Lateral Hiring Challenges Destroyed Great Law Firms, Columnist Says
Lateral hiring emphasizes profits at the expense of law firm culture culture and stability, according to a former BigLaw partner who teaches at Northwestern’s law school.
In a column for the Am Law Daily, retired Kirkland & Ellis partner Steven Harper asserts that lateral recruiting contributed to the dissolutions of law firms such as Howrey; Heller Ehrman; and Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Underberg, Manley, Myerson & Casey.
Harper notes an American Lawyer survey of leaders at the nation’s top law firms that found more than 80 percent plan to hire litigation partners and almost 75 percent plan to hire corporate partners. Asked to pick their biggest disappointment for 2011, many identified problems attracting laterals, or the loss of laterals. Harper suggests the emphasis is misguided.
Lawyers focused on whether they can be hired by other law firms “build client silos, not institutional bridges to fellow partners and the next generation,” Harper writes. “Once they actually move to a new firm, the situation gets worse.” At the hiring firms, the laterals feel pressured to justify their hiring.
“With each new addition from outside, a sense of community disappears,” Harper says. “How long can anyone reasonably expect the center to hold when the only shared partnership purpose is making money? Only for as long as profit trees grow to the sky.” Stalled or declining profits can bring rapid departures, threatening the viability of the law firm, he notes.
“It’s an odd and relatively new treadmill of potential self-destruction,” Harper says.
