Company loyalty is largely a thing of the past. In today’s fast-paced, highly competitive workforce, employees are more likely to jump to a new job for the right offer regardless of their history with their current employer. This is certainly true in the legal industry, where nearly half of lateral hires leave their law firms within five years. This has made a focus on retention more crucial than ever.

While losing a partner is just another part of doing business, the development requires some reflection on the part of law firm management and those tasked with facilitating lateral integration. That’s because a poor integration process can factor significantly into a partner’s decision to depart, which can result in a loss of business and a general sense of instability at the firm.

At the same time, a partner departure can leave firm leaders and legal marketers wondering what needs to be done—if anything—to communicate the departure to the public, clients and the broader legal community.

Best Practices for Partner Departures

In this article “Taking a Strategic Approach to Partner Departures,” we provide a thorough primer on how law firms should handle a partner departure.

  • Internal Communications:  The first communication you send internally should be positive and should communicate the firm’s plan for “business as usual.”
  • Client Communication: It is critical that the firm communicate directly and immediately with key clients—both current and recently past—especially those with whom the departing partner works most closely.
  • Initial PR: If you choose to do any media outreach, issue a brief statement simply saying that the partner is moving, retiring, etc., and indicate that in no way does the departure disrupt client service.
  • State Bar Requirements:  Prepare the appropriate staff or website vendor to address the requirements of the state bar guidelines governing your website with respect to a departing attorney.

Best Practices for Lateral Integration

A blog post authored by Jaffe’s Vivian Hood summarizes several industry experts’ thoughts on what makes for a good lateral integration process.

  • Centralize the Process: Adopting a centralized and consistent process can ease the burden for those involved in lateral integrations at the firm.
  • Prioritize Initiatives and Use Short-term Action Plans: Prioritization helps to streamline initiatives for short-term plans to feed momentum.
  • Leverage Key Messaging: Share key message points when making requests for one-on-one meetings with other partners. 
  • Motivate and Track with KPIs and Useful Data Points: Firms can build important business intelligence by tracking data related to lateral integration

How can Jaffe help you with partner departures and lateral hire integration?

Jaffe has an experienced team of marketing, business development and PR professionals who all have years of experience addressing law firm issues. These include the challenges of successfully integrating a new lateral hire as well as the sometimes difficult decisions that arise in light of a partner departure.

Jaffe can work with your firm to develop repeatable processes to help lateral hires hit the ground running. We also can help your firm determine the best strategy to communicate a partner’s exit to both internal and external audiences. Should the departure create controversy, our crisis communications experts can assist with developing a response plan to protect the reputation of your firm.

For more information about how Jaffe can help you with lateral hire integration and partner departures, contact Terry M. Isner at TMIsner@jaffepr.com.