It’s already almost Memorial Day Weekend, but we are still thinking about the fun, energetic, and educational NALP Annual Education Conference in Boston in April. So, we thought we’d put together some reflections from the conference – some about Lateral Hub & Summer Associate Hub specifically, and some observations generally.
Moving Into the Comfort Zone – When I first attended the NALP AEC in New Orleans in 2022, I knew only a few people at the entire conference. Lateral Hub wasn’t even launched yet, and I was in a completely new environment, learning as I went and making new connections on the fly. Within the first 10 minutes of the 2022 NALP AEC, a headhunter gave me a hard time about Lateral Hub and how it’s only good “for the firms I don’t give a shit about.” (Update: The one firm he used as an example of a firm that would never sign on ended up being one of our first and most supportive member firms.)
This year, in Boston, as we had a fantastic turnout of our law firm, law school, and vendor friends at our kickoff event on Tuesday, I paused and thought to myself how we got that this point. We are still growing, but it was a nice feeling to see how much community we’ve built among our legal recruiting and PD friends, who came out to say hello and share some great food and drinks with us and others.
It also made me think about how this applies to any step out of our comfort zone. When I started law school, my first associate job, my second associate job, starting Lateral Hub… all of these experiences had the initial discomfort that comes with anything new. And then with patience, focus, making connections, listening, etc – they became comfortable. Same with personal milestones like having our two children.
I hope you take this as inspiration for anything new that is happening or going to happen in your life, either personally or professionally. Could be a new job, new city, new family, new boss, or something else. It will likely start outside your comfort zone (a healthy thing), but it will slowly move right back in, and that’s great.
Pre-OCI Recruiting is the Only Thing Anybody Talks About – I say this in jest, but it is almost true, and for good reason. Pre-cruiting is changing the way things have been done for decades, and it is therefore getting a lot of attention. Throughout the NALP Conference in Boston, it was impressive to see how thoughtful law firm recruiting teams are being about the process – each firm has developed a different set of processes and preferences for hiring students that is specific to their firm. For example, one top firm with a smaller summer class has opted to have a slightly later program with longer offer deadlines, since candidates typically self-select to consider that firm during the summer. Another top firm in a specialized industry and deeper pipeline opted for an earlier structured process, since students interested in their firm usually know that early on, given the industry focus.
And many firms approached us to learn more about Summer Associate Hub and how it can help them with the 2024 and 2025 hiring cycles, as they seek to reflect and adjust from 2023. Instead of lamenting about the state of legal recruiting, these firms were figuring out how they can succeed during this new age, and using the NALP Conference to explore options like Summer Associate Hub, listen to their peers at other firms, and connect with law school career services advisors.
It was nice to see and not surprising given how wonderful and thoughtful the people are who make up BigLaw recruiting.
People Are Rethinking Old Norms for Lateral and Clerk Hiring – In one exception to the last point, people do still talk about lateral hiring. We held a fantastic session on Wednesday afternoon, titled “In Their Shoes: The Candidate’s Perspective in the Lateral Job Search” – the beauty of the panel was the varying perspectives, including internal law firm career coach, law school alumni coach, independent legal career coach, former associate, and legal recruiting vendor. We had Elizabeth Claps, Director of Alumni Relations at Cleary Gottlieb, Amy Killoran, Alumni Career Advisor at Northwestern Law, Valery Federici, former BigLaw associate, and current expert career coach and Founder of LevelUp Legal Coaching, and me (Albert) moderating.
We covered how firms can put themselves in the lateral’s shoes and position their firm accordingly by understanding what the candidate is looking for and the type of info the candidate might gather about the firm before even applying. The questions and contributions from the audience were insightful, and even more so the conversations that followed over the next two days from folks who approached us after the panel or stopped by our booth. We plan to send the session recording once it’s available.
It has become clear that many firms are looking at lateral and clerk hiring differently, finding new approaches to find and appeal to candidates. Some firms have been leveraging more direct outreach for laterals. (Some wish they could do the same for clerks aside from just mailers, and have approached us to tap into our effective post-clerkship category.) Some firms are going a level deeper, similar to what we described in our session, about how to present themselves to a candidate and making sure all of the attorneys are on the same page.
The Value of Being Easy – On Friday, I attended a very insightful session about how firms analyze new platforms and navigate the implementation process where needed. It’s clear that firms are focusing more on operations and process, to make it easier to utilize new offerings that require it. As a vendor, it was great to hear more about how firms analyze new offerings from an operational perspective and what we can do to make sure teams have the right info about our platform as they review internally.
However, many legal recruiting teams are small, and a large implementation project can be daunting. As I listened to the session, I was grateful for the feedback I received from recruiting managers early on in 2021 before I started Lateral Hub, that our platform should reduce all work for recruiting teams – otherwise, it is too hard to adopt, and for good reason. We therefore designed our Lateral Hub offering as a fully white-glove service, where there is no implementation – often, firms’ jobs are live and blasted it to lateral candidates within 1 day of signing up with us. We do all the work publishing/updating job postings, and getting applications straight into the firm’s ATS. Our offering avoids the lengthy process of implementing a new platform and this has been one of the most valuable parts about it – I’m glad I got great advice early on.
Listening is the Best Learning – My favorite part about the NALP Conference is the natural conversation that happens between law schools, law firms, and vendors throughout the vendor area, in sessions, at social events, and dinners. Our best ideas have come from speaking with others in the industry at gatherings like NALP – and every year we learn new things that make us even smarter.
During my 6-hour drive home to NJ on Friday, I had a ton to think about. Feedback, ideas, tidbits of information, etc – and made me excited to get to work this summer implementing them.
(Also, I lied, my favorite part about the NALP Conference is 1,000+ members standing around to hear the prize raffle winners on Thursday afternoon, and the reactions when someone wins. When someone won two separate prizes this year, the sudden silence was deafening….)
We Are in a Special Industry – Similar to the last point, NALP was another reminder that our industry is special. I’ve heard this from several people who have worked in recruiting outside of law, which validated what I’ve thought since I started Lateral Hub – the legal recruiting/PD world is collaborative, supportive, nice, fun (a lot of fun) — something you don’t see in other industries. We are lucky to be part of this professional community (which has led to a lot of personal friends) and I’m proud to be a part of it!
