Episode 7 Season Finale: 2023 Wrap up with Steve and his Colleagues Saadia Sultan and Rob Verga

Well, here it is the 2023 season finale of Steve's Rules. In this very special episode we are joined by Steve's colleagues Saadia Sultan and  Rob Verga who share insights from the 2023 lateral recruiting in market and their predictions for 2024.  We end our podcast with some truly hard won observations about how firms and candidate's can impede their own efforts and some best practices as well.  As always we welcome your thoughts and ideas about how we can improve our podcast. Please contact Steve or me Murray Coffey at any time.   Thank you for listening and tune in next year for season II of Steve's Rules. 

Contact Steve
McCormick Group

Contact Murray
M Coffey

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

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 M 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 professionals 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, hello, everybody. To another edition of Steve's rules, and this is a very special edition, Right? Steve,

Steve: 1:13

absolutely, year end special. Yes,

Unknown: 1:16

it's a year end special. We will not have any elves or or Santos running around on this one, and no singing Steve this time and but we're joined by a couple of couple of great colleagues of Steve's from McCormick group, the McCormick group, and we've Got an action packed presentation for you all today. Episode for you today. We're going to we're going to talk about market, what was, what will be, talk about different observations on how, how firms can improve their their their batting average, if you will, with with recruits, and how to support those recruits a little bit, and a very special bit at the right, at the end, where we talk about give it gives. Give a short, short, punchy list of of some ideas for you all to consider. So with that, why don't we go ahead and kick it off with some brief introductions, and we'll start with Sadia. Thank you, Murray, so much and Steve, congratulations on a successful year with the podcast. I'm Sadia Sultan. I'm based in Houston. I'm looking at and exploring the opportunities for the McCormick group in the Houston and then sort of greater Texas market. I've had a career of over 20 years in public and government affairs with a focus mostly on energy. And then I've been doing legal recruiting for two to three years as well. And I worked with my colleagues, Rob and Steve and we cover our respective markets. We've taken the McCormick group a little bit outside of DC into into Texas and New York. Thank you, Murray and I look forward to participating. Yeah, great, Rob. Thank you Murray and thank you Steve for inviting us. My name is Rob Verga. I joined McCormick in April of 22 after a long career in legal services. First, I was a structured finance attorney, then I worked as a compliance manager, and then finally, as a conflicts attorney at two big law firms, big law firms, and I enjoy what I do. I love recruiting, because I get to help people, and I get to solve problems. I get to put candidates in a better place, maybe get some more of what they deserve in terms of compensation, etc, and I get to help law firms fill a need, build a business. So I love what I do and looking forward to the year ahead. Absolutely. And while you're a man who needs no introduction, especially on this podcast, Steve, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself once again. Okay,

Steve: 4:10

so I'm Steve Nelson. I've been with the McCormick group now 28 years and counting, and basically run the gamut and everything in the legal space. You know, worked on partners, groups, government lawyers, people from the hill, but then also work on the high level professional management searches as well. So it's, you know, it's been a varied career, and very happy to be doing this podcast with you. Murray,

Unknown: 4:45

well and I with you, Steve. We've had a long, a long relationship and a fruitful one. So thank you. And I will tell the listeners that if you want to understand what's going on in your respective markets, yes. Body I call, give Rob a call, give Steve a call. There these folks have fingers on the pulse like no other group that I that I've seen, and I've seen a lot of groups so and I really mean that, and if you aren't on their mailing list for their respective intelligence reports that they send out, please, please look for the email address in the show notes and you please sign up. Just send them a note. Let them know you want to be on their mailing list. Alright, so with that, oh, and I'll introduce myself. I'm Murray Coffey. I'm the principal and founder of M Coffey. We're a we're a law firm consultancy, working in all kinds of different areas related to marketing, business development, professional development, business planning, etc. And and former CMO, for, I don't know what, Steve 20 plus years so, so just, I've always been involved in recruiting, so that was kind of a natural match. Natural match here. So why don't we? Why don't we talk about what's going what's happened in our markets, respect your respective markets, what you're seeing as maybe emerging trends in the markets that you're in. And I know, Steve, you'll kind of talk, maybe about some of the national trends as well. But this time, let's, let's kick off with with Sadia talking about the markets that she's focusing in, what she's seeing, what's going on, and what you're kind of, what, what's sort of on the horizon. Thank you, Murray, so much. Steve will talk about the national trends, and the national trends will, of course, have an impact on our respective markets. In Texas, I think he would agree that you're going to, you see the same sort of, you have lateral hiring, sort of down as compared to the same time last year and same time as in 2021 and you know, some of the sister event by the corporate practice slow down, and a little bit of slow down on the regulatory, regular regulatory practice fronts. Now Texas specifically, I would say so we have Washington, DC, obviously, where the McCormick group is headquartered. Once you get out of DC, you know you're looking the states are like industrial hub, hub states, that's what I consider them. So in Texas, you know, with with the focus on energy, health care, you know, other spaces, you're going to see that both companies moving into Texas, whether they're coming from California or they're coming from overseas, you're going to see that that company movement drive the demand for, you know, opening of new offices for the law firms. You're going to see more hiring in that regard. You're also, because it's an industrial hub state, you're going to see the same trends you see in those industries. You know, for example, energy moving from oil and gas to renewables. You're going to see the demand shift as well for hiring, you know, maybe less oil and gas lawyers, more renewable lawyers, more you know, energy storage lawyers, for example. So that's what you get at that state level. And in Texas, you're going to see those trends around energy and and health care. Texas on its own, if it was its own standalone economy, would be depending on the oil price anywhere from 10th to 14th. So even in a slow year, you're going to see growth in Texas, and that's why you see so many offices, including not so many law firms, including not the world's largest law firms, opening offices in Austin, Dallas, Houston. Thank you. Murray, just a quick question. Sonia, yeah, I am in the Texas markets, and I'm in Dallas, specifically, we saw what I would call sort of a disruption of, of the sort of the the big five firms in in in Texas, lot of, lot of new firms coming in competition. It made things frothy for a while. Is that settling out a little bit, or is that still going on? We have followed the trends for the last two years. I would invite Steve to tell me if you saw any other trends beyond the two years. But Murray, I think generally speaking, you're seeing you're just seeing increased competition. I hope I'm answering your question the way you're looking at it, but you'll you're seeing, like smaller firms opening offices in areas where maybe bigger firms were nominating. You're also seeing, you know, you're also seeing the Texas firms open more offices outside of Texas. Yes. So you see that kind of movement in different ways. We're actually talking to a firm right now that has a significant, had a significant energy presence in New York and California, and is now trying to add personnel to the Texas side, but on the energy transition side, transition interesting? Yeah. Interesting, yeah. I think the transition side is gonna, is gonna pick up speed over over time.

Steve: 10:26

Don't talk, yeah. Let me add just a couple of points to what Saudi is saying, because a couple things we've noticed. One is, I think that the there was a phrase I would say in that five year period where the big national firms. And you, you all know who they are. We're coming in, overpaying for talent and just grabbing people from mostly the established Texas firms, but others that that has slowed down. There's still some of that going on, but that slowed down. The other thing we're we're seeing is, and this is, and Saudi referred to this. I think there are a lot of smaller firms and law sort of second 100 firms, and even smaller than that, that are really increasing their efforts in Texas, and particularly with lower rate practices that the one of the national trends we're seeing is the bifurcation is even more distinct now between firms that are the partners routinely charge well over $1,000 an hour and firms that are charged that are happy to charge as low as$600 an hour for partner time. And so I think that that's created their own hubs of activity. And the other thing that we see in Texas is the number the percentage of movement of groups is higher than in other parts of the country. So you're seeing two partners, you know, two partners and a council, two partners and a couple of associates, etc, maybe even three or four partners moving from firm to firm. And so that is much, much more common in Texas than at least in DC. I can't really speak to New York as well. Maybe Rob can help me on that, but, but, but that's something that we're seeing, and it's generally a trend, I think, nationally, but particularly so in Texas.

Unknown: 12:22

Speaking of New York and Rob, Rob, why don't you give us your view on the market? Thanks, Murray, New York, I think, has slowed a little bit. It definitely is driven by the capital markets. As Steve mentioned in the past, New York drives and lives and dies with the capital markets and the stock market, the bond markets, etc, and they're they've tended to be frozen up a little bit this year. We also know it's been the year of efficiency coming from technology firms like meta, etc, so and the technology firms were laying off a little bit so that, coupled with the capital markets frozen up, has resulted in the second half for the year, I noticed has gotten a little slower, especially compared to the first half of 23 litigation, I think has been strong. A lot of firms are looking for litigators. It continues to be strong. I guess they say counter cyclical. And I think I'm hoping the Fed's done with raising rates. Hopefully 24 will things? Will we a lot more looser? I'm more sanguine on 24 I think there'll be more IPOs, etc, maybe more private equity deals, which tends to drive business throughout the legal community.

Steve: 13:46

Yeah. So let me, let me add a little bit more on the national spotlight in terms of the numbers. The numbers that we're seeing is that the partner level, partner numbers nationally, and this is pretty much true in DC as well, down about 4% for 2022 which was the record year for lateral moves. So from that standpoint, 2023 while it may be off a little bit, it's still a strong year, and I agree with Rob, it's been particularly weaker since, like June, July, and slower than it was in the early part of the year. So I think that's that's down, where we see it more often. Obviously, associate hiring has been down, given the state of the corporate market, etc, but also less Council hiring. I think the statistics are showing around 20% fewer. I think the the firms have have made a lot of their succession plan hiring that they that definitely was caused by COVID and some of the retirements that occurred during that time period. I think they've done those, and they're a little less willing to do it in a more challenging. Economic time.

Unknown: 15:03

Yeah, it's 2024. Is going to be a an interesting year, and I hope, you know, I hope an active year. I'm seeing more activity what I do, so that's, that's good, right?

Steve: 15:14

And, yeah, everything we're seeing is that the corporate market is going to pick up. So that will be probably positive

Unknown: 15:20

for our industry. So let's shift our focus now. And we have a, we have a an august group here on this on this podcast, who have some unique insights into what firms are doing that are that are successful, what firms are doing that are creating some challenges in terms of their their lateral recruiting, and maybe we can get each of you to share some thoughts on what is, what what you've seen as best practices, where you've seen firms fumble, and maybe some, some ways that that firms can improve what, what they're doing, just in general, because I know it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a tough thing. This, this letter, recruiting is a, is a tough thing, and there's a lot of hands on it. So it's a, it's tricky. And so why don't we get started on this one with Steve? You have, you have the, probably the broadest view of of what's going on, and going back 28 years. So

Steve: 16:23

yeah, well, there's, there's definitely a lot to unpack there, but I would say the first thing that I think that firms have to recognize is lateral on portable business is not what it used to be, and firms have done a better job of institutionalizing their clients, and they do a very good job of rewarding attorneys who play a role in both both client development and client service, and therefore the idea that many lawyers can pick up and move even a a great deal of their client base, yeah, without any kind of difficulty, is it just is not. It's not very common. And so we see the same thing being repeated over and over again, with somebody who is responsible at their current firm is compensated, um, at their current for according to what they what is regarded as their originations or their managed work, but that if they were to pick up and move, they would not have nearly that kind of business. But those people are valuable. Can be valuable to a new firm, particularly if you look at it from the long haul, like what's going to happen year two, year three, year four. So I just think the firms that are looking at this with a more holistic view as to what the contribution of the lawyer will be will do better than the firms that just sort of look at the number and start to just look at this as a bunch of numbers. So that would be my first point that I would make. Second point I would make is it's all in for a lot of firms. It's all in crafting the opportunity. What's the opportunity for the lateral? Not what is it? What's in it for us? But what is it that the lateral will gain if they go through our platform, what is it that they will gain, that they may not be getting where they are right now? And so it's really to tell that story, both about the practice group that you're hiring into and the firm is all and then the third, I'm going to leave this more to Saudi and Rob, but it's, it's a matter of having your process, and, you know, having a smooth process, predictable, no surprises, and just it. That's, you know, that's, I would say, the exception, rather than

Unknown: 18:52

the no surprises. Yeah, right, yeah, exactly. What do you think about that? Murray, so, you know, Steve obviously on the money in terms of what we're seeing overall. I would just add to that. And by the way, what, what Steve describes, you know, generally, is the the same picture for Texas and is going to be for New York as well. We tried to emphasize to the client that, you know, obviously don't focus that hard on portables. More to what Steve is saying, focus on, you know, what the candidate can bring. There's more value than just the portables. In that regard, Murray, we we advise them on a comprehensive business plan process. And so, in a way, we help both the candidate and the client, sort of, if you, I guess you know, you could say, articulate why that candidate is a good piece for the firm, and it goes both ways, why the candidates a good fit for the firm and why the firm is a good fit for the candidate in terms of success, is not do. This is not the right, this is not the No, no, no. That's clarify that, because it's a two way street. Yeah, yeah. Murray, that's a great question. You know, we, we help candidates put together a business plan so that there's, there's sort of a, almost a forecast in, you know, what the first six months or year will look like. It helps both the firm and the candidate sort of frame, you know, what the contribution could be. And it takes the focus a little bit off the portables, a little bit more onto the overall value, places a little bit more on the overall value that the candidate brings. I think it actually helps both articulate both sides, articulate their vision in terms of process. And you know, Rob will add to this as well. Look, this is like any other working item, if you have a point person on the inside and somebody both, you know, within the internal recruiting division and the practice looking for the talent, working hand in hand with us, working regularly with us, and looking at the candidates as we bring them. You know, without any hiccups, you're just going to have a smoother process. You're going to allow us to go through the market, reach into our deep depths, whether it's market Intel or what we know on the background of candidates, and we can smoothly Bring, bring, sort of, it's an ongoing assembly line, almost, of candidates, and as long as there's internal coordination and interest, and I don't want to steal the thunder From the end of our podcast, but you'll the process will be a lot more smoother, and it'll be a successful placement. Well, great points. Rob, what do you what are your thoughts on what you're seeing that firms are doing ways they could improve, etc. Yeah, I just want to follow up on what Steve and sadly, they said it very well. What, what the the county law firms need to do to improve it? I I'd like to just delve into a little bit about that process, part, because I think it's so important. Steve and Saadia mentioned that they can improve the process. What does that really mean? Like Saudi was saying, somebody who owns it up the partner who owns the lateral hire. They're assigned to it. They have an interest in making it work. They're available for questions. They own the process. They're the point person there. They can chat with you when questions come in. You can meet with them once every two weeks. Let's say they're available. They make it a priority. They own the process. I would also say law firms should really give a lot of thought before they bring us in as to what specifically they're looking for. Is this a replacement partner, or is it building a new book? If it is, if it's the latter, obviously it's a lot more analysis that is involved, and a lot more questions are going to come in from the candidates, etc. So that's important. And do they have the support staff for if they're going to build a new practice? For example, the support groups like tax, is that ready, ready to go and willing and able to support the new practice? Have you thought about that? And then finally, focus really, and if this dovetails and follows from the first two, try to smooth out the process so it's much shorter. Try to reduce the process has become 3456, months now, try to make it a little shorter,

Steve: 23:44

right on that point Rob. Rob mentions having the point person. In reality, I think for most firms you gotta really, actually have to have two point persons. One is the partner, and it's critical, and I'm gonna get back to that. But it's also somebody with some real authority who is in the recruiting staff, the recruiting director, or a manager, somebody who's got the ability to get answers and to move those processes along. And so you really need the combination of both. I think what we run into sometimes is we have a really we might have a really good recruiting director who's, who's working with us, very dedicated, understands, but invariably, questions will come up about the practice, about, okay, what you know, what is the what's the client base? What, what are the possible conflicts, things that are really important, and that and that recruiting director doesn't necessarily have the answers and needs to be able to contact that, that key partner and get those answers. And if it goes, if you're you know, you got a candidate, and the candidates asking a bunch of questions about the practice, and you're going two weeks before you get an answer that doesn't put your firm in a good light. So all of. What Rob and Saudi has said is, is absolutely true. It's, it's, it is a bunch of different aspects that need to be in line and work, work, you know, progressively

Unknown: 25:13

and when I've worked, and I have worked very closely, as Steve knows, with recruiting teams at different firms that I've been at, both on the associate recruiting, you know, the newbies coming in from law school, and also on the lateral, probably more on the lateral side. What I talk about is, this is a this is a sales. The sales rules, you know, the selling is what we're doing here. And that flips the script, and it makes them think a little differently. And to Saudi, his point about the about sort of having this, this mutuality of understanding, if we can, if we can move that, move this to a, to a using techniques that people use in sales, not necessarily, you know, pipeline management and all that kind of stuff, but, but sort of the the posture in sales. I think that that can help tremendously, and it helps contextualize it for the partners. It helps contextualize it for the recruiting folks. So I want to go back to something that we heard from Sadia, that I think is, is is interesting, and that is this idea of the business plan, or business planning, getting the getting the getting the lateral recruits through this arduous process is, as we've heard, a challenge. The other challenge that happens then is for the lateral and the lateral to be successful at their new firm. My experience is that some are highly successful. Others aren't. And I think there's some ways that firms can probably help their incoming laterals in ways that maybe they're not doing today. And I know Steve, you've seen just years and years and all kinds of different firms and all kinds of different candidates come in with different levels of success. So what have you seen that's been on, you know, on the positive side, that that you've seen firms do that have helped their lateral recruits as they're coming, as they as they're settling it at the firm,

Steve: 27:21

right? It's interesting, if you look at the historical basis with regard to a business plan, you know, when we started that, you know, sort of process, it was really focused on government laterals. Government laterals needed a business plan, because they had, they were starting from zero. They had to explain, you know, what their value was, why come to them so forth that started the process? You know, that was 25 years ago, but I'd say in recent years, last 10 years, more and more firms are requesting, sometimes demanding, the business plan for people who are already in practice and have a multi million dollar book, the idea being that they are realizing that they've got to prepare for success. So we see the best methodology with regard to a business plan. It starts in the recruiting process, but goes on to the, you know, the integration process as well, which is, starts with the, you know, with the candidates business plan, usually, before the the offer is made, there is a an opportunity for the firm to actually annotate that business and throw in their ideas, some ideas that where they can see what we can help collateral. This is this idea of you're continuing to sell the opportunity to the lateral. So the best practice is to have a combination plan that then that combination plan can become the basis for your integration plan, because all of it's there, the candidates that you hope to come over, candidates that you can work together on, candidates that neither of you have, but because of the combined strengths of your practices, you can go out and attract so to me, that's really important. It's a really a living document that can be the basis for review, you know, every 90 days in terms of how lateral is doing, what we need to do more what the firm needs to do more, because I can tell you that the laterals failure and success is as much dependent on the firm as it is on the lab themselves.

Unknown: 29:31

Yeah, and great point. And I hope for the recruiters, the internal recruiters, and the heads of practices that I know. Listen to this podcast. Please listen. My experience is absolutely squares with with Steve's experience from from the internal side, the more you can do to help support those, those laterals in the first really, in the first six months, maybe beyond that. But the first six months are critical. Um. So we always, for those of us, those of you who have been listening to the other episodes of this podcast, you will know that we try to inject a little bit of fun, a little bit of little bit of humor into our our episodes, and this one is no different. And our friends at McCormack group have prepared 10 Ways to Lose Your candidate. And listen up, folks, because this, this is this is this is real, and these are, this is this is born out from hard won experience. So we're going to start out with number 10, Saudia. Want to handle that. Thank you. Murray number 10 is refuse to share relevant financial information. To me, this is an issue of trust, if, if the client is asking the candidate to share financials from there, from his or her career, when the candidate asks the client or the firm to share relevant financial information about the firm. Often we'll see the client say, oh, but this is confidential. We don't feel comfortable sharing this or this piece of information. Please share that information with the candidate, because it's going to be a big part of the reason why he or she decides to join your firm. Excellent. Point number nine. Steve,

Steve: 31:26

alright, so number nine is back, check the candidate, and what that what I mean by that is, go, you know, you know, for you check with somebody who might be at another law firm that worked with that candidate, or even at the firm that they're leaving, which is amazingly happened, this is a violation of confidentiality, pure and simple. And it's amazing that lawyers who would know the value of confidentiality violate this more often than than you would think. And so it's really important to to keep that in mind, because if that, if that gets back to the candidate, not only will he or she not come to your firm, he or she will tell everybody they know about what happened at the firm and how they can't be trusted. And then, then, in that case, you're you're toast,

Unknown: 32:15

you are toast. Absolutely no cinnamon, all right, number eight. Rob, number eight is require a world tour, pre COVID. This was literally a world tour, but now it's in, we're in a zoom world. So it's a world, world zoom tour. And again, this is what we were saying before it goes back to it. It's just a months long process, the recruiting process, has become too long, and this is another way to lose a candidate by keep requiring them to meet one more person. Nope, I lost it. I lost the hearing. Rob, I hear you. Okay, now I hear Murray. I can't hear Murray, yeah, okay, Murray, I think you're on mute. All right, number seven. Steve Nelson,

Steve: 33:20

all right, so it's number seven is stop selling during due diligence. That's this is occurring when you're in due diligence and you start to bring in people to really question the lateral about client relationships and their history and why they move to a certain firm. You know, sometimes that sounds like the Spanish Inquisition and that that never goes well. So the idea is that it should all be part of a discussion as to, you know, the fact that this person can be an asset to the firm, but we have to, obviously do our job and make sure that you know that we understand the practice and the nuances of practice,

Unknown: 34:04

all right? And number seven, which is quite germane to this time of the year, Sadia, so number six is, ignore the candidates year bonus. And this, to us, is an issue of timing. So remember that you the hiring firm is thinking, Okay, I want to bring on the candidate in January. Don't forget that the candidate has their own timing, and the year end bonus is one of the drivers for the timing of any possible switch. So you may say you want to hire in month x, and the candidate's not going anywhere until he or she has received a year end bonus, which could be a month later, two months later, after they receive that bonus, they're able to take a series of steps to formally join your firm, all right. And number five, and this is only be answered by. Rob Yes, something near and dear to my heart, conflicts checking. I think firms take forever to check conflicts is a definite way to lose a candidate, really. I urge firms to use common sense. Here is the lateral corporate or litigation. Can Do you really have to go back five years? You could really three years is more often than not as sufficient. So you could really use common sense, save time here, and really try to expedite the conflicts checking process, right? And number four, one would not think we would need to admonish people on this but, but we do. Steve, yeah,

Steve: 35:49

so I know of at least two firms that are continuing, and these are big, big, well respected firms that continue to ask lateral partner candidates for their law school transcripts that that that, you know can be borderline insulting, and particularly for those who didn't do so well in law school. But you know the idea that that you can't trust the 15 or so years they've been in private practice, in terms of figuring out, are they good lawyers are. They're not good lawyers. And to go back to the law school transcripts and see how they did in their first year towards class, you know, that just seems, that seems ridiculous to me and to many candidates. And I definitely had candidates when they've been asked that, when they've been asked that question, basically say, Well, now I know more about this law firm, and I'm not liking what I'm here.

Unknown: 36:45

Wow, just wow. All right, going back to some of our earlier points in the podcast about process. Rob number three, yes, this is a another way to lose a candidate fail to designate a point person law firms really have to when they're doing a lateral search, dedicate partner who can be responsive, who's available, who owns the process and can answer questions quickly and accurately, so that the recruiting process moves At a swift pace. And on a related note, Sadia, number two is make sure that point person is always busy. So it's good that the firm has designated a point person. And again, we recommend a point person within the internal recruiting function and one with the practice area making the hire, but you have to make sure that point person also has a process, whether it's recurring calls some sort of, you know, game plan around when to see candidates how to work with their own internal practice to keep the process moving along. So make sure there's a process around it, and now, in great anticipation, we look for the number one way you can lose your candidate.

Steve: 38:10

Steve, right? And that's basically just to ignore the candidate and his or her recruiter. It's amazing how when we get towards the end of a process, a firm will go, will go to radio silence with regard to candidate. Obviously, there's some issues. Sometimes it's just a matter of the key people are going on vacation, or, you know, there's something going on that's a explainable delay. And rather than just picking up the phone and calling the recruiter or calling the candidate and saying, you know, we're really still interested. You know, we just run into a snag and, you know, we'll, we'll get this resolved as soon as possible. The firm feels like it's almost like, you know, silence is golden. Well, silence isn't golden into the situation and will only lead to the candidate wondering, you know, what kind of firm will I join?

Unknown: 39:04

Well, to those people who are involved, the internal folks who are involved in in lateral recruiting, I hope you listened closely here, and also for you partners who are who are in charge of lateral recruiting, or recruiting for your, your your particular department of practice. These are all hard won lessons. Each one of these is based on real experience by each of the recruiters that are on this call of this podcast today. And with that, we end Season One of Steve's rules, Steve, it's been, been a great, a great, a great run, and it's not a run that's going to end anytime soon. We're going to be keeping, keeping this going into 2024, season two. So stay tuned. We'll have lots of guest stars, as I always do on season two, and we will never jump the jump, jump the shark. And that's really it for me. Steve. Sadia Rob, any final thoughts, questions, ideas, just thank you very much Steve and Murray for inviting us and Happy Holidays to all. Thank Thank you very much Murray and Steve for having us participate today and echo what Rob said. I hope you all enjoy the holiday season.

Steve: 40:23

Yep, and happy holidays. And don't forget those bonuses. Good

Unknown: 40:29

bonuses for everybody. All right, take care, folks. Thank you. Take care. Everyone. Have a good day. Bye. Bye. Again. Rob, please, by the way, Murray, Murray, Rob does this internally too. He'll just, he'll be gone within like a second of something ending.

Steve: 40:55

All right, I think that works. I assume that you can work over the time when you lost your video, your audio,

Unknown: 41:01

yeah, yeah. We'll, we'll, we'll be able to be able to to edit that out and make sure it sounds okay, and if I need to re record a little bit, I will. But I think what, what happened, by the way, I think that we I have a I have a call, I have a cough button on my on my microphone, and I was coughing, and I just before I cough button and then, yeah, so we're not podcast stars like you, so I don't know if you heard us. Well, these, this, this microphone is great. I use it on all of my Zoom calls and everything. And it's, there's like, 150 bucks, not a whole lot. Oh, wow. Sounds really, really good. Well, you have the best, like, sort of laid back but engaging podcast voice. Well, thank you. You're so perfect for this. It is. You've turned our Steve into a very perfect podcaster as well. He, no, he comes in. Steve comes in with uh.