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Time for a Common Lateral Partner Questionnaire

By Janet Markoff and Sarah Levinson
May 26, 2010

According to consultants and the legal press, 2009 was the Year of the Lateral, with a record number of lateral partner moves in the AmLaw 200. In the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2009, 2,775 partners left or joined the biggest firms in the country, a 10.6 % increase over the previous year. As reported in The American Lawyer, an ALM sister publication of this newsletter, litigation represented 17% of the moves, followed by banking and finance (15%), corporate (10%), intellectual property (9%), and bankruptcy (4%). The high percentage of banking and finance moves was directly connected to the closing of Thelen and Thacher Proffitt & Wood, which left many finance partners searching for new homes.

This year is likely to be another record year for law firm lateral hiring. In periods of economic flux, one of the principal ways to increase law firm revenues is to hire qualified lateral partners with substantial practices. As Greenberg Traurig's CEO Richard A. Rosenbaum told The American Lawyer (“Lateral Partner Moves Spiked in 2009, New Report Shows,” February 2010), “It's been a time of opportunity. The general pool of talent is at a level we've never seen before.” There is also a new subcategory of laterals in the market ' i.e., seasoned partners who had previously been reluctant to consider moving, but are now concerned about the financial viability or management of their firms.

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