Steve's Rules with legendary executive recruiter Steve Nelson from the McCormick Group

Who are you...Episode two of Steve's Rules for presenting the most authentic view of your firm to potential lateral partner candidates

• Steve Nelson • Season 1 • Episode 2

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For the second episode of Steve’s Rules, we dig into how a firm can make sure it is doing everything it can to attract the best and most appropriate lateral candidates. Hint: talk to your marketing department. This is a key episode for anyone involved in the day-to-day lateral recruiting efforts including Managing Partners, Directors of Legal Recruiting, and practice group heads. Steve also tells you what not to put in your lateral recruiting materials. And we open with a brief overview of the current lateral recruiting landscape. The big news on this front is more lateral activity is happening around groups and practices moving to new firms. Find out why Steve calls this the “gold standard.” To keep up with the latest news on the recruiting front please ask Steve to join his mailing list snelson@tmg-dc.com.


Contact Steve
McCormick Group

Contact Murray
M Coffey

Unknown:

Murray, welcome to Steve's rules, periodic podcast featuring Steve Nelson, executive principal at McCormick group in the law and government affairs practice. My name is Murray Coffey, and I am the principal of Adam Coffey, a law firm marketing and business development Boutique. For more information, please visit my website at M coffey.net Steve has been an executive recruiter for nearly three decades, and without naming names, he is ready to spill the tea on best practices, and maybe a few not so best practices by firms and candidates that he has seen during his career, recruiting some of the most driven and successful professional into highly profitable and growing firms. Steve is a former lawyer and journalist and is a fellow of the college of law practice management and a proud son of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. Full transparency here, Steve has helped my career immensely through the years and has become something of a career shaman to me and I know many others. Well, welcome back. Hi, Steve, how are you today? Good. How are you Murray, I'm great. I'm especially great because it's the first day of summer. So here in Texas, it's over 100 degrees already. So

Steve:

Well, you wouldn't know it's summer here, it's like 65 degrees and raining. So Yikes, it's been, it's actually been a very cool spring. So which I am, I'm fine with. You're

Unknown:

probably fine with, of course, as am I. So before we dive into today's topic, which is really kind of the six things you as a firm need to be doing to prepare yourself for lateral recruiting. Maybe seven. We'll see where we go with the conversation. I did see today, Steve, that the your DC lateral market report for May is out. And these are, these are, you know, must reads for people who are in the market looking for lateral recruits. So Steve, if you wanted to just give us the top line highlights, maybe a trend or two that you're seeing coming out of these numbers. And then if people want to subscribe, how they can how they can subscribe.

Steve:

Okay, so may was a was a pretty busy month for the lateral scene in Washington. And overall for the this year, the number of laterals is up somewhat, not not significantly, but maybe 5% up from from last year. The interesting thing that happened in May, and is actually reflective of what's going on throughout the year, is that there were two large group moves that really keyed the growth in May. And we're seeing a lot of large group moves, and those are different varieties. Ones are mergers. Been a fair number of mergers. There was not a merger last month, but there have been a lot of mergers dissolutions, where large groups of lawyers tend to go to one firm and then spin offs. And there was a spin off last month, and there was also a dissolution that led to 15 lawyers going to another firm. So I think that's the trend that's going on. We're talking we're seeing more group moves, more large group moves many times a whole firm or a large segment of a firm.

Unknown:

Well, I know that when I've been involved in lateral recruiting, the highest level of success, frankly, that we saw of laterals, when laterals came over in a group, three, four laterals at a time, it just seemed that they were able to get going faster. And had a sort of, had a built in, some built in capabilities. So I'm not surprised to see that that's on, on the upswing,

Steve:

right? And that's the gold standard, is to try to get groups, two partners, three partners, bunch of associates, etc. That's the gold standard. Doesn't always happen, but that's what we do. One other thing I just want to note for our listeners. If you're interested in subscribing to our reports, we do one for DC, we do one for Texas, just reach out to me at the McCormick group, and I'll put you on the list

Unknown:

super and maybe at some later date, we can talk about what's going on in Texas. That's a giant jurisdiction. I'm here. I'm in the middle of the of the craziness that's been going on for the past few years. So so I'll be I'll be interested in having that discussion. Well, today, Steve, we're teeing up a discussion about, really, what firms need to be doing to prepare themselves for really engaging in smart, strategic, lateral recruiting. And I know there's about six or seven different areas that you and I have talked about, that you've seen, and this is born out through. Lots of experience that you've had in watching, frankly failures, frankly weak performance, and sometimes really strong performance. And I know we like lean into the positive. So let's talk. Let's start a little bit. So I think one of the things that we talked about was focusing on the focusing on why this is, this is sales stuff here. Why the the lateral candidate may want to join your firm and talk a little bit about that, that's that's somewhat different than than how the firms usually approach it. So tell me a little bit more about

Steve:

that. Yeah, no, I think you there are really two different aspects of this. One is the practice, whatever practice you're looking to recruit in, you have to put your best for foot forward as to the nature of your practice, the advantage of your practice, where you stand, what's in it for for a recruit to join a practice, sometimes it's it's a succession issue. You've got partner who's about to retire. You bring in somebody who can take advantage of those relationships in time. But there may be different, different, different stories that are involved. The second is the firm itself, and I think that's where it's tougher for firms to really get a grasp on it in terms of what is, what is unique about your firm? We we just hear the same things over and over again. We're collegial, we're collaborative, we're entrepreneurial. Well, that just doesn't cut it. It's got to be much more granular, much more specific about what is the DNA in your firm? Yeah,

Unknown:

and I that those that, those those three, those three big words, you know, collegial, and all the rest of it, those seem to be ingrained in the in the neural synapses of law firms. They can't break themselves away from, from saying that and and maybe, you know this is actually a good to pivot into the other topic that we talked about, which is working with the marketing departments before the for the firm is, is hitting the lateral market in a in a big way. Can you talk about why that would be in, in how marketing departments themselves, marketers themselves, can add value to the process? Because, frankly, I don't think a lot do.

Steve:

Yeah, no, we often see a little bit of a of a barrier between the recruiting team and the marketing team. We're not seeing them interact that much in terms of our role in helping a firm really put together the case for for laterals and your marketing team. I mean, that's, that's what they do. They are focused on communications that really distinguish your firm from others, when when you're going after business, when going after clients. So the same thing kind of applies. It's a little different view of it. Recruits are a little different in terms of how you do it, but, but the marketing department can really get you a lot of ammunition that you need, that that that firms often overlook.

Unknown:

Yeah, and I will tell you that from my perspective as a CMO at a number of different AMLO 100 firms, where I worked directly with the recruiting teams. And this is maybe more of a message to the recruiters and the heads of marketing out there that this comes from the top, even if the market, even if the management partner says you must work together, that's that kind of must do stuff won't actually cut it the CMO or the head of director of marketing and the chief recruiting person or director of recruiting, they need to get together. They need they they first need to to build those bridges between each other. And I think pretty quickly, most marketing folks will figure out that what the recruiting team is doing is sales and and marketing and and they become a they become a fantastic if they're your allies, they become a fantastic new channel for the firm's brand. The firm's brand is going to be in that, in that recruiting channel, no matter what. But if you are able to work with the recruiting team, you can really develop some some great messages and some great relationships. You know, some of the tightest relationships I had over the years came with people who were, who were the recruiters.

Steve:

Because I just, let me just add, let me just add that there have been a couple of instances where I've worked with directors of recruiting who came from the marketing side. They worked in the marketing department for a number of years, and invariably, those were the among the most effective recruiters that I've worked

Unknown:

right because as a head of recruiting, you. You really, your recruiting can be kind of a mechanical process on the back end, and that can, that can absolutely, absolutely has to be done. But the heads of the of recruiting need to, need to kind of set that tone. And I think it gets set well, and I've seen that successfully happen multiple times. So yeah, you're absolutely right. So let's go back to messaging a little bit. You talk you talk to me about, and I always think this is kind of interesting in your messaging, first step is to describe what you're not. So talk to me about what the not is, what that not is all about,

Steve:

right? I think that if you get a bunch of lawyers in a room and they talk about their competition, it will be very helpful to learn why they're not like x firm or y firm. They will invariably talk about this firm, and they'll say, you know, they'll say negative things about their competition. Some of it's hubris, but some of it's is, is grounded in some level of truth, and therefore, you get a feel for what you what you are, by defining what you're not. And it might be something like, you know, we're not all things to all people. It might be. We're not, you know, our, you know, we're not all about dollars. We're about human values other than that. X firm is just, you know, all they're doing is, you know, raking in the money. It will get you somewhere in terms of being able to describe, you know, who you are, what you bat

Unknown:

Yeah, yeah. I think that's right, and it's a good exercise for the partners, for the recruiting folks, for the marketing folks, to to engage in nature what we're not. And it's kind of hard sometimes, because law firms want to be everything to everybody, oftentimes, and you and I both know they're not. And you know, a lot of firms have what I heard consultant once talk to me about, which was, which is, the peaks of excellence, which I felt was a very politic way of talking about, talking about the certain firms bring to the market. Now here's something that you and I might have a little bit of disagreement about, and that is in terms of the qualification of the firm, and sort of what is important in qualifying the firm in the eyes of the laterals. And you, you lean into words, accolades, etc. So let's talk a little bit about that, and, and, and I'll share my thoughts on what I how I how I view that, which is maybe a little divergent from yours, but please.

Steve:

Yeah, I think I believe awards, at least the ones that are regarded as valid by most observers, are important, because attorneys are tend to be they're very skeptical, and they tend to be very analytical. That's why they went to law school and therefore backing up a claim that your chambers rated number one in x is very helpful to you. Now I will say that some of the rankings that are out there are not worth a whole lot, and you've got to be careful about that, because some lawyers already know that Super Lawyers, for example, is not the most highly regarded accolade that you can get. Yeah,

Unknown:

yeah. I agree that the chamber and in, you know, chambers, as you know, is a, is a big burden for most law firms, most law firm marketing departments. It is a, it is a big piece of work to get a chambers application in so that there is, there's, there's a lot of work involved in that. And that's part of why it's valuable. Because you don't, you don't get into chambers without having done some, done some done some groundwork. But, yeah, super lawyers, best lawyers. What I used to tell the partners with the kids, you know, partners get, partners get spammed with all kinds of bizarre awards that nobody's ever heard of before. And I would say, Look, if, if you, if you read through the first two paragraphs, and the third paragraph is telling you what the cost of the plaque will be, you're pretty much you can, you can delete that. You can delete that email that is not a valid, that is not valid. And there's others, there's, you know, like benchmark litigation, I think is great. That's that's a really good one. Any of the AMWA awards that that you can, that you can, you can get into, into a great those. Those are really helpful, especially from a departmental standpoint, those are super helpful. But I will say that that I would see that as a secondary qualification in a lot of respects, because I think, and this is probably, the where we go next, is, is the what most laterals want to know, is, am I going to be successful at your. Firm, and so, so, you know, I think as much as you want to share how great your firm is, how great your your awards are, success stories. And Steve, I think you can get some thoughts on the success stories that really kind of one of the, I think one of the important things,

Steve:

right? I think it's very effective. And law firms often put out brochures with this, so they're doing it. Many firms are doing a pretty good job now on success stories. But what I what I want to see in the success story is, I want to see the actual methodology is how the firm helped a particular lateral increase their business, and more cross selling and so forth. I want to, you know, I want to see, you know, the marketing and business development team was really instrumental in helping me expand my, you know, context, or whatever, however it is, I think that the more you can show them how it's done, versus just saying, you know, I joined the firm and it's been great and increased my business. That's not good enough. It's got to be more about the actual way the firm does it, because that's really the differentiator in many cases,

Unknown:

yeah, yeah. And I think closely related to that is, you know, how the compensation system is set up, and kind of the story that the compensation system will tell, because we can have all kinds of flowery words around everything that we're going to do, and all kinds of puffy awards, but when it comes down to it, compensation is kind of where I mean to use a horribly overused term, the rubber meets the road for everybody, firms and candidates.

Steve:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that the compensation system is, is a tremendous window into into, really what your firm is all about. And therefore, if you can share aspects of of the compensation system that may help the laterals understand why it's unique. Sometimes firms have the closed compensation system. Many people view that as a negative that you don't know what the other partners are making. But sometimes a firm can explain why that's a positive, particularly for a lateral because, therefore they're not being judged just on their book of business, and the other partners aren't, you know, weighing in and saying, Well, we're not going to hire this guy. In addition, I would say that anything that is unique about your system that sort of keeps it away from the formulaic systems that are less, so less than what they used to be. But even a lot of the subjective system, it's one of those things where the originations and the hours you worked are like 98% you know, I know of, you know, some really interesting examples firms that don't track originations at all. Yes, they know, you know that certain partners are doing what? But there's no no. And then the other one is, I, you know, I know one firm that you cannot get 100% origination credit on any matter. You have to split it up. Nobody gets more than 50% of that origination, and they split it up so that you're forced as the as the billing partner, that you're going to have to show how you're going to share it. And I just think that's a really interesting maybe, you know, it may be that there's some issues with that, because if you're doing all the work yourself, maybe that's not fair. But I think it's an interesting concept.

Unknown:

Well, you know what it does, I think too, is that it incentivizes people not to do all the work themselves, which is, I mean, the where, the where the where the money comes in, for most law firms, is in the leverage. And so being able to being able to encourage folks to leverage is really important, I think. And that's a that's a very interesting compensation model. I'm sure there's more there's more subtlety to it, but it, it that that I've never, I've not heard that before, and I would be very interested in in knowing how that has impacted that firm over over time, because that is a that is a definitive statement in the marketplace. And there are people who are going to run from that, and there's going to people run to it, and, you know, I just, it's a it's interesting. And by the way, that would be something that if I was an associate, I'd want to know, I want to know that that that kind of a compensation system is in place because that means there's more opportunity for you as an associate, to be sure. All right, well, Steve, you know one of the things again, and I'll go back to this that I know about you, that a lot of people don't know, is your is your side hustle, which is stand. Up comedy. You've been doing it for years, and so we like to kind of end on a high note, maybe with a joke. I'm using anecdote, etc. Maybe even comes from your, from one of your, your stand up honks. But can we? Can we close about with a little bit on the, on the on the on the on the dreaded policy that law firms feel compelled to to, to publicize that that is, that is a questionable merit, right?

Steve:

I think the one sort of statement that tries to distinguish your firm for others that really doesn't work, and is and is laughable, is when, when you say we have a no asshole policy at our firm, and we don't, we don't take them in, and we get rid of them, etc. Well, I would say this first of all, that if you're talking to anybody who's not a lawyer, they're going to say, oh, isn't that in your job description to be an asshole? So, and we know, and I just say lawyers are great, and I find them to be terrific to work with. So it's not that but, but I just think it's a it's a lame kind of situation. And what I've found is, and not not true in every case, but often, the firms with the most assholes are the ones who are going to say they have no asshole. I just don't value it. If I hear it, I kind of cringe.

Unknown:

We kind of cringe. Yeah, I do too. And that was a, was a we, at least two firms I worked at, they tried to have that, and I would have a discussion with the managing partner saying, all that tells people is that they're gonna be working with a bunch of a holes. So Steve, we're gonna have to put an explicit, you know, letter on, on our on our programming for this, for this week, but, but I think

Steve:

it's WPG. I mean, I don't think it's worse,

Unknown:

but, but Steve, was there anything that we didn't talk about, anything that we missed, or any pointer that that that you wanted to make sure that we covered before we close today?

Steve:

I think you've hit all the main ones. I mean, there's, there's lots of things that you can add, and I'll mention one that may be because we were talking about the chambers and the awards, I would just one of the things I would do when I'm talking to recruiters is go to your chamber submissions that has a lot of detailed information, and most of it is public if you put it through chambers, unless you put A warning on it that says it's not public. That is information that that you've allowed chambers to see, and therefore you should be able to have your recruits see it as well. And I just think that's a really good, real information about cases and matters and how you staffed it and so forth. So I would go to that. That's something I'd look at before I talk.

Unknown:

Yeah, and I think, you know, going back to the com, to how our how our recruiting, senior recruiting folks and our senior marketing people can, can work well together, a lot of the recruiting folks don't exactly know. They see the they see the end of the channel. So did somebody get chambers rank? They don't see what leads up to that end of the channel. And you make a great point that, that you know those those chambers, those chambers, forms that are filled out, are filled with gold and and gold that the the firm that the partners want to be known for. And you're right, it's this, and oftentimes it's very well written. It is it, is it is it is shareable and and it's used in pitches and proposals, a lot of a lot of marketing departments. Even though they know chambers is a pain, they welcome it in part because they're able to freshen up the experience database with with new experience. So I think that's a great I think that's great tip. I think it's a great idea. And I would really encourage anybody on the recruiting side to be considering that. And if you're on the marketing side, put that into the mix and say, Hey, here's something we've got. Because I know marketing, the recruiting folks are always looking for data, always All right. Well, with that, Steve, thank you very much. We will tee up another one of these in short order. And as always, if you have any questions, thoughts, etc, please contact Steve or myself and make sure that you get on the McCormick group's mailing list so you get the DC lateral report, the Texas lateral report, and other kinds of intelligence that McCormick group, especially Steve, put out during the course of the year. And I know that Steve and his colleagues are out there speaking and in the public eye quite a bit well. Thank you. Murray, great. All right. Well, why don't we close. And we'll talk soon. All right, take care. Steve.