While the largest Big Law firms are all seeking to scale, they’re not all doing it the same way. Particularly when it comes to lateral growth, a few strategies have already come to the forefront this year, including elite firms that are seeking talent within client ecosystems and with common clients, as well as firms simply finding the best possible lawyers, wherever they live or sit.
To be sure, it’s not an exhaustive list of top strategies this year. Firms use plenty of other heuristics, including adding lawyers with whom they’ve worked at or across the table; targeting them because they have a particular niche expertise; or recruiting a partner because they want a foothold or additional strength in a particular region or city.
But as firms continue to get more competitive, some of the traditional markers of impact lateral hiring may be treated more as table stakes. Other strategies can become differentiators, especially as lateral movement becomes a 365-day exercise.
“What has gone from a somewhat cyclical business has turned into a year-round business,” said Jeffrey Lowe, market president of Washington, D.C. at recruiting firm CenterPeak. Lowe said hiring season used to be right after the new year, and to some extent after summer break or Labor Day.
Now, he said, people are moving all the time, and firms are willing to take them on, even if it costs a premium by paying them what they lost by moving mid-year. “We’re seeing firms more than happy to step up and pick up that breakage. Because the partner is so attractive in acquisition, it’s more than worth it to them to make that partner whole,” Lowe said.
Client Ecosystems
One way firms and partners are separating themselves from others is with client ecosystems, said Gloria Sandrino, managing principal and co-chair of the partner practice at Lateral Link. “We know that the way these firms in the top 50 have decided to grow their lateral base is look at the client ecosystem. And those words in my mind have defined 2025, and could define 2026.” She described it as “connecting the dots” between clients and industry, and firm partners and platform, noting that it also tends to de-emphasize the size of a book of business, for example.
She said elite firms will sometimes pass on partners with $20 million or $30 million books of business who might be available because they don’t fit the ecosystem.
“The ecosystem is not just the client, it’s the industry as well. ... When they look at who they service and how to expand their service, they don’t just look at clients, they look at industry,” she said. “If I already have the top three energy clients in the world, I want to get the next three. I maybe can’t get deeper into them, but I now have partners and a platform that services the top three, so now I can go out and get the next three companies.”
It doesn’t always work out perfectly, of course. There’s evidence that client relationships have become less portable, and it’s not unheard of for a partner to lose a couple of clients unexpectedly during a move. “But as long as these lateral partners can prove they own the relationship, it’s going to be a way in the door,” Sandrino said.
Covington & Burling noted it had already worked with mergers and acquisitions partners John Fisher and Tomas Rua on "highly regulated tech M&A deals" when it hired them from Freshfields.
But the firm also pointed out the value of the tech ecosystem both they and the new partners specialize in, noting on Monday their platform already services "four of the five largest global technology companies and more than 1,600 other tech innovators," and that Fisher and Rua will "expand the work we already do with leading technology companies."
'A Magic Formula'
Firms are also increasing profitability by targeting laterals and lateral partner groups who overlap with existing, significant clients. Legal industry consultants have said that not only helps firms get deeper into those clients’ wallets, it can also increase the chances those laterals work out on the new platform, and makes the relationship less dependent upon one or two partners who could potentially leave themselves.
Sidley Austin, which had a banner year on the lateral front last year and is looking for much of the same this year, has called that approach “a magic formula” for the firm. Sidley this year added, for instance, Ji Hye You, a partner in global finance from Proskauer Rose, whom firm management committee chair Yvette Ostolaza said was “known to us and known to leaders of our global practice group,” and, according to past press releases had represented common clients, including AppLovin, a mobile tech company that had also been counseled by Sidley lawyers.
The firm also recently added partners Timothy FitzSimons from King & Spalding in its M&A and private equity practice in Chicago, as well as Michelle Doolin from Cooley to co-lead its consumer class action practice in San Diego.
‘All About Talent’
While the above strategies highlight client relations, plenty of large firms have made significant moves where they’ve, outwardly at least, deemphasized client relationships. When Latham & Watkins hired David Marriott from Cravath, Swaine & Moore last year, one of the firm’s leaders said whether Marriott’s clients would join him “hasn’t been a major focus for us.” Another antitrust star who moved to Latham last year, Alfonso Lamadrid de Pablo, said Latham was more interested in him, rather than his clients, when he moved from Garrigues.
Lowe, of CenterPeak, said it generally helps if firms don’t stay too rigid with strategies or budgets. “Some firms want to shut off the spigot at a certain point in the year, if they felt like they spent their number. And we just think that’s a curious thing to do at times because you can’t always time when fantastic opportunities present themselves,” he said, adding that approach “ultimately becomes a competitive disadvantage.”
Perhaps the most direct strategy that’s been described lately is the one Kirkland & Ellis articulated when it announced its Nashville opening earlier this month — that the move is “all about talent.” Andrew Kassof, partner and executive committee member at Kirkland, has said that opening in a secondary market like Nashville, a healthcare hotbed with more high-net-worth individuals, isn’t about industry or client overlap: it’s about people.
"For us, the move into Nashville isn’t about potential new business in a new market or how to compete for business there with local firms. It’s all about talent," he told The American Lawyer, adding that it’s “very much the same thesis” as the firm’s move into Salt Lake City back in 2021, as an area that smart, talented lawyers matriculate, have connections to, and where they live or want to return to live. He said the firm's emphasis is on finding “the best possible talent to bring into the institution, wherever they live or sit.”
Certainly, other firms are using versions of these playbooks as well. But as “large is becoming larger” in the legal industry, industry observers say, firms will almost certainly have to alter or evolve these strategies as well. The industry is evolving too quickly to settle on one strategy.
“What used to take like five years for something of significance or relevance in the industry to change, it feels like it happens in six months now,” said Phil Flora, VP of sales at SurePoint, which collects and analyzes data on the legal industry. “Technology, yes, but also competition and business models.”
Feb 25
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