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Scorecards and Client Book Due Diligence Can Improve Lateral Hiring Performance

By Eric Dewey
March 01, 2021

Lateral hiring performance in large law firms have achieved mixed results, at best.

A study conducted by ALM and GroupDewey Consulting a few years ago, Surmounting the Lateral Partner Hiring Challenge, found that only 28% of lateral partner moves brought 100% of the clients expected to port over. But one third brought less than 50% and nearly 20% of the laterals brought no clients. These results, the report estimated, shaved as much as six percentage points off the average AmLaw firm's profits.

The lateral partner challenge is, essentially, a vetting challenge. And yet, few law firms take a strategic approach to vetting and hiring laterals. They generally do not collect the objective data to project and assess lateral performance and, instead, leave the selection process to intuition. This is especially risky for those hires that are on the margins of profitability, come alone or are in commoditized practice areas.

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