If you’re considering whether to move firms or not, doing it for the right reasons is critical.
15 in every 20 associates hired will leave their firm, according to NALP. Lateral recruiting can be a costly and alarmingly wasteful endeavor for the legal industry, but for you, the attorney, it means a career that risks false starts and even heartache.
How do you become one of the lucky minority who gets their lateral move right? The first step in anything career related is to recognise the power you have. When individuals are faced with a giant, multinational law firm, they easily forget the power they wield. Successful recruitment is a two-way relationship: will this associate deliver what they promise? And will this law firm also deliver on what they promise? Either of these falling short puts any lateral hire at risk.
As the attorney approaching a lateral move, you put yourself in the driver’s seat when you take an objective view of the firm – look beyond the big salaries, the big names, the headhunter’s pitch and the firm’s marketing. There are universal themes that determine successful lateral moves. Here are four tests you should consider.
To have an idea of what bad culture looks like is perhaps a more useful guide when seeking out what you want. It starts from the top, with the competitive BigLaw economy. High pressure scenarios can show the strengths and weaknesses of leadership. Badly handled, it can create leaders who put the client before their own people, or expose those who are missing the empathy to recognise an associate’s struggles, forgetting they were in that position once. Those in charge set the tone, so if partners don’t radiate self assurance or trust, associates imitate them. And when suspicion and insecurity sets in among associates, it’s curtains for the firm’s culture.
That model may sound extreme but it’s not uncommon. In BigLaw it is unrealistic to seek out a utopia of bonhomie, and the pressures of the industry are ever present, but to ask an associate at the firm what their relationship with their partners and fellow associates is like is a useful test. Setting aside the 1,900+ billables expectations, do you sense that partners are respectful of associates’ personal time? Are phones allowed to be off at night? Are associates comfortable admitting when they’re struggling? Do people seem to genuinely like each other?
Having faith in leadership is not just critical for day-to-day happiness, but also for your belief that the firm can deliver on your career aspirations. The idea that your goals and values should be embodied in the journey the firm is going on is an important test for any applicant – and is no less important for 1Ls as it is for partners.
When you’re assessing a firm’s strategy and identity in its marketplace, you might look at how entrepreneurial or conservative it is, and how well poised it is to lead in a market, or to grow into new practice areas. Does global expansion matter to this firm, or is it more committed to leading its regional business community? Does this firm jump on the latest tech disruption or can it afford to remain in mainstream corporate? Does its balance of practices lend itself to risk, survival or opportunity in an economic downturn? Is it overleveraged?
In thinking about what matters to this firm’s story, you’ll learn which of these strategies resonate with you best, steering a more mindful choice of law firm. And when you get to the interview, it’s your opportunity to recount how you and the firm are driven by a shared set of goals and values. This is music to any recruiter’s ears.
Test 3: Will they invest in you?
Being able to visualize a career path is a deciding factor in attorneys choosing to stay or leave their firms. As associates progress, their need for clear direction in their careers becomes more acute. All firms will promote their offerings for development. But regardless of what is on offer, you should ask yourself, is what you want a realistic prospect at this firm? And if the position you want exists, what is the likelihood of you getting it?
‘What grinds lawyers down day-to-day is the control they have over how their time is spent.’
Outcomes is one test; the other is partners’ personal investment in your growth. Take the question of becoming a partner – to get there you’ll need to show your knack for winning over clients, keeping clients, building your own book of business, and leading and nurturing your own people. Through this transition to the senior level, the attorney has to switch from being the worker bee associate to becoming more of an entrepreneur and leader. Both positions demand very different skill sets, and where other industries would hire two different people to match the job spec, in the law you’re expected to evolve from one to the next. This transition takes some serious coaching from the senior level. So for you, the associate, the question you must ask is: do you see the senior level attorneys coaching their team to become leaders themselves?
One of the most powerful reasons associates want to leave law firms is the hope of finding a better work-life balance. Billable expectations are unlikely to be dramatically different from one BigLaw firm to the next, and associates are under no delusion that this will change if they move. And for high-achievers like lawyers, an aversion to working long hours is not the problem here. Instead, what grinds lawyers down day-to-day is the lack of control they have over how their time is spent.
Picture the associate who asks a partner to work on an engagement because it excites them, rather than the associate who’s assigned a demanding project with little choice or consideration for what else they have going on in their life and work schedule. Imagine too, a partner who has an expectation of presence in the office to make the team work effectively together, but respects the associate’s needs to pick up their kids or have dinner with friends – or the alternative partner who enforces long days in the office regardless of the associate’s outside life.
An associate’s daily life is full of demands, but the amount of control and empowerment they have over them has a big impact on whether they like their firm and the partners they work with. After a while, the feeling of not being the one in control has an impact on wellbeing, which is a risk for the firm and for you. So, as an associate looking to make a career move, think about what it means to feel in control of your life – what about life at your firm offers you either security or empowerment and how should those two factors change in your choice of firm? You’ll know what matters to you because you’ll experience it every day.
So when you look at other law firms, think first about what will bring you the most contentment. There are structural variations that can have a big impact, such as whether pay structure is designed to foster competition or equality between associates, how work is assigned, or how flexible the hybrid working policy is. Simple respect goes a long way for some, such as partners being grateful about the small things or offering you trust rather than micro-management.
Conclusion
In career decisions, culture is king. Rarely do we see salaries and bonuses being the reasons associates fall out of love with their firms. Feeling like you belong to a firm, being trusted and inspired by its partners, and knowing that your partners and peers have your back – these are the hallmarks of a culture that fosters long-term commitment.
Further reading: How to start working with legal search firms