Lawyer Talent Network today have announced that they have rebranded as LTN & Partners and moved into new premises in 99 Bishopsgate, EC2.  LTN & Partners continue to provide market leading legal recruitment for both partners and associates but have added a consulting arm to better service clients’ needs.

Maurice Allen, CEO and Founder said “Our candidates and law firm clients see us as more than recruitment specialists. So, we have expanded our consultancy arm and brought our recruitment and consultancy businesses together under one roof and brand, LTN & Partners. Earlier this year we also added a stellar associates team to work alongside our established partner recruitment team. We believe we have created the new market paradigm with market access, strategic and career advice and planning skills others cannot emulate!”. 

The new team all have backgrounds in the legal and professional services sector and is available to assist with career planning and talent management for the lawyers we work with as well as a full range of consultancy services to our law firm and other clients including business planning, marketing, events, client programmes, lateral onboarding, and strategic growth initiatives

Maurice Allen (CEO & Founder) leads the team alongside Vaughan Jenkins, Andrew Smallwood and Tim Jeveons who manage the partner recruitment, associate recruitment, and consulting team, respectively. 

Numerous articles and analysis have been written and conducted by legal publications and legal industry commentators about lateral partner recruitment and its relative success or failure. 

What has always surprised me about the process, is just how little emphasis and attention is placed on the business plan element either by candidate or the hiring firm. 

Business plan you say……yes, that little two or three pager that seems to accompany most candidate enquiries. 

Such great emphasis is placed on compensation and portability that the build out of a plan that looks to the short, medium, and long term, as well as a focus on integration are sometimes overlooked. Here’s what we have typically seen from candidates and their recruiters during our time working for law firms:

• A CV
• A transaction list and
• A set of metrics: portable income, a combination of billable hours, billings, and hourly rates and maybe some recovery/realisation thrown in.

Very rarely have we seen a strategy built around the above and aligned to the hiring firm. In fact, I can recall two occasions where we (the law firm) received a comprehensive strategic plan for how the candidate(s) were going to add value to the firm they were joining. One of these came from a senior leveraged finance associate at a Magic Circle law firm that was hired by my then current US firm as a day one partner. The other, by a well-known senior private equity partner (who has since exited big law) who along with his fellow partner put together the most detailed business plan I’ve seen. 

A strategic plan helps focus both firm and candidate alike. It helps a candidate identify why they are looking to move and what they offer the prospective firm(s). It prepares them for the discussions ahead and frames the conversation with their prospective new firm. In fact, it ensures a candidate stays on point, fine tuning the message they need to deliver to each firm (if they are talking to more than one as is usually the case) with a little nuance depending on the audience. In effect, it ensures consistency of message, without too much hard work on the candidate’s part.

From the perspective of the law firm a business plan (if well drafted), will assist senior management or the sponsoring practice leader to ‘sell’ the hire internally and achieve buy in. Most lateral hire processes are not necessarily quick and efficient – particularly when you are dealing with individual shareholders with their own personal interests in play.

A prospective firm wants to see how a potential hire will align – that fabulous word, ‘synergies’. Which clients and contacts offer up new opportunities and entry points or strengthen existing client relationships?

A detailed plan also ensures a prospective firm can plan future resource requirements that may be needed to support the candidate – a no surprises approach to ancillary products or associate support is again an easier sell internally. 

Whilst law firms have improved in terms of the information they now tend to ask of candidates, with many now incorporating lateral partner questionnaires into their process, there is still some way to go for many firms.

Before making the move to search and recruitment I was involved on the other side during the boom period of the early noughties and in the late noughties working for two US firms building out and establishing their London operations.

To discuss this topic further and see if LTN & Partners can help you in your next career move, please contact your usual LTN contact or Nick Georgiou – nick@ltnpartners.com

The more diverse a business is the better able it is to attract top talent – Fact. This is an approach that will improve client engagement, employee satisfaction, and business decision making. While progress has generally been slow, individual companies are now starting to make real headway in improving their diversity and inclusion (D&I) and effectively using these results to influence business outcomes. Law firm partnerships currently lag behind their clients in this regard, with D&I often being regarded as a game of quotas rather than fully committing to an integrated D&I programme that will lead to real and sustained positive change.

Smart businesses use diversity as an enabler of business impact, and to effect sustained positive change by promoting D&I in senior decision-making roles – and specifically line manager roles on executive teams.

McKinsey have identified four imperatives for delivering such impact through D&I:

The business case for D&I is clear.

A relationship between diversity and business performance exists with a direct correlation between a more diverse leadership team and a positive financial performance. 

Leadership roles matter. Companies in the top-quartile for gender diversity on executive teams are more likely to outperform on profitability and more likely to have superior value creation. The highest-performing companies, on both profitability and diversity, had more women in line (typically revenue-generating) roles than in staff roles on their executive teams.

It’s not just gender. A diversity of thought and experience is critical. Companies in the top-quartile for ethnic/cultural diversity on executive teams are significantly more likely to have industry-leading profitability. That this relationship continues to be strong suggests that inclusion of highly diverse individuals – and myriad ways in which diversity exists beyond gender (e.g., LGBTQ+, age/generation, international experience) – can be a key differentiator among businesses.

There is a penalty for opting out. The penalty for bottom-quartile performance on diversity persists. Overall, companies in the bottom quartile for both gender and ethnic/ cultural diversity were less likely to achieve above-average profitability. In short, not only were they not leading – but they were also lagging behind. 

Clients increasingly are buying services only if businesses are implementing a credible D&I programme.

Local context matters. On gender, while there is plenty more to do, in terms of both absolute average diversity and representation, Australian, UK, and US companies lead the way. On ethnicity, there is less global progress, with notable exceptions for South African and Singaporean companies.

In simple terms – a failure to embrace D&I will result in less profit. The time to act is now. 

LTN encourage legal businesses to examine the case for D&I at a more granular level to craft an approach that is tailored to their business.  We can help you analyse and assess the approach taken by leading global businesses to construct a bespoke D&I programme and path to implementation to ensure the maximum positive impact. To discuss this topic further and/or see if LTN & Partners can help please contact Tim Jeveons – tim@ltnpartners.com

Trainees and non-partners, with aspirations of partnership, are concerned about the ongoing working from home (‘WFH’) situation.  Although we are hopefully coming to the end of the COVID-19 crisis, is this still a problem or can junior lawyers develop into senior lawyers without serious time in the office?

There is no doubt that for law firms in general the lockdown hasn’t been all that bad – lawyers gaining an hour or more a day, not having to sit on cramped trains, is great when you have an office at home. Nevertheless, many associates and trainees (as was reported on Legal Cheek) are worried that their careers are going to be significantly interrupted. They are right – the reality is it’s next to impossible for non-partners to get the access to training, clients, and the partners they need to progress, whilst working from home. 

We see that there are three main issues for associates and WFH:

The need for learning through osmosis – Since time began, junior lawyers have sat in the office with senior lawyers and partners. It is how strong relationships are built and it is how junior lawyers learn. Without stints in negotiations, in the court room, on walks to meetings and without listening to your partner talking on the phone, it becomes harder to develop the soft skills necessary to become a partner.

Client development – To become a partner one needs to develop relationships with clients. From our conversations with partners, the number one concern they have for senior associates is lack of face-to-face contact needed to develop new client relationships. 

Even in these more ‘conservative’ times client relationships often are still built at the pub, over lunch, or at an event, and as a result it’s going to be difficult for this era of senior associates to develop new client relationships without that social access. 

Building a case for partnership from home – Whilst building client relationships is important for partnership so is the political battle that one must wage if the aim is to become a partner. The usual winning of hearts and minds through discussions and building support within the partnership and those in different practice areas is very difficult whilst WFH. 

All this is to say, that even when we leave aside the social isolation and mental well-being issues associated with long-term WFH, continuing to do so, even part-time, is not necessarily a good thing for lawyers, their career aspirations or development. 

To discuss this topic further and/or chat about your future career plans contact Vaughan Jenkins.  Vaughan@ltnpartners.com