Serial laterals: Embed laterals and their clients into your law firm

 

Three things you will learn from this Masterclass:

1. How to screen lateral hires to ensure a good fit

2. How to help laterals to integrate and provide added value

3. How to entrench laterals’ existing clients and networks

 

As a leader, you constantly wrestle with the challenge of finding, attracting, retaining and getting the most from your lateral talent. Not only does it take tremendous time and effort to identify and woo good candidates but, once they’re in the door, it takes even more work to make the new union a mutual success.

The truth is that most firms are not very good at integrating their laterals. A study last year found that acquiring laterals was part of the growth plan of 96 per cent of the firms surveyed, but only 28 per cent said their lateral strategy had been ‘very effective’ in terms of retention and contribution to business growth over the past five years.¹ If this is the reality, law firms must implement new approaches to maximise the contributions of their laterals.

Screening recruits

Once you have identified a solid ?candidate, effective due diligence ?and planning can make the difference between eventual success and failure. Some key areas to focus upon include ?the following.?

• When evaluating the fit of a lateral hire, consider four perspectives:

1. Can the lateral bring or generate sufficient revenues?

2. Does his practice align with the firm’s strategies?

3. Does he have similar standards?

4. Will he be a good cultural fit??

• Manage mutual expectations – discuss what you expect from the lateral and detail the kind of support the lateral can expect from your firm. Discuss your lateral integration process (assuming you have one) and demonstrate how you have helped other laterals to succeed.?

• Discuss opportunities in which the lateral could do some work for ?existing firm clients.?

• Ask to see the lateral’s client development plan, which should include: portable relationships; expanding existing firm relationships; building on his network; potential conflicts; expected billing rates; and offering new firm services to his clients.?

• Evaluate whether the lateral’s top existing clients will come with him – often these clients have an institutional relationship with the prior firm.?

• Be prepared to talk about firm financials and future plans for growth.?

• As a pre-integration process, ?introduce the lateral to key people ?in the firm with whom he might work.

BD from within

While you may have the best of intentions, if you are in a medium to large firm, it can be very difficult to properly manage all of your laterals.

The fact is, in firms with many ?laterals, legacy lawyers are suffering from ‘lateral fatigue’, a malady that strikes when they’re asked to remember yet another new face coming in the door. A new lateral may have shown up to major fanfare six months ago and there was an initial burst of support but, since then, ?five new laterals may have arrived, making ?the first lateral yesterday’s news.

On top of that, the legacy lawyers have existing go-to lawyers in the firm with whom they typically work. They don’t know the new laterals and they have little reason to trust that a new lateral can take exceptionally good care of their clients if given the chance.

As a practical matter, your firm can only do so much, so the lateral must realise that the onus is on him to establish new relationships and make his integration an ongoing success. To that end, be certain your laterals understand their responsibilities in making this marriage work.

Anne Malloy Tucker, chief marketing officer at Goodwin Procter, observes: “Some firms are going to be more process driven with their formal integration efforts than others. If a ?lateral is lucky, there will be a definitive process that will help with integration. There needs to be a great deal of focus ?in the early days.

“While it should be expected that ?the firm’s partners will reach out to the lateral, the lateral also needs to be proactive in reaching out as well. It’s incumbent on them to keep the momentum going – reach out and take people to lunch, attend practice area meetings, visit offices, pitch together and so on. The burden is equally on the lateral and the firm to make the transition work.”

Building trust

One of the most important reasons to acquire laterals is to maximise the cross-selling potential of existing firm clients.

However cross-selling doesn’t happen just because new lawyers join your firm. If a relationship partner is going to introduce a new lateral to an important client, there must be a sufficient level of trust established between the two lawyers to make the legacy lawyer comfortable with making the introduction.

The goal, therefore, is to get new laterals noticed, remembered and establishing rapport with key people in your firm. These key people could be practice leaders, influential lawyers in your group, professional staff or other lawyers ?in complementary groups.

Firms have different ways of getting laterals on the radar. For example, one firm has monthly partner meetings and, during those meetings, new laterals are introduced. Another firm produces videos of new laterals and distributes them through its intranet. Other firms use ?partner retreats and still others have ?new laterals conduct substantive presentations to lawyers in ?complementary practice groups.

As a leader, you are responsible for facilitating these relationships because, if left to develop on their own, it might take years (or perhaps never happen at all), resulting in untold lost opportunities. The following are additional techniques that have proven to be effective.

• Assign a ‘lateral mentor’ who can accelerate the lateral’s integration into the firm. The mentor can hold the lateral accountable for implementing an integration plan, help him to identify and meet high-value colleagues and act as a sounding board and new friend as needed.?

• Encourage the lateral to strategically target and build relationships with high-potential lawyers in your firm.?

• Advise the lateral to cultivate relationships with the people he met during the recruiting process. They clearly saw the advantage of bringing him into the firm, so they should have a natural inclination to help him succeed.?

• Help the lateral to find other lawyers who are interested in pursuing similar potential clients and to work with those lawyers to develop joint marketing plans, write articles, co-present at conferences, develop in-house presentations, attend industry conferences and so on.

• Match laterals up with potential internal allies by having them work together ?on a matter.?

• Ensure laterals visit other firm offices and stay for two to three days to build internal relationships and meet firm clients. In one instance, a lateral had 13 partner meetings in another office and, within a few months, received work from four of those partners.?

• Give the lateral a budget for conducting internal lunches and dinners with key partners and track ?his activity.?

• Put the lateral on an internal ?committee where he can meet ?peers and build relationships. ?

• Find an initiative that needs a champion and ask the lateral to lead that initiative.?

• Include the lateral in new pitches ?to clients.?

• Ask the lateral to answer any questions, off the clock, for other lawyers in your firm.?

• Fund team dinners in which legacy lawyers invite laterals and other legacy lawyers (including spouses/significant others) to attend.?

• Encourage the lateral to build relationships with the firm’s marketing and business development professionals. They have their pulse on where the action is – they know who the rainmakers are, which events have the potential to yield results and they have tools to help laterals to succeed.

Advising firm clients

Legacy lawyers must believe that it is in their clients’ best interests to meet with laterals. They must have good reasons to make the introduction, because they will not want to spoil the goodwill they have built up over the years just because another lawyer wants to have a crack at their clients.

If a meeting is to occur, it must be based on the needs of the client. One way to uncover those needs is to ask questions. Therefore, it is incumbent on the lateral to arm the relationship lawyer with several probing open-ended questions to test if such needs truly exist.

Another context relationship partners can use is to ask the lateral to identify services that he is willing to offer that will give others a solid reason for making an introduction. These can include:

• reviewing/auditing a client’s internal processes, documents or manuals;?

• offering in-house presentations on topics of interest to the client;?

• discussing approaches used for other clients facing similar situations;?

• providing preliminary advice on a matter (subject to appropriate ethical constraints);?

• providing introductions to people ?a client may want to meet;?

• offering to send alerts/updates/newsletters;?

• co-presenting at a conference or webinar;?

• co-authoring an article or providing quotes for an article; and?

• joining or starting a group that would be of interest to the client.

BD from outside

Laterals often come to a firm loaded with great promise, only to flame out after a few years. Often it is because they have not properly finessed the opportunities they possess, which leads to frustration for the firm and the lateral. The following are some areas to consider that can lead to a higher success rate.

• Where needed, improve laterals’ ?selling skills. This is especially important for laterals coming from government or in-house positions – they may have no experience in selling legal services.?

• Help laterals to craft a compelling ?story for clients on why they joined your firm. This will help them to become more comfortable with reaching out to their contacts and can provide the rationale for making cross-introductions. In short, it should contain a message that says “I made this move to benefit you, the client”.?

• Help them to develop approaches for staying in touch with their highest-priority prospects, such as:?

1. client feedback meetings;

2. on-site visits;

3. using their existing networks and ?new contacts at the firm to help clients to make important connections;

4. attending clients’ strategic ?planning sessions;

5. reviewing documents or processes;

6. finding speaking or publishing opportunities;

7. supporting their corporate interests;

8. using traditional media and social media;

9. scheduling client phone calls, mail, emails and entertainment; and

10. inviting clients to firm retreats.

Integrating laterals’ contacts

Measuring the success of a lateral hire ?is more than just integrating the new lawyer – it’s also about integrating that lateral’s clients, prospects and referral sources deeply into the firm. To make that happen, you should develop and implement plans that will get laterals’ contacts in front of other firm lawyers in order to establish and develop independent relationships.

This approach benefits both the ?lateral and the firm:

• clients will be more comfortable with sending work to the lateral because they know the team behind the lateral; ?

• there will be greater opportunities for cross-selling; and ?

• the client may be less likely to leave if the lateral chooses to go elsewhere.

Realistically, if a lateral decides to move to another firm, your firm may not (and should not) seek to retain the work that was brought in by that lateral. However, if lawyers in other practices build solid relationships with that client, that work ?may well stay with your firm.

Research has shown that the more practice areas that are used by a client, the less likely it is to leave, so it is in both your firm’s and the lateral’s best interests to offer other services to and establish connections with the lateral’s contacts.

If you’ve managed expectations early in the process and your partners are willing to introduce their clients to the lateral, getting commitment to meeting the lateral’s clients shouldn’t be difficult.

But, this must be actively managed, because it won’t happen on its own! Schedule meetings with clients to introduce them to the team that will ?work on their matters. Get lawyers in cross-practices to offer value-added services to facilitate introductions. You ?can also keep cross-services top of mind by sending clients relevant announcements, alerts, articles and invitations to seminars and webinars.

In all, having an effectively managed lateral integration plan can be a win-win-win: the firm gets a solid return on its investment in the lateral, the lateral has ?a great platform to work from, and ?clients are well served. While it takes ?a significant amount of effort to get it ?right, the rewards are clearly worth ?the effort.

 

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Key components of a lateral integration plan

• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities

• An integration checklist

• A lateral mentor to manage action against the integration checklist

• Regular check-ins by group and office leaders

• A detailed client development plan focused on the lateral’s existing clients and contacts, key internal relationships and new opportunities

• Transparency in the implementation of your lateral integration process and a reporting of the results to senior leaders

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David H. Freeman is the author of ?Secrets of the Masters: The Business Development Guide for Lawyers ?(www.davidfreemanconsulting.com)

Endnote

1. See Thinking Like a Client: Strategic Planning in Law Firms, ALM Legal Intelligence, October 2012