Building upon the innovations of yesterday’s and today’s law firm

Recruiting talent

Lawyers used to stay at one firm for most or all their careers, said Katz, from Mayer Brown. But law students no longer expect to work at one or two firms for their entire careers, he said.

“For firms, it offers challenges, particularly with what young associates are paid now,” he said. “Firms make a very large investment into training and mentoring their associates. And increasingly, and in recent years, a very small percentage of them have stayed around to be partners and make their careers at the firm.

“It was very rare in 1977 for a lawyer in a Chicago firm to move to another Chicago firm. Now that transaction happens every week.”

In the ’80s, firms discussed whether women were qualified to practice law, and if they were, which practice areas they could succeed in, said Janine Landow-Esser, the diversity partner at Quarles & Brady’s Chicago office.

The topic of whether part-time lawyers could exist in law firms came up in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Landow-Esser said. Acceptance of flex schedules increased by the late ’90s.

Real concern about improving diversity began occurring around 2000, she said.

“There were demands by clients that their projects be staffed with a wider range of attorneys. There was recognition of the huge cost every time you lost an attorney and the huge cost to replace that person,” she said.

“[Firms] became concerned about the morale of new lawyers, and not just about the word from on high that this is how you should behave. We actually began to care what our associates and female partners thought about how pleasant their work-life balance was.”

Mayer Brown partner Mary Fontaine said law firms historically competed for new talent by using compensation. But today, that’s not enough to retain lawyers.

Law firms now use mentoring programs, business development and coaching to help improve retention, Fontaine said.

A one-size-fits-all legal career worked in the past, but today not all lawyers want to put their personal lives on hold, she said.

“I think what perhaps is different is that the myth of the ‘super woman’ has lost its luster,” Fontaine said. “People realize that to make this work they need to make choices about what their priorities are, and stick with those priorities.”

When Ross Bricker, a partner at Jenner & Block, accepted his first law job, his father was shocked by how much he would earn.

And while he may sometimes be surprised by what new lawyers today earn, Bricker said many factors go into why associates are offered these larger salaries, such as increased competition for the most talented new lawyers.

“We need to attract excellence,” he said. “We need to attract people who are hardworking, dedicated to the practice of law, driven to succeed, and who are adding to the basic fabric of our law firm.

“We compete for that limited pool of people not just with more and more law firms around the world, but also private equity firms and investment banks and others,” he said.

Steege, also of Jenner & Block, said she notices how involved the recruitment process has become.

When she finished law school, she started at Jenner while preparing for the bar exam. New associates now follow a regimented hiring process.

“Law firms have gotten bigger, and with that it requires more management and obviously they must have more structure,” she said. “There are more aspects to the business of running a law practice than perhaps 25 years ago.”

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