What Law Firm BD Programs Get Wrong - And What It Costs in the Lateral Market
Most law firms don't fail at business development because attorneys resist growth. They fail because the systems they build quietly teach attorneys to avoid it. Here is what that looks like from the lateral market side of the conversation.
What Does a Director of Innovation at a Law Firm Actually Do?
Director of Innovation means something different at every law firm. At some firms it is a technology deployment role. At others it is closer to change management or knowledge management. At others it is a hybrid of all three. These are genuinely different jobs, and firms that write a single job description combining all three versions are the ones whose searches stall or produce the wrong result. This piece covers what the role actually requires, what the strongest candidates look like in practice, and why standard recruiting approaches consistently fail to find them.
How to Build a Knowledge Management Function That Actually Works
Law firms have spent significant money on knowledge management technology in the past five years. Most are not seeing the returns they expected. The problem is almost never the tool. It is the absence of a KM function capable of making the technology actually work. This piece covers the four structural layers every high-performing KM function requires, the hiring sequence that actually matters, and why deploying technology into an environment that was never built to support it is the most consistent reason KM investments underperform.
The Legal Tech Hiring Problem Nobody Wants to Admit
Law firms are competing for a very small group of people who have both technical fluency and real law firm experience. The internal pipeline most firms never built is now the one everyone is chasing, and the traditional recruiting approach is not going to close that gap.
Why Law Firm BD Hires Fail - and What to Do Differently
Law firms have invested more in business development talent over the past decade than at any point in the industry's history. A lot of those hires have not worked out. The failure rate is not a talent supply problem. It is a process problem. This piece covers the five most common BD hiring mistakes at law firms, from writing job descriptions that describe a fantasy candidate to using compensation benchmarks that are no longer competitive, and what a better hiring process actually looks like in practice.
Business Development Roles Look Simple Until You Try to Fill Them
The skills that produce results in corporate BD environments do not transfer automatically into law firms. The gap is about context, not capability. Candidates who succeed inside law firms understand that influence in a partnership flows through relationships rather than authority. They can operate without formal power, without commission structures, and at the pace the partnership sets, without losing the thread of a longer term strategy.
The Candidate Pool for Legal Tech Roles Is Smaller Than Firms Think
The strongest candidates in legal tech are almost uniformly passive. They are embedded in roles where they have built credibility, developed the relationships needed to get things done, and are working on problems that keep them engaged. What makes them consider a move is rarely the job description. It is the conversation, and that conversation has to be specific, honest, and compelling enough to feel worth the disruption of leaving somewhere that already works.
Why Boutique Legal Search Firms Often Outperform Large Recruiting Companies
What's the difference between a boutique legal search firm and a large national recruiting company? For law firms and attorneys alike, the answer has real implications for how searches are run, how candidates are treated, and what outcomes actually look like.
The Real Cost of Making Equity Partner in Biglaw
Equity partnership is often seen as the culmination of years of demanding work, but the financial reality of ownership is frequently misunderstood until it arrives.
Today’s equity partner role comes with significant capital obligations that can materially affect liquidity, risk exposure, and long-term financial planning, making the decision far more complex than a title change alone.
How Law Firms Actually Find and Hire a Legal Recruiter
Not sure where to start with finding a legal recruiter for your firm? This guide walks through what to look for, the questions worth asking, and how the engagement model actually works — from a boutique legal search firm that has been on both sides of the conversation.
Onward Insights - October 2025
The firms losing top candidates aren’t doing anything wrong - they’re just moving too slow. The real divide isn’t about effort; it’s about infrastructure. When traditional approval chains meet today’s lateral market speed, even well-meaning firms end up ghosting strong candidates.
We break down how one firm made a two-week close possible, what’s structurally blocking others from doing the same, and why treating recruiting as a strategic function - not a committee afterthought - is what separates firms that hire talent from those that just interview it.
Onward Insights - August 2025
For years, associates have mentored summer classes, attended firm events, and sat through CLEs - all while knowing this work "mattered" but never quite sure how much. Now, some firms are putting a number on it.
The move to formalize "investment hours" alongside traditional billables isn't revolutionary on paper. Associates were already doing most of this work. But formalizing it? That feels different.
It's the shift from implicit expectations to explicit targets. And for lawyers already navigating a complex numbers game, that change is creating more conversation than expected.
We explore why this development is resonating across the profession, what it reveals about evolving workplace expectations, and how both firms and associates are adapting to new ways of measuring value.