By Thomas Hallin
Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale P.C.
When expanding to a new location, lateral recruiting is one of the most crucial considerations with which many firms struggle.
The final installment in this article series explores Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale's recruiting process and shares how these efforts helped shape the Chicago office's niche within the firm and its niche within the local business community.
A firm's long-term success hinges on hiring attorneys who are rainmakers in their respective areas.
This is even more important when it comes to setting up shop in a new location. Beyond business development potential, the most promising candidates offer capabilities that build on the firm's existing strengths or add complementary capabilities.
Greensfelder's recruiting effort in Chicago has been an evolving, three-step process:
1) Establish goals and parameters to measure qualified individuals and groups against;
2) Share these criteria with select recruiters (vetted through a separate interview process); and
3) Pursue candidates recommended by recruiters as well as those recommended through internal channels.
Traditional recruiting efforts are often supplemented with online searches these days and the firm succeeded in the past with monitoring social media sites like LinkedIn. This time around, though, Greensfelder's candidates (including those "in the pipeline") for the Chicago office came from professional recruiter referrals and internal recommendations.
As they were going through the interview process, Greensfelder's leadership team kept clear goals in mind.
They obviously wanted to focus on finding candidates offering practices that would expand upon, add depth to or otherwise complement the firm's existing strengths — including closely held business transactions, construction, health, mergers and acquisitions, oil and gas and securities litigation. Beyond this, though, the firm was also very concerned with a more intangible quality: finding folks who were "the right fit."
An important integration goal at Greensfelder is introducing attorneys to new colleagues immediately.
The firm knew from experience that achieving this goal could often pose a logistical challenge, particularly when the lateral was joining an office a good distance from the firm's headquarters in St. Louis. Having attorneys that meshed with the culture of the firm went a long way to smoothing over potential rough spots and often helped ease the transition time all around.
Even with clear goals in place, though, the fact remains that the greatest benefits to bringing on lateral recruits can also pose the greatest difficulties if a firm does not select carefully.
Laterals are highly sought after because they have extensive experience in their designated practice areas. Just as some practice areas are more easily integrated than others, though, some personalities are more easily integrated than others.
Fortunately, the opportunity to build a practice from the ground up and have a say in how that practice is developed attracted laterals to Greensfelder who possessed shared values, focus and goals.
Clients have also taken note of Greensfelder's engagement with the local business community and its community involvement (another area where these partners were similarly minded).
There has been a significant push from the firm's Chicago leaders to promote diversity and they have participated in many client events as a result, with plans for even more involvement.
Looking forward, the firm is just completing its first year of working with a PR firm to help gain brand recognition in the area.
Many of Greensfelder's Chicago attorneys have a history with the community and are well known in the area, thanks, in part, to their extensive activity in local and national legal communities and trade associations. They attend meetings, participate in panel discussions and other speaking engagements and often publish articles in niche industry and trade magazines. They also serve on local advisory panels and on boards spanning a range of local concerns.
Their ideas and efforts toward engaging the local business community have helped them successfully connect with attorneys in Greensfelder's other two offices: the headquarters in St. Louis and the Belleville, Ill., office.
Chicago attorneys have been getting a lot of practice telling their stories to peers and will continue to do so as they have experienced a good amount of success and expect that will only increase as the office reaches critical mass.
Supporting strong internal communications, creating a robust attorney integration program and promoting its Chicago office internally have all been critical to the firm's ability to attract lateral recruits and keep cross-marketing opportunities our No. 1 concern.