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.
Onward Insights - May 2026
Being good at your job is the baseline, not the differentiator. The professionals who advance fastest are not always the most technically impressive in the room. They are the ones with consistent judgment, reliable follow-through, and the ability to make work feel lighter for everyone around them.
The Legal Talent Gap Is Already Here. Firms Are Making It Worse.
Experienced hires now make up the majority of associate recruitment at AmLaw 200 firms for the first time. Law school hiring is down nearly seven points since 2021. Firms are solving a short-term cost problem and building a long-term talent crisis. Here is what the pipeline data actually says.
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.
Beyond the Hype: Why AI is the New Infrastructure of the Legal Industry
The legal industry is no stranger to disruption. But the current shift toward AI feels different from the tools that came before it. Unlike a standard software implementation that lives in one department, AI is touching every facet of firm operations at once: how associates are trained, how services are priced, and how firms compete for the talent that will define the next decade.
Legal Tech Hiring Is a People Problem Before It Is a Technology Problem
A tool that sits alongside existing workflows will always feel optional. Attorneys won't add a step to their day for a system that wasn't built around their day. The firms closing the adoption gap aren't spending more on technology. They're spending more thoughtfully on the people who sit between the technology and the work.
Why "Director of Innovation" Is Not One Job
Most law firm innovation searches don't fail because of a recruiting problem. They fail because of a definition problem that only shows up during recruiting. Before a firm can hire the right person, it has to answer a harder question: what is this role actually supposed to do?
Where Lawyers Lose Time Without Realizing It
The most common time drains in legal practice aren't dramatic. They're repeated friction: an interruption that takes longer to recover from than the interruption itself, a morning spent shifting between four different types of thinking, administrative tasks that land on lawyers' desks simply because the tools make it easy. The issue is rarely the volume of work. It's the constant reorientation required to move between it.
Onward Insights - April 2026
Reputation is not built only through results. It is formed through patterns that others observe over time, often without your awareness. In environments where decision makers rarely see the full scope of your work, perception fills the gaps. Waiting to be noticed allows that perception to form on incomplete information, while consistent, intentional visibility ensures your contributions are understood when it matters most.
Onward Insights - March 2026
In a world where staying connected has never been easier, meaningful professional relationships have never been harder to build. Passive engagement creates visibility, but not trust. While networking often emphasizes volume and quick interactions, real career momentum comes from relationships built over time through consistency, shared experience, and genuine understanding. Those connections provide context, credibility, and insight that surface-level networks cannot.
What Nobody Tells You About Making Equity Partner
Equity partnership is often treated as the natural next step for senior lawyers. The title promises higher compensation, greater influence, and a voice in firm leadership. What is less often discussed is the financial reality behind the transition. In today’s legal market, becoming an equity partner frequently requires a significant capital contribution, sometimes reaching 25 to 50 percent or more of annual compensation. That shift transforms the role from employee to investor, introducing financial risk and liquidity constraints that many lawyers do not fully understand until they are already on the path to partnership.