Given that a law firm’s only meaningful asset is its people, I have
long been mystified at the prevalence of "contingency" vs. "retained"
recruiting.  At last someone agrees with me that this talent-seeking
model is perverse.  Consider:

  • by definition, contingency recruiters operate on the principle
    of "throw it all up against the wall and see what sticks;"
  • their incentives to be first-in-the-door with a candidate, combined
    with zero effective braking system in place, means their tendency
    is to swamp firms with good, bad, and indifferent candidates;
  • even worse is that the contingency recruiters’ candidate pool
    is heavily, if not exclusively, skewed to those lawyers who are
    willing to admit they’re dissatisfied where they are—and
    includes none of the stars whose firms presumably are rewarding
    them for staying put; and lastly is that
  • the contingency recruiter not only has no loyalty to any given
    candidate, he/she has none to any given firm.  They operate
    oblivious (in practice, if not in the abstract) to firms’ varying
    cultures, practice expertise, and "brands."

There’s a reason that "retained" executive-search is the rule outside
the legal marketplace, if a corporation is seeking a manager for
a position that could actually make a difference.   But
isn’t every single lawyer in a firm supposed to make a difference?

Related Articles

Email Delivery

Get Our Latest Articles Delivered to your inbox +
X

Sign-up for email

Be the first to learn of Adam Smith, Esq. invitation-only events, surveys, and reports.





Get Our Latest Articles Delivered to Your Inbox

Like having coffee with Adam Smith, Esq. in the morning (coffee not included).

Oops, we need this information
Oops, we need this information
Oops, we need this information

Thanks and a hearty virtual handshake from the team at Adam Smith, Esq.; we’re glad you opted to hear from us.

What you can expect from us:

  • an email whenever we publish a new article;
  • respect and affection for our loyal readers. This means we’ll exercise the strictest discretion with your contact info; we will never release it outside our firm under any circumstances, not for love and not for money. And we ourselves will email you about a new article and only about a new article.

Welcome onboard! If you like what you read, tell your friends, and if you don’t, tell us.

PS: You know where to find us so we invite you to make this a two-way conversation; if you have an idea or suggestion for something you’d like us to discuss, drop it in our inbox. No promises that we’ll write about it, but we will faithfully promise to read your thoughts carefully.