American Lawyer: Joe Macrae Weighs in On the Year the Lateral Movement "Roared Back"
We all know that 2021 saw law firms snapping up lateral attorneys at breakneck speed, but it was also a year in which the recruiting process itself evolved in myriad ways. The American Lawyer’s Andrew Maloney spoke to Joe Macrae for an article (“Lateral Movement Roared Back in a Year That Redefined the Hiring Process”) - that took a deep dive into the lateral hiring landscape of 2021.
On the numbers:
Joe Macrae, of the recruiting agency that bears his name, focuses on placing lateral partners in Am Law 100 firms in London, New York, Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley. As of November 2021, the total number of partner moves in those markets had reached 902, eclipsing the previous year’s total of 728, he says. The total looked more like the pre-pandemic totals in 2018 and 2019—898 and 964, respectively.
On the impact of remote work:
You can probably chalk at least some of that up to the brave new world of remote work. Of course, many lawyers and firms already had some experience with working from home, as well as an infrastructure to support it. But after it became the default setting for many in the industry in 2020, other gears in the machine were greased that began accelerating lawyer movement.
A hiring process that would normally take two or three months could be condensed into two or three days due to the lack of travel and the ubiquity of Zoom calls. Recruiters could more easily—and more discreetly—reach sought-after lawyers who weren’t physically being ferried from meeting to meeting all day.
Those same lawyers, in turn, could more easily envision making the leap to a new firm—and more easily make it happen. As Macrae says, “it’s just a question of where they send the laptop.”
“Then you’ve got the fact that law firms are in this weird and wonderful market, where they are incredibly busy, their lawyers are more productive than they’ve ever been, and the cost of running law firms is down, so they are suddenly able to deploy more cash on strategic lateral hiring than they have in the past,” Macrae adds. “You’ve got candidates that are easier to get to, a shorter process, and more money to throw at the situation.”
On increased involvement by firm leaders:
Before the pandemic hit, [Macrae] saw something like a 50/50 split on firm leaders’ approach to recruiting. Some were very hands-on, investing hundreds of hours a year in meeting and pitching potential laterals. Others remained shrouded in mystery, like the Wizard of Oz, until a hire reached the final step before being finalized: “meet the big boss and be blessed.”
He says more leaders are out front courting laterals now, especially those who ascended to their roles during the COVID era.
“A high percentage of those people are hands-on during the recruiting process,” Macrae says. “So maybe it’s a generational shift or attitudinal shift over the last two years. But there are fewer firms where the chair or managing partner stays behind the curtain than there have been in the last 20 years.”
We encourage you to read the article in full here: Lateral Movement Roared Back in a Year That Redefined the Hiring Process
