What does firms consider when evaluating potential lateral hires? Forum

[Anonymous User]

If, for example, law schools primarily consider GPA and law school rank when evaluating transfer applicants, what is the equivalent set of primary considerations when firms are considering lateral hires?

[Anonymous User]

Grammatical correctness is a threshold consideration.

[Anonymous User]

Grammatical correctness is a threshold consideration.

lmao nobody tell him

[nixy]

What experience you have, what their needs are, law school, law school grades (some firms don't care about the last two, some do).

Grammatical correctness is a threshold consideration.

Also, not wrong, but kind of shitty to post that anon.

[Anonymous User]

What experience you have, what their needs are, law school, law school grades (some firms don't care about the last two, some do).

Grammatical correctness is a threshold consideration.

Also, not wrong, but kind of shitty to post that anon.

?

[Anonymous User]

Grammatical correctness is a threshold consideration.

Behold, the gunner who underperformed.

[nixy]

What experience you have, what their needs are, law school, law school grades (some firms don't care about the last two, some do).

Grammatical correctness is a threshold consideration.

Also, not wrong, but kind of shitty to post that anon.

?

If you're going to nitpick someone's forum post for grammar without any substantive advice, it just seems polite to do it under a username.

[androstan]

What experience you have, what their needs are, law school, law school grades (some firms don't care about the last two, some do).

Grammatical correctness is a threshold consideration.

Also, not wrong, but kind of shitty to post that anon.

?

If you're going to nitpick someone's forum post for grammar without any substantive advice, it just seems polite to do it under a username.

I went to LS with a guy who had excellent grades, better than mine, but he had a typo on his OCI resume. One firm he really wanted turned him down and was nice enough to, when asked, tell him it was because of the typo. So, he spent 2L summer interning at the local federal district court. "Spellcheck Steve," because it was the kind of typo that would have been caught by spellcheck.

We can laugh now because he eventually got an offer at Weil and spent 5 years there before moving on, and still happily practices law.

[eastcoast_iub]

What experience you have, what their needs are, law school, law school grades (some firms don't care about the last two, some do).

Grammatical correctness is a threshold consideration.

Also, not wrong, but kind of shitty to post that anon.

I posted it, snowflake. If someone communicated that in an e-mail looking for a job, it would be an auto-ding.

[eastcoast_iub]

Grammatical correctness is a threshold consideration.

Behold, the gunner who underperformed.

Clients of top law firms pay for top-quality legal work. Legal work product is written work product. What are you talking about?

[Sackboy]

What experience you have, what their needs are, law school, law school grades (some firms don't care about the last two, some do).

Grammatical correctness is a threshold consideration.

Also, not wrong, but kind of shitty to post that anon.

I posted it, snowflake. If someone communicated that in an e-mail looking for a job, it would be an auto-ding.

Guy said you're not wrong and just pointed out your anon abuse. You're the one who responded in a snowflake manner by being so hostile to getting called out. Don't abuse anon and you won't get called out. Hope that helps.

[Anonymous User]

Putting aside bickering over typos, I do a lot of lateral recruiting and sit on my firms hiring committee. Main factors are:

1. As a threshold issue - is there a need for the person?
2. What is this persons substantive experience? Has this person been doing disclosure schedules for 5 years, or can he do a full issues list on an SPA and mark it up without direction?
3. We’re always trying to figure out if we found a diamond in the rough or if we’re hiring someone who is lateraling because they’re about to be fired.

[nixy]

What experience you have, what their needs are, law school, law school grades (some firms don't care about the last two, some do).

Grammatical correctness is a threshold consideration.

Also, not wrong, but kind of shitty to post that anon.

I posted it, snowflake. If someone communicated that in an e-mail looking for a job, it would be an auto-ding.

I agree. It’s a good thing the OP wasn’t emailing looking for a job.

[Anonymous User]

Putting aside bickering over typos, I do a lot of lateral recruiting and sit on my firms hiring committee. Main factors are:

1. As a threshold issue - is there a need for the person?
2. What is this persons substantive experience? Has this person been doing disclosure schedules for 5 years, or can he do a full issues list on an SPA and mark it up without direction?
3. We’re always trying to figure out if we found a diamond in the rough or if we’re hiring someone who is lateraling because they’re about to be fired.

Basically same on the lit side. What have you done, what can you do, are we getting a dud. We pretty much never need to answer (1); there's always a need.

[Anonymous User]

Grammatical correctness is a threshold consideration.

Behold, the gunner who underperformed.

Clients of top law firms pay for top-quality legal work. Legal work product is written work product. What are you talking about?

Smacks of mid-law insecurity, mid-vault at best, by way of non-target school. Oof

[papermateflair]

Putting aside bickering over typos, I do a lot of lateral recruiting and sit on my firms hiring committee. Main factors are:

1. As a threshold issue - is there a need for the person?
2. What is this persons substantive experience? Has this person been doing disclosure schedules for 5 years, or can he do a full issues list on an SPA and mark it up without direction?
3. We’re always trying to figure out if we found a diamond in the rough or if we’re hiring someone who is lateraling because they’re about to be fired.

Basically same on the lit side. What have you done, what can you do, are we getting a dud. We pretty much never need to answer (1); there's always a need.

I agree with this. I'm in tax, and we don't interview people unless we are actually looking to hire. We usually have a pretty specific idea of what niche we need to fill, and then we look for someone who either will work hard to develop those skills or who already has them. As long as the lateral meets certain basic competency requirements one way or the other, one candidate won't win a job because of grades or coming from a better firm or whatever. We also want the person to stay - we aren't hiring a lateral with the intention of pushing them out in two years, we want someone who has a reasonable case for wanting to be in big law and do the type of work we do.