III. Take the time to do your homework
Everyone knows about “deal momentum,” that irrational affliction that clients suffer, and we often have to counsel them prudently against, when the growing seductive force of an imagined combination or acquisition takes on a life of its own, hesitation falls by the wayside, and skeptics are mildly resented and get odd looks.
So it is with potential laterals.
Partners who are sponsoring or advocating for a lateral are especially susceptible, but it can happen to others who begin the conversation with complete dispassion. The grounding assumption from which analysis and decision-making seem to flow switches from the simple and inarguable “This person is not at our firm” to the charged and assumptive “this person really would be terrific at our firm.” On your guard, especially because it happens almost unconsciously and subliminally.
Yes, recruiters have been known to claim that someone’s availability has an expiration date measured in days or weeks, but the aphorism that you will have time to repent at leisure from decisions made in haste is not only applicable to young people’s Facebook postings and politicians’ extramarital misadventures: We are all prey to it.
Bringing on a lateral partner is a large investment of time, money, and resources—complete with sizable opportunity costs—and it deserves measured and comprehensive consideration.
So what do I mean by “homework?”
Two things, primarily:
- Have you seriously, that is to say with state of the art psychological assessments and truly probing inquiries, formed a solidly grounded opinion on whether and how, precisely, this candidate would fit within your firm?
- And have you spent the time to cast a wide net in going into his/her background?
Being lawyers, we are supercilious wise enough to scoff at psychological assessments. We know better; we are extremely confident in our ability to size up others, even through the briefest of interviews, and we know that what all of corporate America, and indeed the world, knows about the extremely challenging nature of making decisions about human talent doesn’t apply to us. (Did I mention we’re lawyers?)
But I have news for you: Judging relative strangers in artificial circumstances is really hard. You need every piece of ammunition you can put your hands on. And yes, that means psychological assessments.
They don’t have to be multiple-choice online tests with progress bars, but ask seriously probing questions that attempt to get at issues of personality, temperament, and determination. Firms with the stature of Google, McKinsey, IBM, Coca-Cola, and Johnson + Johnson not only try as hard as they can to get at these issues, they know how enormously important they are.
We, by contrast, remain single-mindedly focused on credentials, prestige and pedigree, and even imaginary finger-in-the-air projections of “books of business.”
What do Google et al. know that we don’t? Simply put, they know that firms hire for skills and fire for personality. At the level you’re dealing, skills are not only something you can assume, but they are by no conceivable stretch of the imagination a differentiator among candidates.
Finally, do your homework by spending a small amount of time turning over a few rocks.
Just as you wouldn’t dream of letting a corporate client omit material information from a disclosure document or a party to litigation suppress relevant and unprivileged evidence, you need to spend at least a minimal amount of time trying to find out if there are things you ought to know that you might not. This is very much in your self-interest but, human nature being what it is, might not be the first thing the candidate blurts out when you interview.
Yet I have heard time and again that the “deal momentum” surrounding a potential hire can build so quickly and seemingly irresistibly that people can’t even be bothered to make—or get a disinterested third party to make—a few discreet, deep-background inquiries. There’s a phrase for this: Managerial malpractice.
If you’re still resistant, I have a simple test for you: Have you spent as much time and energy researching each of your last half dozen potential laterals as you did the last time you tried to decide between, say, a BMW and an Audi for yourself?
To sum up: I find myself as skeptical of lateral hiring on principle as virtually anyone I know. And yet I amply recognize that it’s a large fact of today’s landscape.
So this pair of articles has been about urging you to indulge in this intoxicating and mind-altering drug as infrequently and selectively as you possibly can. Do not let it become a habit, much worse a first resort.
But if you must, I implore you: Be smart about it. Don’t try to beat the house’s odds. Use every evaluative tool at your disposal. Ask questions, or get others without a success fee at stake to ask them for you. Take your time. Be thoughtful, skeptical, and consummately selective. Trust, but verify.
