancing the rule of law. For this reason, ROLI puts partnerships with local actors at the center of all its programs. The Association proudly supports these efforts to drive change.

Conclusion

Our world grows smaller each day. Few of the ABA’s founders who gathered in Saratoga Springs could have imagined the scope and implications of the changes in the legal profession, especially those resulting from the globalization of commerce and law. In fact, few lawyers just 10 years ago could have predicted the issues facing lawyers today. The Association works tirelessly to understand the changes in the legal profession and the challenges of the day, while providing resources to help members around the world become better lawyers. The ABA is the voice of the American legal profession, but it works to strengthen the rule of law worldwide. As lawyers, we are many, but as a legal profession and an Association, we are one.

During the three and a half decades since the 1982 founding of our firm — Major, Lindsey & Africa (MLA) — the legal recruiting and staffing industry has undergone enormous changes; indeed, in many respects, it has changed more than the legal industry it serves.

The Role of Legal Recruiting and Staffing Firms

Legal recruiting and staffing firms make professional placements for a variety of positions and professional roles at client companies and law firms, either for permanent placement or for more limited durations of time. They include:

·       In-House Legal Departments: in-house counsel positions, e.g., general counsel (GC), corporate counsel, or legal secretary.

·      

Law Firms: partner and associate candidates who typically work exclusively with a single recruiter to identify firms that would be the best cultural, financial, and practice fit.

·      

Business Management: retained searches for firms’ business management professionals, e.g., chief operating officer (COO), chief marketing officer (CMO), chief strategy officer (CSO), chief financial officer (CFO), and corporate legal department operations professionals.

·      

Permanent: full-time employees, whether at law firms or in-house at companies.

·       Specialized/Temporary: legal professionals for specific projects or on an interim and temporary-to-permanent hire basis (both at companies and law firms).

Most of the scores of legal recruiting firms in the U.S. have a small handful of recruiters in a single city; several have offices in more than one city. Our firm is unique in having more than 200 recruiting professionals in more than 25 locations worldwide, including London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Amsterdam, Sydney, Delhi, and cities across the U.S. This provides the distinct advantage of having market information about law firms, corporate clients, and practice trends globally rather than just for a single city.

Why Use a Recruiter?

There are five main reasons that law firms and companies utilize legal recruiters:

1.     Attract top talent: Top legal talent is difficult to find because those professionals are usually not looking for new opportunities; one must “search” for them, thus necessitating the role of legal recruiters and staffers.

2.    Save money: The cost of hiring mistakes often exceeds the annual salary of the person hired. The fees for a legal recruiter are relatively modest in comparison. A successful recruiter should find candidates of the highest quality who match specific needs and efficiently complete the placement, making the search cost effective.

3.    Save valuable time: Time spent by a company’s or firm’s internal team directing a search is time lost on other important business tasks. Legal recruiting and staffing by an outside professional saves valuable time, considerable effort, and the associated costs of internal resources. 

4.    Minimize hiring mistakes: The right fit is critical to business objectives and company culture. Top-notch legal recruiters and staffing consultants who know the legal market intimately are able to look beyond the resume, providing frank assessments of potential candidates.

5.  Ensure that your offer is competitive: The market changes rapidly. Legal recruiting and staffing firms should work with clients (companies or law firms) to ensure the compensation package is competitive and will attract the right candidates.

Law firm partners and associates utilize a recruiter to assist in assessing the market of firms that might be a good fit; to provide information about the firms’ cultures, finances, practices, and other pluses and minuses; to serve as an intermediary throughout what can sometimes seem like an interminable recruiting process; and (in appropriate instances) to help in negotiating aspects of the lateral’s compensation package.

For partners, this process often includes the recruiter’s assistance in fashioning a business plan to help firms evaluate how a lateral can be accretive and help advance the firm’s long-term strategic goals. An experienced recruiter familiar with client firms can also provide critical information about issues such as capital contributions, pension arrangements, partner compensation systems,[2] lease obligations, potential client conflicts, and the like.

As noted in MLA’s most recent Lateral Partner Satisfaction Survey,[3] partners who used the services of a recruiter when changing firms had significantly higher rates of satisfaction with their move than those who did not, especially when the search consultant had:

·       Analyzed the fit between their client base/practice area and the firm’s;

·       Acted as intermediary or otherwise assisted in negotiations; and

·       Provided detailed information about potential firms.

Partners who worked with recruiters were also more likely to review a firm’s financials before moving than those who moved without assistance.[4] For both groups, however, the percentage doing thorough due diligence before investing their professional future and their capital in a new partnership was shockingly low.

Keeping the Keepers III: Mobility & Management of Associate Talent, a national study and report of law firm associate hiring and retention from 2006–2011, includes findings from more than 22,000 associate hires and more than 17,000 associate departures. The report found that very few firms anticipated changes in non-partner recruiting budgets or the number of administrative staff who are dedicated to non-partner recruiting in the near term. At the same time, however, a significant number of participating law firms (56 percent) reported an expected increase in lateral hiring.[5] The report’s supplemental study of 85 law firm administrators found that search firms, internal referrals, and online searches or solicitations initiated by the firm accounted for the largest percentage of lateral hires within the last two years. The majority of firms reported that law school job postings, external referrals, and unsolicited write-ins each accounted for 10 percent or less of lateral hires.[6]

Law firms recognize that while recruiting fees are not immaterial, search consultants can add enormous value in helping them add senior laterals who can in turn add significant revenues, expand the firm’s talent and client bases, and bring new energy and vitality. For that reason, lateral partner hiring is more competitive than ever — e.g., in a recent survey, 96 percent of law firm managing partners said they viewed lateral partner recruiting as a primary growth strategy.[7] To be successful in implementing that strategy, firms need to be nimble, creative, flexible, decisive, and visionary (read more specific suggestions for law firms in “To Compete for Laterals — Linger Not, Partners”).[8] In short, law firms and their management teams have concluded that employing the services of savvy recruiting professionals is a productive allocation of firm resources.

Law Firm Business Management Recruiting

This focuses on business management roles at firms, e.g., chiefs and directors of various verticals such as operations, finance, business development, marketing, technology, pricing, and more. The prominence of these professional management positions within law firms has expanded dramatically in recent years. For example, as clients continue pushing for alternatives to the billable hour and greater accountability as to how their law firms manage and staff their matters, there has been a continued interest in the pricing of legal work. Perhaps more importantly, though, is the realization that “pricing” does not exist in a vacuum, but instead is necessarily dependent upon solid legal project management (LPM) and more sophisticated practice management. Consequently, there has been an explosion in the demand for pricing and practice management professionals who play critical roles in pitching, pricing, and ensuring efficient delivery of the work.[9] 

            In order to remain competitive in an increasingly challenging economic environment, firms continue to recognize the value professional managers and administrators bring to the firm; with that value comes increased responsibilities and corresponding compensation. These professionals play a pivotal role in the success of law firms; thus, the support from experienced recruiters is paramount to finding the right match in candidates for those positions.[10]

General Counsel and Other In-House Positions

These are very different from law firm associates, partners, and business management roles. They, too, benefit greatly by utilizing legal recruiters for a range of levels in corporate law departments and across various legal disciplines, whether generalist or subject-matter specific. Searches range from positions at start-ups with fewer than 10 employees to the GC search at Fortune 500 companies and everything in between. Adept legal recruiters help find and place the best-matched candidate for each role, depending on the specific needs of the corporate legal department.

Since our firm began in 1982, in-house law departments have become an increasingly attractive destination for law firm lawyers, including partners. This growing popularity compounds the barrage of applications by interested candidates, which are effectively managed by legal recruiting and staffing firms well versed in the arena.

Typically, the CEO, VP of human resources, chief human resources officer (CHRO), or other senior executive at a company is faced with the task of recruiting a first or new GC. Thus, it is hugely beneficial to defer to well-equipped legal recruiters with high-caliber expertise and experience who work on a daily basis with senior-level lawyers. This is especially true when the hiring authority has not previously faced such a task frequently, if at all. Consequently, senior executives routinely seek the advice of legal recruiting firms to determine whether it makes economic sense to hire an inside lawyer based on a company’s legal workload.

Many legal search consultants have graduated from top law schools and worked in the law departments of some of the nation’s largest and best-managed corporations. This experience provides an unmatched depth of knowledge and contacts. Established recruiters with an extensive track record of successful searches for senior in-house lawyers also have the advantage of a longitudinal view of the candidate market. This knowledge can provide a valuable and long-term perspective on each slate of candidates for in-house legal departments.

Temporary Project Staffing

This previously consisted primarily of support for document review, M&A due diligence work, and project staffing for maternity leave, offshoring, and onshoring. Today, however, it encompasses a more substantial portion of the legal landscape. After the 2008 recession, global demand for legal services contracted, and it has taken several years to get back to a baseline. Now, the legal market is regaining strength as it continues to expand into new and emerging markets worldwide.[11]

While global growth is on the uptick, BigLaw has been and will continue to give up market share to new entrants to the legal services market. Firms such as Axiom, Laterally, Thomson Reuters’ Legal Managed Services, and MLA’s own highly specialized, temporary legal staffing solutions provider, the Solutions Practice Group (SPG), are capturing increased market share and will continue to have a major influence on how legal work will be performed and disaggregated. Major consulting firms are also reentering the legal market and looking to capture some of this revenue.

“Since the recession, businesses across the country have been pushing their employees to do more with less,” explains Inside Counsel’s Ashley Post, regarding why temporary staffing has become crucial for companies, in Strategies for Leaner Legal Departments: Part 1. She adds, “Members of corporate legal departments have encountered the same challenge. Facing heightened performance expectations and heavier workloads, in-house lawyers and their staffs have had to alter their workplaces to conform to leaner budgets — all while maintaining productivity and excellence.”[12]

Law firms are still learning how to effectively use the temporary staffing model, as described by Law360 reporter Erin Coe in 5 Mistakes Law Firms Make with Temp Lawyers:

Firms are increasingly relying on temporary attorneys to scale up legal teams on large matters while controlling costs for clients, but experts say they could take more initiative in offering these lawyers as a staffing option when pitching for business and could improve how they integrate them into the legal team.[13]

Coe includes perspective from MLA partner and global head of MLA’s In-House and Solutions Practice Groups, Gregory Richter, who said: “Big firms have to be mindful that disaggregating workloads is something clients will demand of them. Clients want different price points for different levels of work and different people delivering that work. Firms have to think outside the box and do things differently in this new-normal environment we are in.”[14]

MLA launched its Solutions Practice Group with the goal of finding ways for law firm and corporate leaders to meet evolving needs with appropriate staffing and up-to-date solutions. The methodology and service makes it easier to find highly-qualified lawyers and legal professionals for substantive assignments on a cost-effective, contractual basis. A partnership with the SPG and others in this space provides corporate and law firm clients with the ability to maintain quality of work while enabling it to better manage staffing needs thus increasing efficiency and profitability. Staffing arrangements in this area include long-term, on-site temporary placements; flexible work arrangements; and project staffing for peak periods or interim needs.

Whether the position is at a law firm or in-house at a company, legal recruiters and staffers guide firms and companies to choose the ideal candidate for future business success. The truly adept legal recruiting and staffing firms are those that are also prepared to adapt to change and are skillful at doing so.

Changes to the Legal Landscape Affect Recruiting

Supply and demand accounts for a more competitive legal job market. While the 2008 recession certainly took away legal positions, law students still continue to graduate and look for jobs.

“We are paying the price for having more law schools produce more graduates at a time when demand for legal services has slackened and the landscape has changed,” explains Robert A. Major, Jr., MLA’s founding partner.[15] “As the differential grows between supply and demand, the ‘price’ goes up, and, in a recruiter’s world, that price is quality of resume and the closest match possible between what a candidate offers and what a client requires.”

Specific to the in-house world, there has also been an increased interest in and popularity of in-house positions.

“There are many reasons stated for the rising attraction of in-house practice,” explains Major. “Some relate to the deteriorating lifestyle found in the firms: the grim billable hour demands; the never-ending pressure to bring in business; client conflicts; ‘prima donna fatigue;’ and the feeling that one is being brought in as a lawyer to ‘clean up messes,’ rather than advising on a strategy and course of action that won’t result in messes to begin with.”[16]

Major also listed several perks of going in-house: developing a close relationship with a single client; knowing that your contribution leads to long-term impacts; being part of a team that in many cases creates an instantly identifiable product; strengthening management and teamwork skills that would not otherwise be utilized; and being exposed to a larger variety of legal issues. These other skills, which in a law firm would only be used on an infrequent basis, can help lawyers evolve into other roles within an organization, such as business development, sales, marketing, or even as CEO.[17]

Of course, this is hardly to say that working as an in-house lawyer is preferable to working at a law firm; that depends on the individual. Again, this is where an experienced legal recruiter can guide candidates and clients toward the best match.

The Influence of Technology

Technology directly impacts the legal industry at large and thus legal recruiting and staffing. Perhaps the most significant advancement has been the global connectivity provided by the Internet, email, and social media.

“Years ago when we recruiters relied primarily on the telephone, the mode of communicating with candidates put a premium on brevity,” explains Major in Why Didn't I Get a Job Interview? I'm the Perfect Fit... in his recent post to In Brief. “If asked to provide a detailed explanation of a job opportunity, you were forced to severely limit the number of candidates with whom you would speak on a daily basis. … However, the advent of websites and email changed that.”[18]

Major also adds that the ever-increasing amount of information on the Internet has provided a lot more “noise” for clients and candidates alike. “What has not changed, but become more essential, is the clients’ and candidates’ need to work with highly qualified, savvy, knowledgeable legal recruiters and staffing professionals. Technology will continue driving changes to the legal market, and the successful legal recruiting and staffing professionals will always need to adapt to the oncoming wave of technological advancements.”

“In our search-optimized, app-laden world, anyone with access to the Internet can get a decent snapshot of available options in a given market,” explains Michelle Fivel, a partner in the Associate Practice Group of MLA’s Los Angeles office, and Ru Bhatt, a managing director in the Associate Practice Group of MLA’s New York office.[19] As this generation of lawyers is more technologically savvy than any of its predecessors, it becomes apparent why creating greater access to both openings and candidates is enticing. However, simply sending in a resume to an online database will not get a candidate in the door.

“Unfortunately, the process of lateral movement is not that simple,” said Fivel and Bhatt, as there are numerous additional factors to consider, including the unknowns that only a trusted advisor can identify and address for all parties involved.”[20] Posting jobs online is passive and will not yield the same results as a good recruiter, one who is familiar with the firm’s needs regarding a new candidate. For instance, the ideal candidate might not even be actively searching for a new job. A recruiter, on the other hand, knows who is working where and can get ahead of the game by actively finding these lawyers. “The waiting game isn’t aggressive enough because targeting only those active job seekers can delay finding the perfect fit, costing money in missed business opportunities for the firm.”[21]

Technology can be a useful tool for an experienced legal recruiter, but in the same way that it cannot replace high-level professionals who are lawyers, it cannot (at least for the foreseeable future) replace legal recruiting and staffing professionals.

Conclusion: Legal Recruiting and Staffing Are More Significant Than Ever

Change is in the air, but certain constants remain:

·        Nearly half of 85 law firm administrators in a recent survey reported an increase in alternative career path/non-partner track lawyer recruitment and temporary lawyer recruitment.[22] 

·        Alternative business solutions have forced the legal industry to take a hard look at how it provides high-quality, cost-effective, efficient legal services.

·        Law firms are embracing the non-partner track and other staffing alternatives, and legal recruiters and staffing firms are specializing in order to provide those options as well.

·        Law firm partners faced with multiple options increasingly rely on professional counsel from recruiters with market intelligence in order to make the most informed choices.

Legal roles in firms and corporate legal departments have always been competitive. However, increased supply and demand and the global connectivity provided by technology make it essential for companies and law firms alike to work with legal recruiting and staffing experts to navigate the continually changing legal landscape.

[2] Jeffrey A. Lowe, 2016 Partner Compensation Survey, Major, Lindsey & Africa, 2016, https://www.mlaglobal.com/publications/research/compensation-survey-2016.

[3] Jon Lindsey & Jeffrey A. Lowe, Lateral Partner Satisfaction Survey, Major, Lindsey & Africa, 2014, http://www.mlaglobal.com/~/media/Allegis/MLAGlobal/Files/Articles/LateralPartnerSatisfactionSurvey_2013_MLA_Web.pdf.

[4] Id. at 42.

[5] Keeping the Keepers III: Mobility & Management of Associate Talent, Major, Lindsey & Africa & The NALP Foundation, 2014, at 16.

[6] Id. at 17.

[7] LexisNexis & ALM Legal Intelligence, Oct. 2012, at 21.

[8] See Jon Lindsey & Robert Brigham, To Compete for Laterals – Linger Not, Partners, Nat. L. J. (Dec. 8, 2014), http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202678232309/To-Compete-for-Laterals-mdash-Linger-Not-Partners.

[9] These newer positions are typically at the director and chief level, and include such titles as: director of pricing and project management; director of pricing and profitability; director of strategic pricing & analytics; director legal pricing, practice and profitability optimization; director, global pricing and legal project management; chief practice management officer; chief practice officer; and department operating officer.

[10] Id.

[11] See, e.g., Jeffrey A. Lowe, BigLaw 2017: A Look Ahead, Major, Lindsey & Africa (Jan.13, 2017), https://www.mlaglobal.com/publications/articles/biglaw-2017-a-look-ahead.

[12] Ashley Post, Strategies for Leaner Legal Departments, Part 1, Inside Counsel (Feb. 26, 2013).

[13] Erin Coe, 5 Mistakes Law Firms Make with Temp Lawyers, Law360 (Aug. 22, 2014), http://www.mlaglobal.com/community/news/5-mistakes-lawfirms-make-with-temp-lawyers.

[14] Id.

[15] Robert A. Major, Jr., Why Didn’t I Get a Job Interview? I’m the Perfect Fit… Major, Lindsey & Africa (Oct. 7, 2014), https://www.mlaglobal.com/publications/articles/why-didnt-i-get-a-job-interview.

[16] Id.

[17] Id. See also David Maurer, Law Firm to In-House: Things to Consider before Climbing Mountains, Major, Lindsey & Africa (Oct. 23, 2014), https://www.mlaglobal.com/publications/articles/law-firm-to-in-house-things-to-consider-before-climbing-mountains;

contra Michael Sachs, Law Firm to In-House: a Different Type of Mountain, but not Insurmountable, Major, Lindsey & AFRICA (Nov. 11, 2013), https://www.mlaglobal.com/publications/articles/law-firm-to-in-house-a-different-type-of-mountain-but-not-insurmountable.

[18] Id.

[19] Michelle Fivel & Ru Bhatt, Don't Click Through Your Career, Major, Lindsey & Africa (Oct. 2, 2014), https://www.mlaglobal.com/publications/articles/do-not-click-through-your-career.

[20] Id.

[21] Id.

[22] Supra note 4.