By Courtney Goldstein & Eden Mandrell

Regional Practice Managers
Associate Practice Group  

Plotting Your Path to Partnership

The recruiter relationship should continue once you become a junior associate. NALP reports that nearly 20 percent of associates change firms within the first two years of their career. A good recruiter can act as an adviser during this period – helping you understand the market and
the nuances that should be considered when making such an important career decision.  
 
Recruiters will be helpful guides through your mid and senior-level associate years, too. We can be an invaluable resource, not only with respect to understanding the market, but also as career counselors. We know our markets. We know which attorneys have made partner and how they
got there. We regularly meet with law firm managers and hiring coordinators to determine how they make their hiring decisions and how they evaluate attorneys for partnership, not only laterally, but within their own ranks. Firms count on recruiters to help them identify top candidates in each practice area. Recruiters can, thus, help you determine if you are on-track to meet your firm’s requirements, which firm might be a more productive environment for you, and
get you in front of firms that are hiring. 
 
Attorneys should turn to recruiters to help them ascertain which firms have compatible or supplemental practices to their own. Additionally, recruiters can be invaluable when it comes to helping you negotiate the most favorable compensation package – at your current firm or with a potential employer. Recruiters have deep market intelligence and are privy to partner moves, defections, acquisitions and closures prior to the general public’s knowledge. To that end, recruiters are able to provide strategic advice to serve their candidates’ best interests. 
 
As you move up the ranks of the law firm world, it becomes even more important to have an established relationship with a recruiter. Partners need to be at firms than can help their practices grow. As you build your practice, recruiters can help you find and hire the best associates to
assist you with your cases and clients. Recruiters can also help if you’re at a career crossroads and not sure if you want to stay on your firm’s partnership track.  

  Eden Mandrell is the Regional Practice Manager for Major, Lindsey & Africa’s Associate
Practice Group – Central region. She can be contacted at 312-896-8557 or
emandrell@mlaglobal.com. 
 
Courtney Goldstein is the Regional Practice Manager for MLA’s Associate Practice Group –
Western region. She can be contacted at 213-689-0718 or cgoldstein@mlaglobal.com
 
Part Three Will Appear Tuesday, December 2nd