A Note from Shireen Hilal
I’m being asked about lateral partner hiring more often, and the market reflects that. Partner moves recently hit a five-year high, up roughly 10% year over year.
I’m not surprised. Lateral hiring can be one of the clearest ways for a law firm to grow, especially when organic growth is harder and clients are pushing back on rate increases.
But it can also become an expensive distraction when firms do not pressure-test the business case before making the hire, so I focused on how firms can get these hires right more often for this article.
The problem I see most often is that firms are relying too heavily on the headline number: the book of business. They don’t usually ask enough about how much of that work is truly portable, who owns the client relationship, how the work is currently staffed, whether the client depends on other lawyers at the current firm, or what it will take to keep and grow that revenue on a new platform.
A few questions matter a lot:
- How much of the book was personally sourced by the partner, versus coming through the firm, a department, another partner, or an institutional relationship?
- Who else currently services the client, and what work may stay behind?
- Are the top clients recurring relationships, one-off matters, or work tied to a specific team?
- Can your firm realistically serve the work at the level, speed, rate structure, and staffing model the client expects?
- What support will the partner need in the first 30, 60, and 90 days to move the work over and start building momentum?
- Are the supposed cross-sell opportunities real if you look at the lateral partner’s top ten clients? Who could credibly land an introduction? Who could serve the work? Does your firm already cross-sell well, or are you assuming this partner will create a behavior the firm has not built yet?
Maior helps law firm leaders build better growth strategies, including high-stakes talent decisions like lateral hiring and partner integration. If you are ramping up lateral partner hiring, know your integration process could use an upgrade, or trying to understand why past hires didn’t deliver as expected, I’m happy to be a sounding board. Meanwhile, the full Law360 article is below.
As Published in Law360
Partner moves hit a five-year high in 2025, up roughly 10% year over year,[1] and large multipartner moves continue to make headlines — e.g., a nine-lawyer litigation group leaving Winston & Strawn LLP in February for King & Spalding LLP and a 20-partner team moving from McDermott Will & Schulte to Dechert LLP in January.[2]
Firms of all sizes are accelerating lateral hiring for good reason.
We saw last year that real demand for legal services increased less than 2%, meaning much of the revenue growth firms reported came from rate increases, rather than new work.[3] As clients push back on those rates, work is being redistributed down the market to midsized firms, and the once-clear lines between tiers are blurring.[4] At the same time, clients operating in a market that is innovating faster than ever expect firms to provide sharper insight and deeper judgment to help them navigate gray areas.
Growth, in other words, is harder to generate organically and then sustain through pricing alone, and the most lucrative legal work is more complex and less settled. In that environment, senior expertise becomes disproportionately valuable.
Experienced partners bring the relationships, credibility and perspective that firms need to stay competitive. Lateral hiring, then, becomes one of the clearest levers firms can pull to reposition strategically and protect their margins.
The strategy makes sense, but execution is where firms stumble.
A lateral partner is not simply a new hire; they are a capital allocation decision. The total investment extends well beyond salary to recruiting fees, associate and administrative support, leadership time, marketing spending, and internal disruption.
To use a legal analogy, firms advising their clients on acquisitions would caution them against proceeding without digging into quality of earnings, testing assumptions, modeling synergies and building integration plans before closing. Yet most do not apply that same discipline to their own lateral investments. Books of business are accepted at face value, synergies are described in broad strokes and integration is reduced to onboarding.
No wonder projected returns often fail to materialize or happen too slowly. It's a lack of strategic discipline. To get it right, you have to put in the kind of care that reflects the investment you're making. That means tightening up vetting, integration and compensation.
Strength your vetting and expectation-setting process.
Most lateral partner questionnaires barely skim the surface on a candidate's book of business and don't tell firms whether:
- The book is scalable under your structure of rates, staffing, compensation and governance;
- The candidate understands how your firm operates, the support they will receive and whether this addition risks straining your culture; or
- Your firm will be able to capture expected synergies, or what work you'll need to put in to make that happen.
Here's how you strengthen your vetting process.
Break down the book of business.
For Litigators
Look at their current docket and model an expected value analysis based on likely settlement timelines. Ask how many matters came through direct relationships versus transactional departments, firm brand, marketing or origination sharing.
Also, does the work rely on recurring clients or one-off disputes?
For Transactional Attorneys
Press on the nature of the client relationships and work itself. Are they a go-to adviser with consistent involvement across matters, or handling routine work that could easily be reassigned within their current firm? How did most of the work come to them?
For Any Partner
How much of the book is work they personally sourced? What investment will be needed to retain and grow that revenue once they're inside your firm?
What is their go-to-market approach, and is it likely to compound results over time, given your platform and market trends?
Model the cross-sell potential now, not later.
Every lateral pitch includes a rosy synergy narrative. Test it. Take a prospective lateral hire's top 10 anonymized clients and model them across your existing team.
Could your trust and estates partner land an intro? Could your employment group actually serve that company? Importantly, does your firm currently cross-sell well — that is, sell across departments — and, if not, what are you planning to do differently to see more success here?
This kind of exercise quickly reveals whether cross-sell is viable or just wishful thinking.
Also, ask the potential lateral: What percentage of your current client base do you cross-sell into your firm and who else is servicing your clients? This tells you both what work may not come with the partner, and how likely this partner is to cross-sell on your platform when opportunities arise.
Get scientific about fit.
Every firm has a personality, whether it is articulated or not. It shows up in governance, decision-making, decision speed, risk tolerance and so on.
Before hiring laterally, ask yourself: What types of partners are the superstars on our platform, and which ones consistently struggle? A practical way to answer that is look at your last few lateral hires. Who integrated well and compounded value? Who became an uphill integration project?
Some partners thrive in ambiguity — they're comfortable giving guidance in gray areas, moving quickly and taking calculated reputational risk. Others operate best within defined process, formal governance and clear lines of authority.
The same divide shows up in funding and leadership: Some are energized by entrepreneurial environments with flexible decision-making, while others expect layered committees and established precedent.
No one profile is inherently better, but mismatch creates friction and these are not soft issues. They directly affect integration speed, internal alignment and long-term retention.
Vetting for culture means articulating your firm's operating model with precision and then being honest about nonnegotiables. When firms cannot clearly describe their own platform, they default to pedigree and seemingly portable revenue as proxies for success. That is rarely enough.
Set and share support expectations.
At the partner level, one of the biggest reasons for buyer's remorse is the newcomer not feeling adequately supported upon arrival, and it takes the air out of the celebratory balloon very quickly.
You can avoid this by asking the right questions and providing the right information when you're close to the finish line but prior to sending an offer letter. These questions include:
- What kind of associate, paralegal, and administrative support do they need, will that be made available upon arrival, and how are ongoing staffing decisions made at your firm?
- Does this partner prefer being in the office or remote, and what do they expect from their team?
- What marketing, financial reporting or other support do they get today, and what can they expect to receive here?
- Do they understand how internal decisions get made — such as on compensation, spending approval or, for income partners, making equity partner — and how their voice will be heard?
- How many new engagement letters do they anticipate sending out upon arrival, how many invoices do they send in an average month and who at your firm is prepared to support them through that process in their first month?
- What infrastructure differences should someone from a different environment expect? For example, a big firm transplant may be surprised when no one picks up the help desk line at your regional firm on a Saturday.
This also helps candidates vet you. The more visibility you give into how the firm runs — cadence, culture, resource mix, etc. — the more likely you are to attract people who feel confident that they can grow their practice at your firm.
Compensation structure can make or break the deal.
Few things create more confusion or resentment than comp structures that feel opaque, misaligned or one-sided. Instead of hoping a large guarantee will keep everyone happy, make sure you align incentives, reward the right behaviors and set the tone from day one.
Map the model to reality.
Don't just slot a lateral into your existing framework and hope it works.
Evaluate how revenue credit is assigned, especially for client transitions, multipartner service teams and cross-selling. Consider how collections are factored and how that plays out in slower-paying practice areas. Assess how much weight is given to origination versus contribution, especially in team-based work.
Use guarantees thoughtfully.
Guarantees can help close the deal, but they shouldn't replace performance oversight. Treat them as a temporary bridge for a clearly documented period, such as 12 to 18 months, and backed by shadow accounting to track what market comp would've looked like.
This gives you leverage to adjust when the guarantee ends while giving the partner confidence that success will be recognized.
Protect the firm from asymmetry.
If your lateral program creates tension — for example, if new partners are paid more per dollar collected than existing partners — you'll trigger internal frustration and passive resistance.
Consider using caps for multipliers and, to the point above, structuring clear transition periods where laterals align with the broader comp model.
Revisit your comp assumptions as needed.
Some firms find their comp system works well — until they try to add new partners with business. If every exception becomes a spreadsheet back-and-forth, it's time to revamp the model to drive consistency and fairness.
Onboarding is not integration.
Your checklist needs to move past adding the bio to the website and setting up health insurance. That's onboarding. Integration is something else entirely, and it's where most firms lose the plot.
Assign ownership.
Integration should never be owned by the lateral. Assign a point person with accountability to the managing partner or executive committee. This is someone who can unblock access, chase internal commitments and identify friction.
Set a 30-60-90 plan.
Create a clear plan that outlines:
- Initial introductions by industry and practice group;
- Cross-sell opportunities to explore;
- Marketing and business development support to execute, such as client announcements and joint pitches;
- Practice infrastructure needs, such as associate support, templates and precedents; and
- Administrative checks, such as billing setup, time entry, conflicts, etc.
Use real checkpoints, not vibes.
Firms often check in with laterals in a loose, unstructured way. Assume there will be disconnects and be ready to bridge the gap.
Ask specific questions: Do they understand your billing process? Do they have the right team? Etc.
Don't treat lateral teams like a monolith.
If a partner brings associates, paralegals or administrative support, each needs their own mini integration plan, especially if they're being folded into your existing teams. People generally struggle with change, and a personal approach matters.
Be clear on resources and capacity.
Friction often comes from mismatched expectations, especially around staffing. If a new partner expects a full team and you're hoping they'll integrate into your leaner model, flag it early and bridge the gap fast.
Operationalize relationship mapping.
Don't just hope for cross-sell. Map overlapping client relationships and assign accountability for outreach. Use your client relationship management software — or Excel, if that's what you use — to track progress and follow up.
Track integration like business development.
Set goals and timelines. Did they meet with all target internal contacts? Were the co-pitch efforts actually supported? Did revenue materialize?
Good intentions don't create results; execution does.
Conclusion
Law firms are in the people business. Talent is your biggest lever for growth — and your biggest cost, too.
So if you're looking to grow your firm, you can't afford to treat lateral partner hiring as a bet and hope it pays off. You need a people strategy that's built to identify the right partners, activate and support them, and generate real returns.
If you have feedback or are identifying trends or challenges you'd like to see addressed next quarter, I'd love to hear from you.
Shireen Hilal is the CEO at Maior Strategic Consulting.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of their employer, its clients, or Portfolio Media Inc., or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
[1] Firm Prospects' "AmLaw200 Lateral Hiring Report 2025," https://info.firmprospects.com/hubfs/2025%20AmLaw%20Lateral%20Hiring%20Rep ort_Firm%20Prospects.pdf?hsLang=en.
[2] Reuters, "Winston & Strawn litigation leader takes 9-partner team to rival law firm King & Spalding," Feb. 3, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/winston-strawn- litigation-leader-takes-9-partner-team-rival-law-firm-king-2026-02-03/.
[3] Major, Lindsey & Africa, "Legal Talent Movement: Year in Review," Jan. 8, 2026, https://www.mlaglobal.com/en/insights/articles/legal-talent-movement-year-in- review
[4] Thomson Reuters Institute, "Midsize Law Firms Report 2025," https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/wp- content/uploads/sites/20/2025/04/Midsize-Law-Firms-Report-2025.pdf.
