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Will the Lateral's Clients Move?

By Eric Dewey
March 01, 2022

The promise of new client relationships is driving the vast majority of lateral partner movement today. In fact, lateral acquisition has become the primary growth strategy for many law firms. Both the new firm and the lateral are often surprised by how few clients actually move to the new firm. A study I did in 2016 with ALM found that 30% of the law firms interviewed brought less than 50% of the clients they had projected to come with the lateral. Keep in mind that law firms often discount the book of business by as much as 50% to begin with. I doubt the results are much better today.

Is there a way to accurately project which clients of the candidate will move?

There is no way to guarantee a lateral's clients will make the move to a new firm. But a series of questions can examine the quality of these relationships and the likelihood that the client will move with the lateral candidate. Currently, most firms take the word of the candidate about which clients will move. But in my experience, candidates have a difficult time being objective let alone understanding their clients' motivations for moving. More to the point, there is an inherent conflict when negotiating a guarantee while at the same time examining the candidate's book of business. We need a more objective approach to teasing out the clients the firm will likely pick up. An approach that examines the business interests of the clients when they consider the disruption their provider is forcing on them.

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