Frank Varela of V&P Global details the changing face of legal recruitment over the last 25 years.
Legal Business is 25 years old and the legal recruitment market has played a significant part in its development and in its revenues. It has provided many of the headlines and inspired some of the stories that have captivated the market over that period.
It seems opportune then to look at how the legal recruitment market itself has fared over that period. There has been a demonstrable surge in recruitment over the last 25 years – certainly more lawyers, more law firms in the market and so more demand for talent than ever before. After a post-2008 lull, the competition for the best talent is so hot that guarantees are ‘back in vogue’.
The market is now full of headhunters, but that certainly wasn’t always the case. When Legal Business first went to the printing press, I was founding Longbridge International, at the time the first executive search boutique dedicated to the legal profession.
Competition for the fledgling headhunter in those days came from agents such as QD and ZMB. Pitching for work was relatively straightforward – you would advertise through an agent or retain a headhunter. Fast-forward to today and all agents are ‘headhunters’, a far cry from my very first pitch with a managing partner, who at the time advised me that ‘the headhunting thing’ would never catch on. Apparently it was only for banks and corporates, not for lawyers!
So what’s happened over a quarter of a century?
- There was always movement among associates, but partners rarely moved. Now partner recruitment is one of the key drivers behind the growth of most law firms. Lateral hiring has well and truly exploded with between 700 and 1,000 partners moving in the UK every year. Over the last 20 years, London has equalled, if not overtaken, New York as the largest legal recruitment marketplace in the world. Recruitment is now more aggressive than ever.
- UK law has gone international; my firm V&P Global has followed our clients across the globe and much of our work is international. The recruitment market has been driven by law firms following their clients internationally and the recruitment world simply mirrors their clients’ expansion.
- US law firms have established a firm foothold in London and are proportionately the most active section of the UK partner recruitment market. Quite often their hires create the gaps that then need to be filled elsewhere.
- Regional firms have become national firms and, increasingly, international firms. This movement, to grab a slice of the lucrative London market and in many cases follow clients to the capital, has created many opportunities for lateral hires.
- Accountancy firms entered the sector with an initial impact on the recruitment market. They then went quiet and some even ducked out, but are now back again and the regulatory changes surrounding alternative business structures will create interesting recruitment opportunities.
- Legal sector consolidation has also had a big impact, with firms seeking to take advantage of their new brand and greater perceived depth to add laterals to their often new business model, in the hope of driving further success or creating some differentiation. Partners who would not have joined either of the pre-merger entities are often more attracted by the new enlarged firm. It seems that as merger activity will accelerate in the next 12 months, so, more recruitment opportunities will be on their way.
In the past 25 years law firms have become more entrepreneurial, or opportunistic, depending on how you look at it. The recruitment risk is that it doesn’t always result in a quality or strategic hire.
Over the same period the internet has come along and with it the death of the paper CV, the proliferation of job boards and growth of social networks. This has given lawyers more visibility, and potentially opened up the recruitment market to less discriminating law firms and inexperienced recruiters, but at the risk of devaluing the essential skills that the experienced recruiter brings to the table to continue to ensure best practice lateral hires. It’s all very well putting ‘bums on seats’, but someone’s career and the financial and cultural impact on the hiring firm is a serious business, and a responsibility that merits a more considered approach.
There have been many questions asked about the merits and benefits of lateral hiring, and I am very proud to still be leading recruitment teams that have placed great numbers of partners in law firms who are still there 20 years later, successfully heading departments, totally in tune with their firm and still enjoying the cultural alignment that we identified as being key at the time of their recruitment.
So 25 years on, the legal recruitment market is busier than ever and still evolving – just like Legal Business!