Pirical Insights

Law Firm Mergers & Market Growth: Key Insights from Our Latest Webinar

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 10:44:05 GMT

In our most recent webinar, Francesco (Account Executive) and Ruiz (Product Manager) walked attendees through a data-driven analysis of law firm mergers.

From the headline-grabbing mega-deals of 2025, to the wave of announcements and consolidations already reshaping the industry in 2026, here's a quick summary of the key insights shared.

2025: Record-Breaking Deal Value

2025 saw 47 major completed M&As, a 31% increase over 2024.

And while 2023 held the record for sheer volume of M&A deals, 2025 emerged as the highest year on record for total deal valuation (over the past five years). Three mergers in particular stood out:

Post merger revenue $2.0 billion
Affected 2.7k lawyers
Landmark transatlantic growth, establishing a significant foothold in the US

Post merger revenue $2.85 billion
Affected 1.7k lawyers
Significantly expanded their NY private capital and hedge fund practice

Post merger revenue $1.0+ billion
Affected 1.1k lawyers
Boosted their presence in Colorado & Illinois

2026: A New Record Year in the Making

Even before the end of Q1 2026, four major mergers had already been announced or completed. These are collectively expected to affect 8,200 lawyers . For context, the eight mega-mergers of 2025 affected approximately 10,000 lawyers across the full year.

The four deals to watch:

AI Investment and the Merger Wave: Coincidence or Correlation?

Running in parallel to the surge in M&A activity is a rapid increase in AI investment across the legal sector. According to data from the Thomson Reuters Institute , law firm spend on legal technology has nearly tripled in the past three years , driven largely by the rise of generative AI.

Are these two trends connected? AI investment may not be direct cause of increased merger activity, but there is a compelling case for why firms might pursue both strategies simultaneously:

1. Scale and economics

As agentic AI systems become more powerful and more expensive, smaller and mid-sized firms may find it increasingly difficult to compete. Last year, a Harvard Business School article highlighted that tools like Harvey and Leya could price out firms that lack the budget or scale to integrate them effectively. Mergers can enable firms to pool their innovation budgets and accelerate AI adoption.

2. Proprietary data advantage

Mergers also allow firms to consolidate their internal datasets across practice of law and business services. This means firms can reach the critical mass required to train and refine custom AI systems.

This intersection of M&A strategy and technology investment is a trend worth watching closely.

A Framework for Understanding Legal Market Consolidation

Looking across the deals of 2025 and early 2026, Pirical's analysis identifies four distinct types of consolidation happening in the market:

1. Transatlantic Bridge

Firms previously established in the UK and Australian markets are using mergers to build or deepen their US presence. The HSF / Kramer Levin merger is the most prominent example, and the anticipated Taylor, Akin, and Skooi mergers appear to follow a similar logic.

2. National Footprint Expansion

Firms such as Taft, Troutman Pepper, and Knights plc are using M&A to extend their reach within their home market. Taft, for example, significantly expanded its presence in Colorado and Illinois through several deals in 2025. Knights plc pursued a similar strategy in the UK.

3. Practice Group Reinforcement

Some firms are using mergers to deepen specific practice areas. Womble Bond Dickinson's merger with Lewis Roca is a clear example: already strong in IP and real estate, the combined firm saw a further increase in IP partners.

4. Portfolio Rebalancing

Certain firms are using consolidation to fortify practice areas that were previously underrepresented. The Hogan Lovells / Cadwalader combination, for instance, is expected to produce a firm with a significantly larger and more specialised complex finance capability, combining capital markets and banking finance practice groups.

The Reshuffling of the Global 200

The current wave of mergers is set to redraw the global legal rankings significantly. Three merged firms are expected to be in the Global top 20 by gross revenue:

The Ashurst / Perkins Coie merger is expected to produce the largest gains in gross revenue ( +92% ).

Beyond the headline movers, Womble Bond Dickinson and FBT / Gibbons are also projected to climb approximately 30 positions each in the global rankings.

Organic Growth Is Still Possible, But Harder

Not every firm growing its headcount is doing so through M&A. When Pirical analysed headcount growth across global law firms from January 2025 to February 2026, 70% of the top growers had done so through merger activity .

However, in this timeframe, three firms demonstrated that meaningful organic growth remains achievable:

Without any merger activity, Gordon Rees grew from the 11th to the 5th largest firm in the US .

Had M&A activity been excluded from the rankings, they would have been the top firm for headcount growth in 2025.

Simpson Thacher climbed to become the 15th largest firm in the US, having previously been 22nd , through recruitment alone.

Greenberg Traurig showed comparable organic growth at the global level, moving from the 15th to the 10th largest firm globally.

A Word of Caution: Mergers Come With Risk

For firms considering M&A as a growth strategy, one data point from Pirical's internal research is worth keeping front of mind: mergers have historically triggered an average partner headcount loss of around 6% from the point of announcement to completion.

This is not a reason to avoid mergers, but it is a reason to plan carefully, particularly around partner retention and communication during the transition period.

Explore the Data Yourself

One of the highlights of the webinar was a live walkthrough of Pirical's Market Growth tool, which allows users to analyse headcount changes, merger activity, and partner movement at both firm and individual level.

Book a free demo with our team to see how to explore the data behind merger activity and more!

Watch the full webinar

Private Equity Ranking: Who's Building, Who's Bleeding, and Why BigLaw May Be PE's Next Acquisition Target

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:16:29 GMT

Pirical intelligence data tracking 50,000+ lawyers across PE and capital markets practices reveals a three-year talent reshaping more dramatic than the numbers indicate, and a looming ownership question that BigLaw's most powerful PE advisors are uniquely positioned to answer.

There is a firm that served more than 5,000 publicly tracked private equity matters between 2023 and 2026, deployed nearly 2,800 PE-adjacent lawyers to do it, and still recorded net positive lateral movement in its PE practices. That firm is Kirkland & Ellis. And understanding why Kirkland sits where it does, and what every other firm in this dataset is doing to close the gap, hold ground, or quietly retreat, is the story of how BigLaw's relationship with private equity has fundamentally matured.

Pirical's proprietary platform intelligence, which tracks lawyer movement, headcount, and matter activity across PE and capital markets adjacent practices, captures that story in granular detail. What follows is the most comprehensive data-driven analysis of private equity's imprint on BigLaw yet published, covering matter volume, talent flows, headcount trajectories, practice-level trends, and the regulatory frontier that may soon make law firms themselves the subject of the same ownership calculus their PE clients have applied to every other professional services sector.

Decoding the PE Client Universe

Before mapping which law firms serve private equity best, it is worth being precise about who private equity actually is. Headline AUM figures for the industry's largest managers are deeply misleading as a proxy for legal work. Blackstone manages over $1 trillion in total assets, but the majority sits in real estate and credit; Apollo is primarily a credit firm by AUM. The legal mandates that flow to BigLaw's PE practices (buyout transactions, fund formation, portfolio company work) derive from PE-specific equity portfolios, not the broader platforms.

Pirical has sought to isolate PE-specific AUM across the top 20 managers, stripping out credit, real estate, and infrastructure where segment-level disclosures permit. The resulting ranking differs meaningfully from industry headline figures and provides a more accurate picture of who actually drives the mandates that define BigLaw's PE practices.

Figures reflect PE-specific portfolios; credit, real estate, and infrastructure excluded where disclosed.

Source: PEI 300, disclosed segment data. Figures approximate; Q3 2025.

The Matter Intelligence: Who Is Actually Doing the Work

Pirical's matter-level data (cross-referencing publicly disclosed engagements across PE-adjacent practices against the top 20 PE organizations) provides the most granular available picture of which law firms have built durable, high-volume PE relationships. The table below ranks firms by aggregated public PE-adjacent matter count alongside total lawyer deployment. The ratio between the two figures is itself analytically meaningful: a high matter-to-lawyer ratio reflects deal intensity and practice concentration rather than simple headcount scale.

Matters tied to current firm affiliation of lawyers. Practice areas reflect current lawyer designations. Counts reflect unique lawyer-location-matter associations.

Kirkland's dominance is not a surprise, but its magnitude is. At 5,024 tracked matters, K&E produces more than three times the matter volume of its nearest competitor, Latham & Watkins (1,488). The gap between first and second place is larger than the gap between second and twenty-fourth.

Paul, Weiss presents the sharpest matter-intensity ratio in the dataset: 1,088 matters served by 456 lawyers. That concentration reflects the firm's deliberate positioning in high-value, complex PE transactions rather than volume-based market coverage, a strategy whose commercial logic the Barshay-era buildout has validated.

Freshfields at #7 with 910 matters and 581 lawyers is the most significant international firm in the ranking, reflecting both the globalization of PE deal flow and the firm's sustained US practice investment. The presence of Vinge (#19) and Roschier (#22) confirms that Nordic PE (which has produced outsized deal activity relative to market size) is increasingly registering in global matter counts.

Top 10 individual law firm–PE client pairings by public matter count.

The concentration of Kirkland mandates from Francisco Partners, Apax, and Advent reflects the kind of exclusive-channel dynamics increasingly common among the most sophisticated PE buyers. More surprising: Clifford Chance's ranking as the primary legal partner to Partners Group by matter count (appearing above both Ropes & Gray and Latham & Watkins serving the same client) challenges conventional assumptions about which firm wins European PE mandates.

The Talent Wars: Three Years of Movement

Headcount and matter volume reveal market position; lateral movement reveals strategic intent. Pirical's tracking of all lawyer joiners and leavers across PE and capital markets adjacent practices from January 2023 to January 2026 surfaces the clearest picture yet of which firms are genuinely building, which are churning, and which are contracting while managing the optics. The table below combines both columns into a net movement view, a framing that exposes firms whose joiner numbers mask significant underlying instability.

All joiners and leavers across identified PE and capital markets adjacent practices. Net = Joiners minus Leavers. Ranked by net movement.

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett's net +79 is the dataset's most consequential finding. STB has historically been among the most selective and culturally conservative elite PE firms, not known for lateral hiring at scale. 149 joiners against 70 leavers over three years signals a deliberate capacity build, not replacement churn. Paired with a 52% absolute headcount expansion (detailed below), STB appears to be executing a strategic expansion that has received remarkably little market attention.

Goodwin Procter's net -14 tells a very different story. With 88 joiners and 102 leavers, Goodwin was simultaneously recruiting aggressively and losing talent at high volume during a period when its core VC and growth equity market suffered one of its worst multi-year contractions in recent memory. The firm was running a replacement treadmill at precisely the wrong point in the cycle.

Sidley Austin's net -52 is the dataset's most troubling signal for an established PE practice. Sidley is not typically described as a firm people flee, and its PE and funds practices have historically been substantive. 103 departures against 51 joiners over three years points to either systematic poaching by competitors with superior compensation structures (Kirkland and Paul Weiss being the most likely) or internal practice pressures not visible in the public narrative.

Latham & Watkins' net -48 is significant given the firm's matter volume (#2 overall) and brand strength. The combination of high matter activity and meaningful net talent loss could reflect a firm where demand is outpacing its ability to retain the lawyers servicing it, or a firm whose talent is being harvested because of its PE client proximity.

Skadden's net -26 should be read in context: given the firm's historical struggles to hold talent against Kirkland-level compensation pressure, the contained leaver number relative to its market position indicates a degree of stabilization that the conventional narrative underweights.

“There’s a lot of focus on lateral movement as a proxy for success, but what matters is what you’re actually building. Private equity clients need teams that can move faster, think more clearly, and execute across increasingly complex deals.

We’ve been deliberate about bringing in people with the judgment and strategic instinct to be true partners to our clients, and investing in how we develop them so that shows up in the work. The goal isn’t just to grow with the market, it’s to think ahead of it.”

Sarah Stasny

Head of Proskauer’s Private Equity Transactions Group – US

Absolute Growth: Who Built the Most Capacity

Pirical's three-year tracking of PE-adjacent lawyer populations identifies both the most aggressive capacity builders and the practices that contracted, whether by market force or strategic choice.

Simpson Thacher's 52% growth (from 398 to 605 PE-adjacent lawyers) is the most dramatic documented expansion among elite PE firms in the Pirical dataset. To put the scale in context: STB added more PE-adjacent lawyers in three years than the total current PE-adjacent headcount of Cleary Gottlieb or Fried Frank.

Dentons' -32% contraction and Wilson Sonsini's -30% decline reflect distinct dynamics. Dentons' global verein structure makes its PE practice difficult to assess as a unified entity; the contraction may reflect strategic rationalization as much as genuine client attrition. Wilson Sonsini's decline maps far more directly onto the VC and growth equity market collapse. The firm's identity and geographic concentration left it maximally exposed to precisely the segment that suffered the most severe compression between 2022 and 2025.

Practice-Level Trends: Where the Lawyers Actually Are

Pirical's breakdown across granular practice designations reveals that PE-adjacent legal headcount growth is concentrated in specific areas, and that some practices conventionally assumed to be thriving are in measurable decline.

All lawyers in identified PE and capital markets adjacent practice designations across Pirical dataset.

The divergence between Corporate – Investment Funds (+7%) and Capital Markets – Equity (-6%) is the single most consequential finding in this table. Fund formation has been the most resilient PE-adjacent legal revenue line across this cycle: as PE firms continued to raise successor funds even during lean deployment periods, the lawyers who structure those vehicles held their ground. Equity capital markets work, by contrast, has been directly squeezed by IPO market suppression. The -6% decline in ECM headcount is a precise reflection of deal market reality.

The near-zero aggregate capital markets figure (-0.3%) conceals this split entirely. Analysts who cite flat capital markets headcount as evidence of stability are missing a meaningful divergence within the category.

Geographic Shifts: Where PE Legal Work Is Moving

Pirical's office-level data (filtered to offices with above-average PE-adjacent headcount) identifies the fastest-growing and fastest-contracting markets for this practice cluster.

Growth and decline among offices with above-average PE-adjacent lawyer populations.

Nashville (+42%), Berlin (+31%), Dubai (+30%), and Munich (+28%) reflect distinct but coherent dynamics. Nashville and Austin confirm the migration of PE portfolio companies (and the fund managers that own them) into lower-cost US jurisdictions. Berlin and Munich reflect genuine growth in European PE activity, particularly mid-market buyout activity driven by German Mittelstand succession transactions. Dubai's emergence as a growth office reflects the Gulf's expanding dual role: LP capital source and increasingly active direct investment market.

Hong Kong's -13% contraction (from 895 to 775 PE-adjacent lawyers) is the most consequential geographic finding in the Pirical dataset. Both the absolute scale of the decline and its concentration in PE practices confirms what practitioners have reported anecdotally: geopolitical friction, regulatory uncertainty, and reduced cross-border deal flow between China and Western PE have materially reduced demand for Hong Kong-based PE legal capacity.

The Software Repricing: A Reckoning Flowing Through PE Into BigLaw

Software stocks have clearly entered a bear market in 2026, but the equity selloff may not be the most consequential development. The IGV software index is down more than 23 percent year to date, stock valuations have compressed significantly, and hundreds of billions in market value have evaporated. As recently noted in SaaStr's analysis of the 2026 software downturn, the more systemic risk may sit beneath the equity layer. Private credit funds are estimated to have $600 to $750 billion in exposure to software companies, much of it structured during peak-valuation years. If repayment stress spreads across sponsor-backed portfolios, the consequences extend beyond PE returns. Credit tightening would affect venture debt, growth rounds, and sponsor-led M&A, directly influencing the deal pipeline that sustains BigLaw's private equity and capital markets practices.

The repricing of enterprise software valuations is already a private equity story, and it is beginning to flow into BigLaw.

The IGV software ETF has shed more than 23% year-to-date. Salesforce and Workday are each down over 40% across the past twelve months. Software company valuations have fallen dramatically, with buyer pricing dropping from roughly 30x earnings in 2022 to approximately 16x today, and revenue-based valuations falling from 10-12x to 4x. The cause is not purely sentiment-driven: enterprise CIOs are actively redirecting budgets away from traditional software and toward a $600B+ AI infrastructure buildout, while AI-powered automation is beginning to threaten the subscription-based licensing model that justified a decade of premium valuations.

For PE firms, the practical consequences are severe in ways that will flow directly into legal market demand. Thoma Bravo executed 28 software acquisitions since 2023; Blackstone followed with 24. Many of those transactions were financed at peak valuations. At current valuations, debt payments are increasingly difficult to support; exit windows are frozen; losses are not hypothetical. The posture split is telling: Thoma Bravo and Vista are publicly framing the dislocation as a buying opportunity, while KKR and Apollo are characterizing their software exposure as limited. Goldman Sachs draws the uncomfortable newspaper industry analogy: structural decline dressed as cyclical dip. JPMorgan and Wedbush push back, calling the selloff an overshoot. Both positions can be simultaneously defensible.

For BigLaw's capital markets practices, the downstream effect is real and underappreciated. Frozen exits and refinancing risk mean fewer IPOs, fewer sponsor-to-sponsor transactions, and more restructuring pressure across leveraged software portfolios. Pirical's ECM headcount data (already down 6% across the dataset) may be the leading indicator of a more significant contraction if the software repricing proves structural. Firms like Goodwin, whose VC and growth equity practices were built for a specific market cycle, are most exposed. Firms with diversified PE relationships across sectors (Kirkland, Paul Weiss, Weil) are most insulated.

The Ownership Question: Is BigLaw PE's Next Target?

Private equity has long identified US law firms as one of the last unconsolidated, high-margin professional services sectors: reliable cash flows, low capital intensity, fragmented market, inelastic demand. The obstacle has been singular: ABA Model Rule 5.4, which prohibits fee-sharing between lawyers and non-lawyers, has functionally barred outside equity ownership of law firms across nearly all US jurisdictions. As Berkeley Law's The Network has noted, this same capital wall contributes to the US ranking 109th out of 128 countries in access to affordable civil legal services, giving reformers a powerful access-to-justice argument alongside PE's financial one.

That obstacle is eroding. Arizona eliminated its version of Rule 5.4 in 2021 and now licenses Alternative Business Structures allowing full nonlawyer equity ownership. 136 entities were approved by mid-2025, 59% of which are wholly nonlawyer-owned. Puerto Rico introduced a 49% nonlawyer ownership rule in 2025.

Where outright equity ownership remains prohibited, investors have adapted the Management Services Organization model, borrowed from PE's playbook in healthcare and accounting. The MSO structure separates a law firm's legal practice from its administrative infrastructure, allowing outside investors to own and profit from the latter while the law firm nominally retains exclusive control over legal work. As Sidley Austin's November 2025 analysis details, the MSO's upside is structurally constrained. Investors capture management fees rather than legal revenues, making returns inferior to the accounting firm model where PE has taken direct equity stakes at significant multiples in firms like Grant Thornton and Baker Tilly. Reed Smith's February 2026 market update reports that lenders are now underwriting MSOs based on the durability of long-term management services agreements, with platform acquisitions and multi-firm rollups becoming standard transaction templates.

The Pirical data raises a question that legal market observers have not yet fully engaged: the firms most deeply embedded in PE advisory relationships (Kirkland, Simpson Thacher, Weil, Paul Weiss) are simultaneously the most sophisticated interpreters of PE ownership structures, the most valuable as acquisition targets given their matter volume and client depth, and the most culturally resistant to outside ownership given their partnership-first identity. The legal architects of PE's healthcare rollups and accounting firm investments are now the logical subject of the same playbook.

There is no near-term evidence that any elite firm is actively pursuing or welcoming non-lawyer ownership. But the ABS infrastructure being built in Arizona and the MSO platforms accumulating contractual relationships with smaller firms may be the scaffolding upon which larger-scale consolidation eventually rests, particularly if a major jurisdiction like New York or California moves on Rule 5.4 reform. The medium-term outlook points toward continued incremental state-level reform, MSO platform consolidation, and a horizon within five to seven years where equity ownership in large US law firms becomes a question of corporate strategy, not regulatory theory.

Methodology

This analysis is produced from Pirical's proprietary platform intelligence, which aggregates and structures publicly available and disclosed professional data on lawyers, law firms, matters, and market movement. PE-adjacent practices were identified using Pirical's classification taxonomy, covering Corporate – Private Equity Transactions, Corporate – Investment Funds, Corporate – Investment Funds – PE Funds, Capital Markets, Capital Markets – Equity Capital Markets, and related crossover designations.

Headcount figures reflect January 2023 and January 2026 snapshots. Lateral movement data covers all identified movements within those practice designations between those dates. Matter data reflects publicly disclosed matters and is subject to the following limitations: (1) matters are tied to the current firm affiliation of the lawyers involved; (2) practice areas reflect lawyers' current designations; (3) locations reflect lawyers' current locations; and (4) counts reflect unique lawyer-location-matter associations, not unique matters.

PE-only AUM figures reflect estimates based on disclosed segment breakdowns and fundraise data through Q3 2025. Most firms do not publish granular PE-only AUM consistently; figures should be understood as directionally accurate. Office-level data reflects aggregated headcount filtered to offices above the dataset mean at the January 2023 baseline.

Note on methodology

Source: publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Timeframe: Jan 2023 - Jan 2026

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

Pirical seamlessly aggregates data from a wide range of public sources, tracking over 700,000 attorney profiles worldwide. Our data helps law firms source lateral talent quicker, identify candidates with key client relationships, map competitor firm strategies & team structures, and much more.

Which AM Law 101-200 Firms Have The Strongest Organic Growth?

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 10:32:18 GMT

Big Law mergers have been on the rise in recent years and many firms have grown significantly through combinations. Merger-led growth often makes the headlines, but what can sometimes go under the radar are the firms growing significantly but steadily through lateral hires and promotions.

So we've taken a look, focusing on the AM Law Second Hundred this time! Here's the Pirical Ranking of the AM Law 101-200 firms that have recorded the most organic Partner headcount growth over the last 12 months.

Using publicly available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) .

Which AM Law 101-200 Firms Have Had the Most Organic Partner Headcount Growth?

United States, excluding Partners hired through mergers or acquisitions, February 2025 - February 2026

Note on methodology

Source: Publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Timeframe: Feb 2025 - Feb 2026

Firms who grew significantly through major mergers have been excluded from this analysis.

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

Secrets of Associate Productivity 2: Do Higher Salaries Increase Productivity? What’s the Right Combination of ‘Carrot’ and ‘Stick’?

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:31:24 GMT

Productivity is a hot topic for law firms. Uncovering what the most productive firms are doing differently promises to help firms maximize their revenues, without needing to hire more people or increase prices for clients.

Pirical has been working with customers to diagnose their current state of productivity and to test ideas about what really drives productivity across the market. We recently hosted a webinar chatting through these ideas, covering salary, bonuses and more. Here’s some of what we learned.

Case study: Firm X is a Mid-Market National Firm in the UK

Firm X’s Associates Are 20% Or £10m Per Year Less Productive Than Peer Firms’, Despite Having Similar Chargeable Hours Targets.

What can Firm X learn from the market to increase productivity?

�� If Firm X increases their salary, will they get more?

No. Higher salaries are not correlated with higher productivity at any seniority.

They are, however, correlated with higher targets (or the expectation of more work). This means: if I ask for more, I must pay more.

��The correlation between targets and salary is not linear. Above ~1750 hours, each incremental 50-hour increase corresponds to a disproportionately larger salary adjustment - needed to pay for more significant trade-offs.

At 1,800 hours , you’re working flat out. ��

At 1,850 hours , you need to pay for convenient exercise, so you buy the expensive gym membership closer to your house. ��

At 1,900 hours , you need to pay for convenient food, so you buy a meal delivery service. ��️

At 2,000 hours , you need to pay for convenient childcare, so you hire a nanny. ��‍��

But salary is only part of the story. To really understand how lawyers are incentivised, it is important to look at bonus structure.

�� If Firm X increases their bonuses, will they get more?

Bonus structure differs notably between the most productive firms (leaders) and the least productive firms (laggards) in two main ways.

1. Laggards pay out more individual bonuses to associates who have not hit their target. Leaders pay out fewer bonuses to this group.

2. Laggards also cap off bonuses, whereas leaders don’t. This means leading firms provide an incentive to keep working marginal hours after the target has been hit. Laggards don’t.

�� Besides carrots, should Firm X use sticks to increase productivity?

Leaders and laggards respond to their 25% least productive associates differently, suggesting differences in their performance management practices.

Leaders have 2x-3x higher involuntary exit rates of the least productive associates compared to Laggards, suggesting more decisive action around underperformance.

But leaders also had stronger performance one year later of the least productive associates who were retained. In other words, when leaders choose not to exit a bottom-quartile performer, that individual is significantly more likely to improve.

These findings suggest that Leaders are more likely to actively manage underperformance, rather than just tolerate it.

Bonuses and performance management were both actionable opportunities identified by Pirical for Firm X. Together they will help close the £10m revenue gap between Firm X and peers and help Firm X better compete in today’s legal market.

Analysis powered by Pirical on Demand (POD)

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See this analysis with your firm's data and much more with a Pirical On Demand subscription. Receive exclusive tailored insights into critical challenges facing law firms. Learn what the top firms are doing that others can learn from.

Which AM Law 100 Firms Have The Best Lateral Partner Retention?

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 17:15:49 GMT

Lateral Partner retention is a vital metric for law firms. "Each year, law firms invest countless hours, money, and resources in their lateral hiring efforts" , so the success rate of each lateral hire has significant implications to any firm.

Based on input from a number of firms, a key window for a lateral Partner hire is the first 3 years from joining. Within that timeframe, most firms will have a sense of whether the hire is going to be a success, or not!

Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical , we've analyzed how many of the lateral Partner hires made by AM Law 100 firms between 2020-2022 exited the firm within 3 years of joining.

Note on methodology

Each firm's retention rate is based on the cohort of lateral Partner hires made between Jan 2020 - Dec 2022, and how many of those hires subsequently left the firm within the first 3 years of joining.

Excludes firms that made fewer than 5 lateral Partner hires and moves as a result of mergers. Data is derived from tracked lateral Partner moves, numbers may be slightly incomplete due to limited public information. Exits include Partners that left but didn't lateral to another firm, eg. retired.

Ranked: Which AM Law 100 Firms Have the Highest Lateral Partner Retention Rates?

Lateral Partner hires and how many then left the firm within the first 3 years

Global, AM Law 100, Firms with >5 lateral Partner hires, hires made between Jan 2020 - Dec 2022

Partner Retention Rates Are Lowest in Texas, Where the Lateral Market is Particularly Competitive

The major European and US legal hubs of Paris (90%) , London (82%) , and New York City (82%) show the strongest lateral Partner retention rates.

In contrast, the legal markets of Los Angeles ( 75% ), Dallas ( 74% ), and Houston ( 74% ) have the lowest retention. As a particularly competitive lateral market, Texas appears to be the trickiest state to hold onto lateral Partner hires within the first 3 years of joining.

Cybersecurity Lateral Partner Retention Falls Below the 79% Practice Average

Looking at the data by practice, Labor and Employment ( 84% ) practices have the strongest lateral Partner retention within the first 3 years. Project Development ( 82% ) and Litigation ( 81% ) practices are the next highest.

The practice with the lowest retention is

Cybersecurity, Privacy & Data Protection is the practice with the lowest retention at 68% , well below the 79% average. I nsurance ( 77% ) and Capital Markets ( 77% ) practices also show a slightly higher than average rate of early exits.

Firms With Lateral Partner Retention Rates Greater Than 90% Source a Lot of Talent From The AM Law 50

Among the firms with over 90% retention within the first 3 years, Kirkland & Ellis was the most common source of the hire, accounting for 5.2% of moves.

Latham & Watkins (2.6%) was the next most common source of the hire, followed by a number of AM Law top 50 firms and Magic Circle firm Linklaters.

Note on methodology

Source: Publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP).

Excludes: Firms with fewer than 5 lateral Partner hires and moves as a result of direct mergers.

Timeframe: Jan 2020 - Dec 2025.

Each firm's retention rate is based on the cohort of lateral Partner hires made between 2020 - 2022, and how many of those lateral hires subsequently left the firm within the first 3 years of joining.

Data is derived from tracked lateral Partner moves, numbers may be slightly incomplete due to limited public information. Exits include Partners that left but didn't lateral to another firm, eg. retired.

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

Pirical Rankings: Which AM Law 101-200 Firms Have The Best Lateral Partner Retention?

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:48:08 GMT

Lateral Partner retention remains a defining metric for the legal industry. Every lateral hire represents a huge investment of time, money and resources. Because of this, the success of these moves has significant implications for any law firm's health.

Following our recent analysis of lateral Partner retention in the AM Law 100 , we're now shifting our focus to the AM Law second hundred.

Based on input from a number of firms, the first three years after a hire represent a key "make or break" window. It is within this timeframe that a firm is likely to gain a sense of whether a lateral hire will result in success, or not.

Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical legal professionals (PLP) , we've analyzed how many of the lateral Partner hires made by AM Law 101-200 firms between 2020-2022 exited the firm within 3 years of joining.

Note on methodology

Ranked: Which AM Law 101-200 Firms Have the Highest Lateral Partner Retention Rates?

Lateral Partner hires and how many then left the firm within the first 3 years

Global, AM Law 101-200, Firms with >5 lateral Partner hires, hires made between Jan 2020 - Dec 2022

Atlanta is the Only City to Boast Above Average Retention

At 94% , Atlanta tops the chart for highest Partner retention rates in the AM Law second hundred and is the only US City to surpass the 86% average retention rate.

Boston and Houston saw the lowest retention rates at 80% , both far below average.

Intellectual Property Has Seen Particularly Low Lateral Partner Retention

Private Client and Labor and Employment practice areas had the highest rates of lateral Partner retention at 87% and 86% respectively, surpassing the average retention rate of 84% .

However, Partners practicing in Intellectual Property law were significantly more likely to leave within the 3 year timeframe. Retention in this practice area fell below average at 79% .

Note on methodology

Source: Publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP).

Excludes: Firms with fewer than 5 lateral Partner hires and moves as a result of direct mergers.

Timeframe: Jan 2020 - Dec 2025.

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research. Tt is used by over 100 law firms worldwide including 75% of the AMLaw 20 and 80% of the UK top 50 law firms.

Which AM Law 101-150 Firms Hire The Most Partners From The Top 50?

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 16:05:03 GMT

The Volume of Lateral Moves From AM Law 1-50 to 101-150 Firms has Increased by +45% Over the Last 3 Years

Ranked: Which AM Law 101-150 Firms Have Hired the Most Partners From Firms Ranked 1-50 ?

Global, AM Law 101-150, All Lateral Partner Hires From AM Law 1-50, January 2023 - January 2026

Benesch and Honigman Have Made the Most Lateral Partner Hires From Top 50 Firms

For Benesch, hiring from the AM Law top 50 is a key part of their growth strategy. Over the last 3 years, the firm has recruited over 20 Partners from 1-50 firms. These joiners account for 35% of all lateral Partner hires.

Honigman also seem to actively target lateral hires from the AM Law top 50. Over the last 3 years, almost 50% of all Partner hires have come from firms ranked 1-50.

"Benesch's growth strategy has always been intentional. We are focused on attracting high-caliber attorneys whose experience aligns with the needs of our clients and the trajectory and culture of our firm."

Gregg Eisenberg

Managing Partner, Benesch

"Our ability to recruit significant talent from the Am Law 50 reflects the strength of our culture , our collaborative model and the opportunity we offer laterals to build and expand practices in a way that is both entrepreneurial and fully supported . Lawyers are looking for a firm where they can do sophisticated work, grow with intention and feel genuinely invested in. We are proud to be that destination."

Lauren Tapper

Chief Talent Officer, Benesch

Which AM Law 1-50 Firms do the 101-150 Firms Target the Most for Lateral Hires?

Perkins Coie has lost the most Partners to 101-150 firms over the last 3 years, this includes a 7-Partner team move to Dorsey Whitney in 2025.

Reed Smith ( 14 ) and Kirkland & Ellis ( 13 ) have been the next most common source of lateral hires.

Most of the Lateral Hires Made by 101-150 Firms Have Been Litigation Partners

34% of the lateral hires from AM Law top 50 firms were Litigation Partners. Corporate (16%) was the next most common practice focus.

Note on methodology

Source: Publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Timeframe: Jan 2023 - Jan 2026

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research. It is used by over 100 law firms worldwide including 75% of the AM Law 20 and 80% of the UK top 50 law firms.

Private Equity's Law Firm Arms Race

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 13:47:36 GMT

Pirical tracked 50,000+ lawyers across PE and capital markets practices over three years. The talent reshaping we found is more dramatic than the headline numbers suggest — and a looming ownership question may soon make BigLaw itself a PE target.

By the Numbers

5,024

PE matters tracked at the top-ranked firm over 3 years

+52%

Largest PE practice headcount growth seen at any elite firm

24

Law firms ranked by PE matter volume and lawyer deployment

–13%

PE lawyer decline in Hong Kong over the same period

Matter Intelligence

Who is Actually Doing The Work

Pirical's matter-level data cross-references publicly disclosed engagements across PE-adjacent practices against the top 20 PE organisations. The ratio between matters and lawyers is analytically meaningful on its own: high matter-to-lawyer ratios reflect deal intensity and practice concentration, not just headcount scale.

The gap between first and second place is larger than the gap between second and twenty-fourth.

Ranks 11–24 are in the full report — s ign up below to get the complete table, including Sidley, Skadden, A&O Shearman, Gibson Dunn, Davis Polk, and more.

Three-Year Talent Movement

Who is Building, Who is Bleeding

Headcount tells you market position. Lateral movement tells you strategic intent. Pirical tracked all PE and capital markets lawyer joiners and leavers from January 2023 to January 2026. The net figures below expose firms whose joiner numbers mask significant underlying instability.

Biggest Net Gain

+79 net lawyers

One elite PE firm — historically selective, not known for lateral hiring at scale — ran 149 joiners against 70 leavers. That is a deliberate capacity build, not replacement churn. It has received remarkably little market attention.

The Treadmill Problem

88 in, 102 out

One firm was simultaneously recruiting aggressively and losing talent at high volume — running a replacement treadmill at precisely the wrong point in the cycle for its core practice.

Biggest Net Loss

–52 net lawyers

The most troubling signal for an established PE practice in the dataset. 103 departures against 51 joiners over three years. This is not a firm people typically flee.

Where PE Legal Work is Moving

Pirical's office-level data identifies the fastest-growing and fastest-contracting markets for PE legal work. Nashville and Austin reflect the migration of PE portfolio companies into lower-cost US jurisdictions.

Berlin and Munich point to real growth in German Mittelstand succession transactions. And one major market is contracting faster than most practitioners acknowledge.

Most Significant Contraction: Hong Kong: –13%

From 895 to 775 PE-adjacent lawyers. Both the absolute scale of the decline and its concentration in PE practices confirms what practitioners have reported anecdotally: geopolitical friction and reduced cross-border deal flow have materially reduced demand for Hong Kong-based PE legal capacity.

Practice-Level Trends

The Split That Aggregate Numbers Hide

Capital markets headcount looks broadly flat across the Pirical dataset. But flat aggregates can conceal a meaningful divergence. Fund formation has been the most resilient PE-adjacent legal revenue line across this cycle. Equity capital markets work has been directly squeezed by IPO market suppression.

Analysts who cite flat capital markets headcount as evidence of stability are missing this split entirely.

+7%

Corporate – Investment Funds headcount growth, 2023–2026

–6%

Capital Markets – Equity headcount change, same period

–0.3%

Aggregate capital markets figure that hides both trends above

Get the Complete Analysis

The full report includes the complete 24-firm matter and headcount ranking, the top 10 individual law firm–PE client pairings, the software repricing section, the PE ownership question, and full methodology.

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Note on methodology

Source: publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Timeframe: Jan 2023 - Jan 2026

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

The $100 Billion Question: Which BigLaw Firms Already Own the Venezuela Gold Rush?

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 15:35:26 GMT

When Venezuela’s oil sector reopened to U.S. companies in January 2026, news coverage focused on sanctions relief and Trump’s executive orders. Those headlines were predictable. One question went largely unasked: which law firms had already positioned themselves years earlier to capture what may become the largest energy legal market since post-invasion Iraq?

We asked that question. The answer surprised us.

Using public matter data from Pirical , we tracked more than 2,400 lawyer-matter associations between major oil and gas companies and their outside counsel. The dataset draws from law firm websites, news coverage, and IFLR deal records. It shows which firms already hold the deepest relationships with the eleven companies most likely to invest in Venezuela.

Not the companies that could go. The ones that will.

The market is already concentrated. Firms that bet early on Chevron, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips now sit in pole position. The data also shows a sharp divide. Firms that dominate M&A do not necessarily control the litigation and arbitration work that Venezuela’s legal disorder will generate at scale.

Why Venezuela Matters, and Why This Time Is Different

Venezuela holds roughly 20 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves. That fact has not changed. What changed in January 2026 was the legal framework.

First, the U.S. Treasury issued General License No. 46. The license allows American companies to transact with PDVSA, Venezuela’s state oil company. At the same time, Venezuela’s National Assembly reformed its oil laws. The reforms allow foreign companies to control production, manage cash flows, and resolve disputes outside Venezuelan courts.

That combination unlocked activity.

The legal complexity remains extreme. Companies must determine who their counterparty really is, since the U.S. still recognizes the 2015 National Assembly as Venezuela’s legitimate government. They must comply with Executive Order 14373, which places Venezuelan oil revenues under U.S. government custody. The order shields those revenues from billions in creditor claims, including ExxonMobil’s $1.6 billion arbitration award and ConocoPhillips’ settled $2 billion claim.

Sanctions compliance still matters. The license continues to bar dealings with Chinese, Iranian, and Russian entities. Infrastructure risk also looms large. Industry estimates put the cost of restoring production at roughly $100 billion over ten years.

This is not simple deal work. It spans international arbitration, sovereign debt, sanctions, energy regulation, and political risk. Firms will not win this work through RFPs. They will win it through existing client relationships.

The Eleven Companies That Actually Matter

We identified likely participants using three filters: existing Venezuelan presence or claims, financial capacity measured by market capitalization, and public strategic signals. That produced eleven companies across four tiers.

Tier 1: Already There or Coming Back

Chevron ($282B market cap) remains the only U.S. major operating in Venezuela under Treasury license. ExxonMobil ($515B) and ConocoPhillips ($135B) exited in 2007 after nationalization. Both still hold arbitration leverage that matters in any re-entry discussion.

Tier 2: Opportunistic Players

Occidental Petroleum ($48B), Marathon Petroleum ($52B), and Hess Corporation ($45B) fit this category. Each has signaled interest in distressed assets, operates heavy-oil refineries, or runs assets in neighboring countries with transferable expertise.

Tier 3: Service Companies

Schlumberger ($63B), Halliburton ($31B), and Baker Hughes ($33B) provide the technology and equipment that make production possible. They maintained varying degrees of Venezuelan presence through 2020. They will follow operator clients back in.

Their risk profile differs. They bill for services rendered, regardless of who owns the oil. Their legal work centers on service contracts, licensing, and liability allocation.

Tier 4: Refining-Focused Buyers

Phillips 66 ($46B) and Valero Energy ($42B) are downstream refiners with heavy crude capability. They are buyers, not producers. Their legal needs skew toward commercial contracts and sanctions compliance, not production-sharing or political risk insurance.

Together, these eleven companies account for most foreseeable Venezuela-related legal spend.

Firms Positioned to Win

Jones Day’s Chevron Concentration

Jones Day leads the rankings for one clear reason: Chevron.

The firm handled 103 public matters for Chevron alone. That figure is nearly 2.5 times larger than the next biggest firm-client pairing, Bracewell’s 43 matters with Phillips 66. Since Chevron is already operating in Venezuela and holds Treasury approvals, Jones Day’s position is structural.

Any expansion flows through existing counsel.

Jones Day also appears among the largest pairings with Marathon Petroleum, at 23 matters. That dual exposure to two of the eleven target companies creates depth competitors cannot replicate quickly.

Litigation Specialists in Plain Sight

Latham & Watkins ranks second with 110 matters. King & Spalding follows with 97. Both show broader client spread across the eleven targets.

Practice area data from Pirical adds context. Litigation accounts for 338 matters, second only to M&A at 446. That matters in Venezuela.

King & Spalding’s 15-matter relationship with ConocoPhillips positions it well for arbitration and dispute work tied to legacy claims. White & Case, with 23 Occidental matters and 15 Hess matters, sits squarely in the lane of greenfield structuring and political risk mitigation.

The Service Company Angle

Sidley Austin holds 30 matters across the dataset, including 15 with Halliburton. Davis Polk shows a parallel 15-matter relationship with Baker Hughes.

Service company work rarely grabs headlines. It does generate volume. These companies need master service agreements, licensing terms, procurement contracts, and insurance structures in high-risk environments. The work is steadier than operator equity deals.

Boutique Arbitration Plays

Paul, Weiss logged 61 matters with just 37 lawyers. That produces the highest matters-per-lawyer ratio among top firms. In a market where arbitration clauses and sovereign immunity questions appear in nearly every deal, efficiency matters.

Davis Polk controls the largest ExxonMobil relationship in the dataset, with 34 matters. If ExxonMobil decides to convert its arbitration award into leverage for re-entry, Davis Polk will already be inside the decision loop.

Largest Single Firm-Client Relationships

What’s Missing Tells the Story

Kirkland & Ellis ranks near the top overall, but its exposure skews toward Marathon Oil Group and service companies rather than Chevron, ExxonMobil, or Hess. That mix signals strength in broader energy work without the same operator concentration that will likely drive early Venezuela decisions.

That is not a flaw. It is a strategic reality.

The same pattern appears for Skadden, Vinson & Elkins, and Sullivan & Cromwell. All have strong energy practices. None show dominant exposure to the specific companies most likely to move first.

Firms outside the top 20 face an even steeper climb unless they bring specialized sanctions, arbitration, or sovereign debt expertise that justifies breaking existing counsel relationships.

What the Practice Mix Reveals

Firm rankings only tell part of the story. Practice area distribution shows where legal risk and spend actually concentrate once activity begins. Pirical data makes the pattern clear.

Litigation does not trail far behind M&A. Insurance and product liability work ranks higher than capital markets and environmental matters. That matters in Venezuela, where degraded infrastructure, legacy equipment, and accident risk will drive claims early.

Practice Area Distribution Across 11 Target Oil & Gas Companies (Global)

The Litigation Boutiques Punching Above Their Weight

Beyond BigLaw, several U.S. litigation boutiques show outsized oil and gas exposure. Carver Darden leads with 19 matters handled by just five lawyers. That is a 3.8 matters-per-lawyer ratio.

Kobre & Kim, Beck Redden, and Gibbs & Bruns show similar patterns. These firms will not structure deals. When disputes arise, operators already trust them.

The International Players

Venezuela is not a purely U.S. story.

Clifford Chance, Osler Hoskin & Harcourt, Freshfields, and A&O Shearman all rank in the top 20. Their experience in international arbitration, sovereign debt, and cross-border regulation fills gaps U.S. firms sometimes lack.

Leading International Firms by Oil & Gas Matter Volume

When the Deals Start Moving

The top firms hold a real advantage. They are already embedded.

If Chevron expands, Jones Day does not pitch. If ExxonMobil acts on its award, Davis Polk is already advising. If ConocoPhillips negotiates under the new oil law, King & Spalding brings institutional memory others lack.

The work will not stay transactional. Creditors frozen out by Executive Order 14373 will litigate. Sanctions licenses will evolve. Contract disputes will cross jurisdictions. Political risk will shift month to month.

Firms with deep litigation and arbitration benches may capture more value than headline deal volume suggests. The data points to Paul, Weiss, White & Case, and King & Spalding.

Service companies add a second pipeline. Schlumberger, Halliburton, and Baker Hughes will follow their clients and bill consistently. Kirkland, Sidley Austin, and Davis Polk benefit from that steadier flow.

The market is largely spoken for. The open question is staffing. Can the firms that win actually handle the surge when it arrives?

Note on methodology

Rankings reflect analysis of more than 2,400 public lawyer-matter associations, sourced from Pirical’s database. Sources include law firm disclosures, news reporting, and IFLR deal data.

Target companies were selected based on Venezuelan exposure, market capitalization, and public strategy signals.

Matters are tied to lawyers’ current firm affiliations, not the firm where the work originated. Practice areas reflect current lawyer designations. Counts represent unique lawyer-location-matter associations, which may result in double counting.

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

The Birmingham Legal Market In Numbers

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 14:53:44 GMT

Birmingham is the UK's second largest city and one of the most significant legal markets, home to more than 600 Partners at Global 200 & The Lawyer UK 100 firms.

In recent years, major firms like TLT and Hill Dickinson have opened new offices in Brum, attracted by " one of the largest and most successful professional and financial centres in the UK " and by the prospect of building " a bridge between London offices and regional bases in the North ".

Clearly Birmingham is still attracting growing firms, but what's really driving growth in the city and region at large? How have major infrastructure projects like HS2 and the Birmingham Knowledge Quarter affected recent demand in the local legal market? Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical , we've taken a look.

Partner Headcount Growth in the Midlands Has Fallen Behind Other UK Cities

Birmingham ( +8% ) and Nottingham ( +3% ) have increased Partner numbers over the last 3 years, but the rate of growth has lagged behind all other major UK markets.

Among Global 200 & The Lawyer UK 100 firms, Edinburgh ( +32% ) has seen the sharpest growth in headcount, followed by Manchester ( +19% ) , Bristol ( +17% ) , and Glasgow ( +16% ) .

"The reverse of the city's proximity to London being an advantage to get in and out easily to see clients, is that it is possible to live south of Birmingham and commute into London, where salaries are so much higher .

That process was accelerated during the covid pandemic, when working from home became common. That presents something of a challenge to Birmingham firms, meaning the market for talent is not what it was . And lawyers are well looked after by their firms, making the market even more inert."

Chris Hunt

Partner & Real Estate Practice Leader, Gowling WLG

Almost Twice as Many Partners Leave Birmingham for London, as Move From London to Birmingham

More than 70% of the lateral Partner moves between 2022-2025, moved from within Birmingham itself, leaving around 30% as intercity moves. The top destinations for Partner moves in and out of Birmingham were London and Manchester.

London recorded 12 Partner moves into Birmingham (17% of total moves in) and 22 moves out of the city (37% of total moves out), creating an imbalance in the flow of Partners between the capital and Brum. According to Chris Hunt (Partner & Real Estate Practice Leader at Gowling WLG) , "Birmingham's proximity to London is not helpful in the context of recruitment. It presents candidates with a genuine choice in the way that no other major regional city does, with earnings so much higher in London."

Second to London, Manchester saw 8 moves into Birmingham (12% of total moves in) and 6 moves out of the city (10% of total moves out). This indicates a more balanced flow of Partner moves.

The Fastest Growing Firms in Birmingham Have Grown Through a Mixture of Lateral Hires and Promotions

Most of the top 10 firms with the highest increases to Partner headcount growth have favoured lateral hires. Irwin Mitchell and Mills & Reeve have taken a more balanced approach, while Browne Jacobson and Bevan Brittan have relied more heavily on Partner promotions.

Real Estate is the Fastest Growing Practice Area in Birmingham

Since 2022, Real Estate Partner headcount at Global 200 & The Lawyer UK 100 firms has risen by +13% . This ranks Real Estate as the fastest growing practice in Birmingham, alongside Corporate ( +11% ) and Insurance ( +10% ). Real Estate growth may be partly driven by the many "development and infrastructure projects going on in the city", such as HS2 and the Birmingham Knowledge Quarter. This "feeds professional services firms, such as lawyers", says Chris Hunt (Gowling WLG) .

Looking deeper, the growth among Birmingham’s Real Estate practices has been primarily driven by Partners working in Generalist Real Estate ( 67% ). More specialised sub-sectors such as Commercial Property ( 17% ), Residential Property ( 11% ), and Real Estate Planning ( 6% ) make up the rest.

"Many of the larger law firms have moved all or parts of their real estate practice out of London to regional cities , often for profitability reasons. Birmingham is an obvious destination because it's close enough to London to make travelling in and out of the capital (where many of the mort prominent real estate developers and investors are based) straightforward and with a mature market for talent in the city.

The corollary of that is medium-sized and smaller firms have stayed focused on real estate as core to their businesses in cites like Birmingham, as some the larger firms leave behind certain types of real estate, such as residential."

Chris Hunt

Partner & Real Estate Practice Leader, Gowling WLG

Birmingham's Real Estate Growth Ranks it Highly Nationwide, But Edinburgh and Bristol Have Seen Greater Spikes in Headcount

Real Estate is clearly a key area of growth in cities other than Birmingham. The increase in Partner headcount in Edinburgh ( +33% ) and Bristol ( +22% ), surpasses that of Birmingham ( +13% ).

Five Law Firms Hold 50% of the Real Estate Market Share in Birmingham

In terms of Partner headcount, Gowling ( 14%) holds the largest piece of the Real Estate market. Gateley ( 12% ), Shakespeare Martineau ( 10% ), Eversheds Sutherland ( 8% ) and Knights PLC ( 6% ) make up the rest of the top five.

Other Firms May Be Looking to Seize More of the Real Estate Market Share

Of the firms with significant market share in Real Estate, not all are actively growing. Knights PLC ( +80% ), Gateley ( +13% ), and Gowling ( +13% ) have increased Partner headcount in this practice area, but Shakespeare Marineau has flat growth ( +0% ) and Eversheds Sutherland headcount has decreased ( -27% ).

The firms with significant growth that may be looking to seize more Real Estate market share, are the likes of Browne Jacobson ( +150% ), Weightmans ( +100% ), and Freeths ( +67% ).

Note on methodology

Source: Publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Timeframe: Dec 2022 - Dec 2025

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

Which Law Firms Are Powering The Data Center Boom?

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 14:41:27 GMT

Space X recently announced a plan to launch up to 1 million satellites into the Earth's orbit , part of a grand vision to start putting data centers in space.

The logic? Land-based data centers require large volumes of water to power the cooling systems, whereas a space-based network would rely on the radiative cooling that occurs naturally in space. The reason? The explosive demand for data centers that's come with the rapid evolution of AI. For now at least, that demand needs to be met on Earth.

So this got us thinking, which law firms are most involved in data center work? Which firms are actively hiring attorneys with data center experience and building out the largest teams poised to benefit from this ever-growing industry?

Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical , we've ranked the law firms powering the data center boom.

The Volume of Lateral Partner Hires With Data Center Experience Jumped by +65% in 2025

Legal demand for data center expertise is clearly rising fast among the AM Law 200. Lateral Partner moves with data center experience have grown steadily since 2020 (+168%) .

The rise partly reflects the fact that an increasing number of attorneys have worked on matters related to data centers. However, lateral demand is heating up, evidenced by the +65% spike in lateral Partner hires in 2025. Competition for Partners with data center experience is likely to intensify, with law firms expecting more and more work in 2026 — "Many firms have now formed special teams of lawyers across a broad range of practices to handle data center projects."

“Our investment in Data Center talent has been deliberate and forward-looking. We are seeing sustained client demand at the intersection of real estate, energy, infrastructure and technology , and we have aligned our lateral hiring strategy accordingly.

By prioritizing partners with deep, hands-on Data Center experience, we are not only strengthening our national platform but also ensuring we can guide clients through the full lifecycle of these complex projects , from site selection and incentives to financing, construction and long-term operations.

Being recognized among the top firms for Data Center-focused lateral hiring reflects a disciplined growth strategy driven by where the market is heading and where our clients need us most.”

Lauren Tapper

Chief Talent Officer, Benesch

Ranked: Which AM Law Firms Have Been Hiring the Most Lateral Partners with Data Center Experience?

Global, AM Law 200, > 5 Lateral Partner Hires, Jan 2020 - Jan 2026

“In just the past three months, we’ve continued adding leading deal makers and other senior attorneys across many disciplines, including digital infrastructure and energy, to strengthen our capabilities as data center work accelerates globally.

Our data center practice tripled in 2025 compared to the prior year, and we’re advising hyperscalers and other industry leaders around the globe on all facets of data center work, from digital infrastructure development and transactions to power supply solutions and navigating regulatory hurdles.”

Jonathan Gordon

Technology Global Chair, Baker Botts

The AM Law Top 20 Have the Deepest Benches of Data Center Partners, But Kirkland & Ellis Leads the Way

Looking at the number of 'data center' lateral hires relative to total hires shows us which firms are prioritizing and growing their data center expertise. But which firms are already dominant in the space, with the largest existing teams of Partners with data center experience?

The AM Law top 20 largely come out on top; Kirkland & Ellis have almost 250 Partners with data center experience and Dentons (195) , Latham & Watkins (110) , Greenberg Traurig (101) , and DLA Piper (100) all boast teams numbering in the hundreds.

Across the AM Law 200, 21% of Partners with data center experience primarily practice in Real Estate, followed by 16% in Corporate.

Ranked: Which Firms Have the Largest 'Data Center' Teams?

Global, AM Law 200, > 20 Partners, Data as of Jan 2026

Chicago Has Been Rising as a Major Hub for Data Center Work, Alongside Texas

The cities with the highest number of AM Law 200 'data center' Partner hires are the usual major legal markets of New York City (131) , London (87) , and Washington, DC (85) .

Looking beyond them, Chicago (43 hires) has been emerging as a tier 1 market for data centers . The Windy City now houses over 70 data centers, with major players like Equinix, Digital Realty, and CyrusOne driving its prominence. Chicago offers a strategic central location, with the robust infrastructure and reliable power supply needed for data centers.

Texas is another market with significant momentum, with most lateral hires occurring in Dallas (39) and Houston (35) . The state has become the second largest data center market in the US , collectively attracting hyperscale and AI-driven infrastructure investment in recent years.

Note on methodology

'Data Center' Partners are Partners with references to Data Center experience in their professional bios and previous matters worked

Source: Publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Timeframe: Jan 2020 - Jan 2026

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

The Legal Arms Race for AI: Which Firms Are Winning Big Tech's Most Coveted Clients

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 10:26:20 GMT

The scramble to represent Big Tech's AI ambitions isn't coming. It's already here, and the winners are pulling away.

Using Pirical's database of publicly disclosed legal matters, we tracked which law firms have built the deepest relationships with the world's most valuable AI companies. The results show a clear hierarchy. Latham & Watkins leads with 252 public matters across multiple AI giants. Fenwick follows with 223. UK Magic Circle firm Freshfields claims 135.

The hottest client roster in law right now has six names: Alphabet , Microsoft , Meta , Apple , NVIDIA , and OpenAI . Here's who represents them.

Why AI Is the Next Billion-Dollar Legal Market

Artificial intelligence has become one of the largest sources of legal demand worldwide. Leading AI companies now hold trillions in combined market value. Private developers like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Databricks are reaching valuations historically reserved for the biggest public tech firms.

According to the Stanford AI Index (2025) and J.P. Morgan analysis, private investment in AI exceeded $250 billion last year. Major tech players are projected to spend hundreds of billions annually on AI infrastructure alone. Regulatory activity is accelerating. The U.S., EU, and Asia are passing AI-specific laws at unprecedented speed, establishing new frameworks for compliance, IP, safety, and accountability.

Firms that can support fast-growing AI clients are positioned at the center of the next major wave of high-value legal work.

Methodology: How We Ranked the Firms

We identified the top 25 AI companies by estimated market value. The list includes both public corporations (using current market capitalization) and venture-backed private firms (whose valuations rely on investment rounds and reported estimates). Private company valuations are estimates. All data reflects information as of late November.

We cross-referenced this client list against Pirical's database of publicly available legal work, sourced from law firm websites, legal news, and LinkedIn. Pirical tracks specific lawyer-matter associations, providing a clear picture of which firms actively advise these AI giants.

Important data notes:

Counts reflect unique lawyer-matter associations, not unique matters. Each matter is tied to the current firm and practice area of the lawyers involved. This approach provides a granular, verifiable measure of legal engagement.

Top 25 AI Companies by Estimated Market Value

Leading Firms by Client-Specific AI Matters

Largest single firm-client relationships (all-time, global)

These engagements highlight deep, often long-term partnerships between leading law firms and AI's most influential players.

Quinn Emanuel and Cravath are trusted for high-stakes litigation, handling patent, trade secret, and regulatory disputes. Freshfields and White & Case navigate complex cross-border compliance. Fenwick's dual role with Meta and Databricks showcases appeal to both established tech giants and emerging AI startups.

Top Firms by Total AI Matters Across Multiple Clients

These firms act as cross-platform strategic advisors, offering comprehensive support across AI clients. Their broad exposure allows them to handle diverse needs, from regulatory compliance and IP protection to competition inquiries, complex contracting, and litigation.

By advising multiple AI leaders, these firms gain insights into emerging legal norms, positioning them to shape the AI sector's future legal framework.

Global Leaders Outside the Am Law 200

The AI legal market extends far beyond traditional Am Law 200 firms. UK Magic Circle firms like Freshfields and Slaughter and May lead in Europe, reflecting active regulatory environments. Specialized boutiques such as Keker, Van Nest & Peters and Hausfeld address niche litigation needs. Strong presence from firms in India, Africa, and China illustrates AI's worldwide footprint.

What This Means for the Legal Market

The legal race for AI clients is not just about billable hours. It's about shaping the foundations of technological regulation. Firms winning this battle are proactively defining guardrails for innovation, intellectual property, and ethical deployment.

While U.S. firms currently dominate, AI's global footprint demands international legal networks. The rise of specialized boutiques and non-Am Law 200 firms from every corner of the globe signals a distributed, interconnected legal ecosystem.

The stakes are clear. For law firms, it's about securing position at the forefront of the next technological revolution. For AI clients, it's about navigating unprecedented legal and ethical terrain. The winners will be those who possess not just technical fluency but strategic foresight to anticipate and shape the legal landscape.

The market has already begun to consolidate. Pirical data shows which firms have built the relationships that matter. As AI regulation accelerates and disputes multiply, those early bets are paying off.

Note on methodology

Analysis based on Pirical's database of publicly disclosed legal matters, sourced from law firm websites, news coverage, and IFLR deal records. Counts reflect unique lawyer-matter associations. Private company valuations are estimates based on reported funding rounds and industry analysis.

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

AM Law 100 Partner Attrition: Which Firms Have Been Losing The Most Partners?

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 12:28:56 GMT

Partner attrition can be a key metric of a firm's stability, providing an insight into which firms are effectively growing and retaining talent.

Over the course of 2025, the average rate of Partner attrition across the AM Law 100 rose slightly from 6% to 8% . So are firms across the board struggling to keep hold of Partners or are a few firms in particular causing this spike?

Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , we've analysed how Partner attrition compares across the AM Law 100.

Note on methodology: data is derived from tracked Partner exits, numbers may be slightly incomplete due to limited public information. Exits include Partners that left but didn't lateral to another firm, eg. retired.

Ranked: Which AM Law 100 Firms Have Had the Highest Recent Partner Attrition Rates?

Firms That Have Improved Their Partner Attrition

A few AM Law 100 firms saw big improvements in Partner attrition in 2025.

BCLP had the largest drop in attrition, falling from 14% to 9% . Hunton Andrews Kurth also saw major gains, with attrition nearly halving to 4% - a change that coincides with the firm’s introduction of a non-equity Partner tier, designed to help retain & attract senior talent.

Akin and Milbank made similar improvements, both firms lowered Partner attrition from 11% to 6% in 2025.

Has There Been Any Politically-Affiliated Attrition?

While exact causation is difficult to prove, some of the firms with the highest increases in Partner attrition were caught up in the US administration's targeting of law firms in early 2025.

As Bloomberg Law reported, 4 firms fought the executive orders placed against them, while 9 firms reached settlements in which they promised to provide a total of $940 million in pro bono legal services. A sample of the firms involved shows that most of them saw seen Partner attrition increase in 2025 (compared to 2024).

Which Practice Groups Have Seen the Highest Rates of Partner Attrition?

Relative to total AM Law Partner headcount, Insurance (18%) has the highest attrition rate of any major practice group. It's also the only practice group with above average attrition (15%) .

So if you're recruiting for your firm's Insurance practice, you're facing some of the highest Partner attrition rates in the industry.

Which Cities Have Seen the Highest Rates of Partner Attrition?

Texas appears to be the trickiest state to retain talent, with both Houston (19%) and Dallas (17%) recording the highest rate of AM Law Partner attrition between Jan 2024 - Dec 2025.

Among other large legal markets in the US, the Bay Area (17%) , Los Angeles (16%) , and Chicago (16%) all had a higher than average rate of attrition over the same 24-month period.

Note on methodology

Source: Publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Timeframe : Jan 2024 - Dec 2025

Attrition Rate % = (Number of Partner exits) ÷ (Average Partner headcount for the timeframe) × 100

Data is derived from tracked Partner exits, numbers may be slightly incomplete due to limited public information. Exits include Partners that left but didn't lateral to another firm, eg. retired.

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

Mapped: What Would the Hogan Lovells and Cadwalader Merger Look Like?

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 16:58:35 GMT

Yesterday, news broke of yet another Big Law merger! Hogan Lovells and Cadwalader announced their plans to combine, looking to launch in July 2026, according to Law.com . In November, we reported that Cadwalader had entered merger talks with Alston & Bird . However, the firm is now clearly pursuing an alternative tie-up.

If successful, the merger would create a new legal powerhouse, with more than 3,100 lawyers globally and an estimated $3.6 billion in annual revenue. 'Hogan Lovells Cadwalader' would rank as the fifth largest firm in the world by revenue.

This latest announcement follows a string of recent merger discussions, including Winston & Strawn and Taylor Wessing , and Ashurst and Perkins Coie , making 2025 a very busy year for Big Law combinations.

Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , we've taken a look at which locations & practices would grow under the merger, and how many Partners might be expected to leave throughout the talks.

Hogan Lovells Stands to Significantly Strengthen its Footprint in the New York City Market

The combination would bolster Hogan Lovell's Partner numbers in New York City ( +72% ), London ( +12% ), Washington, D.C. ( +8 ) and Dublin ( +57% ), as well as offer a new office location in Charlotte ( +17 Partners ).

Cadwalader's Expertise in Banking & Finance and Capital Markets means Hogan Lovells Would Expand in Those Practice Areas

Both Firms Could Expect to Lose a Small Number of Partners Between Now and the Completion of the Merger

Note on methodology

Source: Publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Notes: Based on all current Hogan Lovells Partners staying post-merger, attorneys with multiple locations have been equally distributed across each

Timeframe: Data as of December 2025

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

Mapped: What Would the Winston & Strawn and Taylor Wessing Merger Look Like?

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:50:11 GMT

Last Friday, news broke that Winston & Strawn and Taylor Wessing are planning to merge. The combination would create Winston Taylor, a transatlantic law firm of around 1,400 lawyers and a combined revenue of more than $1.75bn .

The merger will not include all of Taylor Wessing's operations and is set to trigger a split of the Swiss verein structure. The firm's UK-led business (which includes the UK, Ireland, Dubai, and San Francisco) will exit the Taylor Wessing verein in order to combine with Winston & Strawn. Taylor Wessing Netherlands (which includes the Netherlands and Belgium) is also set to follow. This will primarily leave the firm's German operation of over 230 Partners to form a new structure.

The announcement is the latest in a number of major merger stories. If approved, it will mean yet another transatlantic combination, since the establishment of A&O Shearman and HSF Kramer . It also follows the news of recent merger discussions between Alston & Bird and Cadwalader , and Ashurst and Perkins Coie .

By Merging With Taylor Wessing, Winston & Strawn Would Bolster Their European Footprint, Primarily in London

Winston & Strawn would increase Partner headcount in London (+118) , Brussels (+5) , and likely the Bay Area (+4) . The firm will also expand into several new locations; Amsterdam (+15) , Eindhoven (+13) , Dublin (+11) , Dubai (+5) , and Cambridge (+4) .

Taylor Wessing's Depth in Corporate, Litigation, and Real Estate Means Winston & Strawn Would Expand in Those Practice Areas

Both Firms Could Expect to Lose a Small Number of Partners Between Now and the Completion of the Merger

Note on methodology

Source: publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Notes: Based on all current Taylor Wessing Partners staying post-merger, attorneys with multiple locations have been equally distributed across each

Timeframe: Data as of December 2025

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

The North West Legal Market in Numbers

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 09:40:14 GMT

The North West of England has seen a burst of investment and activity in the local legal market over the last few years. Manchester has seen a spur of office openings from firms like Lewis Silkin, Foot Anstey, Aberdein Considine, Keystone Law, and Harrison Drury. While Liverpool firm Hill Dickinson, recently became the official naming rights partner of Everton FC's new stadium.

Using publicly available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , we've taken a look at some of the trends driving growth in the North West legal market.

Partner Headcount in Manchester has Grown by 22%, Outpacing London

The North West is a key focus of growth among The Lawyer UK 100 & Global 200 law firms.

Manchester ( +22% ) has had some of the highest Partner headcount growth of any major UK legal market since Oct 2022, second only to Edinburgh ( +30% ). While Liverpool ( +13% ) has also seen a significant increase in Partner numbers, growing at a similar rate to Leeds ( +13% ).

London remains the dominant market in the UK, but the Partner headcount growth of Manchester and Liverpool highlight the region as key legal hub outside of the capital.

The Fastest Growing Firms in the Region are Private-Equity Backed

According to Hazelwoods , "Private equity firms entered the legal sector both for the industry’s relatively stable revenue streams and because the relatively fragmented legal sector gives PE funds plenty of opportunity to “buy and build” bigger law firms."

The growth rate of PE-backed firms indicates that the tactic is showing signs of success. In the North West, the firms with the highest Partner headcount growth have private equity backing, boasting an average growth rate of 57% . The average for firms without PE funding is 23% .

Some of the fastest growing PE-backed firms since 2022 are Horwich Farrelly ( +83% ), Express Solicitors ( +80% ), Slater Heelis ( +50% ), and Farleys Solicitors ( +43% ).

Lateral Partner Hiring Has Been on the Rise, Increasing by +73%

The volume of lateral Partner hires made in Manchester & Liverpool increased by +73% between 2022-2024. That momentum seems to have continued into 2025, with 156 lateral hires made so far this year.

The firms that have made the most lateral hires have been JMW, Horwich Farrelly, Weightmans, and Express Solicitors. As the fastest growing firms in the North West, Horwich Farrelly and Express Solicitors have clearly expanded by tapping into the lateral market.

The Volume of Partner Promotions Has Also Been Increasing

Partner promotions among The Lawyer UK 100 firms increased by + 81% between 2022-2025.

While lower in absolute numbers than the lateral hires, the steady growth of promotions mirrors the trend seen in lateral recruitment. The 35 promotions tracked in 2025 so far, already surpasses 2024.

Firms in the North West Have Been Growing Across a Number of Practice Areas

The biggest spike in Manchester has been in Private Client practices ( +86% ), driven by a number of firms increasing Partner headcount, including JMW, Irwin Mitchell, and Gateley. Employment ( +34% ) and Insurance ( +24% ) practices have also seen strong growth, likely tied to the city's presence of big national insurers.

In Liverpool, Corporate practices have seen the highest increase in headcount ( +39% ).

Note on methodology

Source: Pirical Legal Professionals , using publicly available data

Timeframe: 2022 - 2025

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

Secrets of Associate Productivity 1: Is There A ‘High Productivity’ Leverage Model?

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 14:31:10 GMT

Pirical has been working with customers to diagnose their current state of productivity and to test ideas about what really drives productivity across the market.

Case study: Firm X is a Mid-Market National Firm in the UK

Firm X’s Associates Are 20% Or £10m Per Year Less Productive Than Peer Firms’, Despite Having Similar Chargeable Hours Targets.

Across the Market, We Know that New Starters Are Up to 3% Less Productive Than Long-Tenured Associates. Could Low Attrition Rates Be One of the Things Peer Firms Are Doing Differently?

�� Does Firm X Have Particularly High Attrition?

Peer firms do have lower attrition than Firm X.

�� Would We Expect High Attrition to Drive Low Productivity?

In general, we wouldn’t expect associate attrition to drive productivity. If we look at the most productive firms in the market (the leaders) attrition is similar to the least productive firms (the laggards).

�� Are the Most Productive Firms Better At Exiting Low-Productivity Lawyers (‘Low Performers’) and Retaining High-Productivity Lawyers (‘High Performers’)?

When we segmented attrition by productivity quartile, we found that the most productive firms and the least productive firms are exiting low performers, and retaining high performers, at similar rates.

�� What About Firm X?

Firm X is losing significantly more high performers than low performers.

When it comes to attrition, while Firm X is out of step with peers, we wouldn’t these issues to be a primary driver of their low productivity.

One Hypothesis is That Peer Firms Might be Structured in a Particularly High-Productivity Way, Perhaps with Fewer Associates Per Partner (So There’s More Work to Go Around).

While very important to partner profitability, it turns out that overall associate:partner leverage ratios do not differentiate the most productive firms from the least productive firms.

We can see, however, that associate productivity does vary by seniority with a peak around 3-5 years of experience.

Firm X does actually have higher overall leverage than the market.

�� But That Leverage at Firm X is Concentrated in a Generally Low-Productivity Seniority Group (Associates With 12+ Years of Experience).

These two actionable opportunities are examples of many identified by Pirical for Firm X. Together they will help close the £10m revenue gap between peers and better compete in today’s legal market.

Analysis powered by Pirical on Demand (POD)

Pirical's award-winning technology unifies legal data to power the business of law

Mapped: What Will the Ashurst and Perkins Coie Merger Look Like?

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 17:56:11 GMT

Today, the news broke that Ashurst and Perkins Coie have agreed to a merger. The combination would be one of the largest in recent years, creating a firm of around 3,000 attorneys and $2.7bn in revenue, a figure that would place the merged firm in the top 20 globally by revenue.

The merger will mean yet another transatlantic combination, following A&O Shearman and HSF Kramer . Ashurst will significantly expand its presence in the United States by combining with Perkins Coie, bolstering its talent in Litigation and Corporate practices.

By Merging With Perkins Coie, Ashurst Will Significantly Bolster Their Presence Across the United States

Ashurst will grow headcount across 3 existing locations and expand into over 10 new cities.

Perkins Coie Has Much Stronger Depth in Litigation Practices Than Ashurst

Perkin Coie's Partner numbers in Intellectual Property and Cybersecurity, Data Protection & Privacy, will also bridge this gap in talent for Ashurst.

Both Firms Could Expect to Lose a Small Number of Partners Between Now and the Completion of the Merger

Note on methodology

Source: Publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Notes: Based on all current Perkins Coie Partners staying post-merger, attorneys with multiple locations have been equally distributed across each

Timeframe: Data as of November 2025

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

Mapped: What Would the Alston & Bird and Cadwalader Merger Look Like?

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 17:08:32 GMT

Yesterday, the news broke that Alston & Bird and Cadwalader were in merger talks. The combination would create a law firm of around 1,400 attorneys and $2 billion of revenue.

If it goes ahead, the merger would primarily bolster Alston & Bird's New York presence and Banking & Finance practices. This latest merger story, follows a wave of recent Big Law combinations like McDermott Will & Emery and Schulte Roth & Zabel , Herbert Smith Freehills & Kramer Levin and Troutman Pepper & Locke Lord .

By Merging With Cadwalader, Alston & Bird Would Bolster Their Presence in New York City and Grow in London & Charlotte

Alston & Bird's Partner numbers in Washington, DC would also increase and Cadwalader's Dublin office represents a potential new location.

Cadwalader's Depth in Banking & Finance and Capital Markets Means Alston & Bird Would Expand in Those Practice Areas

Both Firms Could Expect to Lose a Small Number of Partners Between the Merger Announcement and Completion

Note on methodology

Source: publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Notes: Based on all current Cadwalader Partners staying post-merger, attorneys with multiple locations have been equally distributed across each

Timeframe: Data as of November 2025

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

Poaching Packs of Partners: Big Law's Biggest Team Hires of 2025 so Far

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:22:50 GMT

It's been a busy year for team moves, with a number of Big Law firms raiding large groups of Partners from rival firms.

Big team moves represent a real coup from the hiring firm. As Gary Miles (Miles Partner Recruitment) puts it, "Firms tend to covet group lateral hires because there’s a higher likelihood of success , a group move often means stickier client relationships and more confidence that the assembled team will deliver. Secondly, large group moves make more noise in the press and show that the firm is growing, which is good for the brand!"

Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , here are the biggest Big Law team hires so far this year.

The Biggest Team Moves of 2025 so far

AM Law 200 & Global 200 firms, Team Moves with >5 Partners, Jan 2025 - Oct 2025

Hires that officially joined from 1st Jan 2025 onwards

Want to see the list of Partners from each team move?

If you're already a customer of Pirical Legal Professionals , just search for them in the Moves tab. Otherwise, enter your details below and we'll reach out!

Note on methodology

Source: publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Timeframe: Jan 2025 - Oct 2025

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

Revealed: Kirkland & Ellis's 2025 Partner Promotion Class

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 16:18:55 GMT

As reported by Law.com , Kirkland & Ellis has made the decision not to publicly announce its newly promoted Partner class. The firm has historically issued a press release in early October revealing the new Partners, but this year marks a shift in strategy.

Nonetheless, using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical , we can reveal the details of the Kirkland & Ellis Partner promotions that we've mapped in October 2025.

This Year's Class is a Record-Breaking One, With Over 225 Partner Promotions

Bloomberg Law stated that this year's promotion round topped the previous high in 2023, according to two people familiar with the matter who didn’t provide the exact number.

However with Pirical data, we can reveal that the number is at least 228 Partner promotions . This means Kirkland has significantly surpassed last year's promotions (200) and the previous record (205).

Almost 90% of Kirkland's Partner Promotions Were Based in the United States

All of the firm's US offices, except the newly opened Philadelphia office, saw a number of promotions.

The offices with the largest number of promoted Associates were Chicago (58) , New York City (45) , and Houston (20) . While the cities that saw the largest Partner headcount growth relative to their size, were Salt Lake City (+31%) , Miami (+29%) , and the Bay Area (+23%) .

The remaining 12% of promotions were in Kirkland's international offices. London , which is now the firm's 3rd largest office worldwide, had the most promotions (20) . The rest were in the Hong Kong (3), Munich (2) , Beijing (1), and Paris (1) offices.

Almost Half of the Promoted Partners Work in Corporate Practices

Unsurprisingly, M&A attorneys (43) lead the way among this year's promotion class.

Litigation (33) , Investment Funds (26) , and Corporate (26) follow suit as the next most common practices for the newly promoted Partners.

Want to see the full list of Kirkland's promoted Partners?

If you're already a customer of Pirical Legal Professionals , just search for them in the Moves tab.

Otherwise, enter your details below and we'll send over the list!

Note on methodology

Source: publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Timeframe: promotions from October 2025

Data is derived from tracked Partner promotions, numbers may be slightly incomplete due to limited public information.

Updated 31 Oct 2025: added additional mapped promotions.

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.

How Clyde & Co Hire Candidates Directly and Build Market Intel With Pirical Data

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 08:49:44 GMT

We spoke to Liz Rooke (Global Head of Recruitment), Mark Coates (Partner Recruitment, Senior Manager), and Matthew Cowan (Recruitment Manager) at Clyde & Co about how their lateral recruitment teams use Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) to do more direct sourcing and gather market intel.

Clyde & Co is a global law firm providing a complete service to clients in its core sectors of insurance, transport, energy, infrastructure and trade & commodities.

3 Ways Pirical Helps Clyde & Co

Direct sourcing of talent

Most of the firm's lateral hiring for key practice areas is now handled in-house, using Pirical to build comprehensive talent pipelines.

Less reliance on agencies

The team moved from a previously heavy reliance on agencies to a model focused on direct sourcing and employee referrals.

Competitor analysis

Pirical data helps shape the firm's regular strategy meetings; analysing competitor team structures & distribution, tracking moves, and building market maps.

The Challenge

To increase direct sourcing at the firm

Clyde & Co employs over 5,500 people across nearly 70 offices worldwide and as an organisation, is always looking to grow. As such, the firm makes a significant number of lateral Associate and Partner hires every year.

Clyde & Co's candidate sourcing model had traditionally relied quite heavily on external recruitment agencies. However, when Liz joined the team in 2022, one of her key goals was to increase the volume of later hires made internally and reduce the firm’s agency spend.

Having already used Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) for a few years, the recruitment team started to increase their usage as part of the new strategy to focus more on direct sourcing, averaging around 14,000 annual searches over the last 3 years.

"Tools such as Pirical have been critical to building more market knowledge and expertise within our recruitment team. This has helped the firm do more direct sourcing , relying less on external agencies and the cost that carries. At the non-Partner hiring level, we've reduced our agency usage globally to around 20% ."

Liz Rooke

Global Head of Recruitment, Clyde & Co

The Solution

Use Pirical to find more candidates internally and build ready to go talent pipelines

With Pirical's searchable database of lawyers, Clyde & Co's recruitment teams can find relevant candidates and create comprehensive pipelines of talent that are constantly kept up-to-date.

These candidate lists can then be easily shared with Partners for discussion and refined further.

"We'll create lists for Insurance, Corporate, Real Estate etc, then refine each one and export it. In the past year or so, it looks like we've created around 150 lists" Matt pointed out.

Improve market knowledge & gather competitor intelligence

"As an organisation we've always looked to make sure we have strong market knowledge", Liz said.

The market data and competitor intel available on Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , helps Clyde & Co stay up-to-date with shifts in the market and understand how competitor teams are structured.

"You can bring up a firm's data across various offices and see how many people they have in certain teams, eg. 4 Partners in office x doing this and 10 doing this in office y. That's really useful to see", Matt explained.

The Result

Pirical as a critical tool in the recruitment teams' workflow and a reduced reliance on agencies

Among the fee-earner hiring teams at Clyde & Co, Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) is typically used several times a week. Both the experienced-hire and Partner-level teams use Pirical to research the talent market, build & maintain candidate lists, collect competitor intelligence, and strengthen market knowledge.

As a result, direct sourcing has become the default, with the firm's agency reliance flipping from an 80/20 to 20/80 split in many cases.

"The working relationship with Pirical has been positive", Liz said, "there's a massive drive for us to do more direct recruitment, and to do that we need the tools. Pirical is certainly a critical tool in our armoury".

“Every role that we recruit for will use Pirical at some point."

Matthew Cowan

Recruitment Manager,

Clyde & Co

Which Features do the Clyde & Co Team Use?

Find out what Pirical can do for your firm

Essential data for lateral recruitment and strategic growth

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 695,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

Practice Growth Across the AM Law 200 (written for NALP Bulletin+)

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 09:58:54 GMT

We recently did some analysis for the NALP Bulletin+ magazine, looking at how practice demand has been shifting across the AM Law 200. Below is a copy of the article.

Many AM Law firms have seen demand for legal work increase over the past few years, but which practices have firms been focusing on? Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , we’ve taken a look at some of the key practice growth trends among the Am Law 200 over the last three years.

Which Practice Groups Have Been Growing the Fastest?

Across the AM Law 200 globally, Partner headcount in Cybersecurity, Privacy & Data Protection has risen by +19% between 2022-2025, making it the overall fastest growing practice group. Regulatory & Compliance ranks 2nd with a +15% increase.

As the legal landscape around cybersecurity and data protection has become more complex in recent years, the demand for tech-literate legal professionals has clearly soared. Companies now have to “ navigate a maze of new, and often overlapping, cybersecurity requirements ” as well as heightened security standards.

Which Markets Have Been Growing the Fastest?

Factoring in specific geographic markets, we can track the fastest-growing individual practices across the AM Law 200 over the last 3 years.

Looking at the largest practices, with more than 100 combined Partners, the strongest growth has been in Investment Funds in London (+47%) , Washington, DC (+33%) and New York City (+29%) . As reported by McKinsey , law firms responded by scaling up their Investment Funds teams to meet renewed demand for fund formation, structuring, and regulatory guidance.

Among smaller practices, with less than 100 combined Partners, the highest increases in headcount have been Litigation practices in emerging markets like Denver and Nashville. In fact, Nashville has seen significant headcount growth in a variety of practices since 2022, Real Estate (+75%), M&A (+69%), Employment Litigation (+68%) and General Litigation (+61%) . In February 2025, McDermott Will & Emery opened a Nashville office, reinforcing the city’s continued appeal to Big Law.

Looking at the AM Law 200 as a whole reveals some interesting trends, but to dig a little deeper we’ve also broken it down by AM Law grouping.

Highest Growth Practices By AM Law Group

AM Law 1-50

The most significant growth among the top 50 firms has been concentrated in New York City and London, particularly within Finance related practices.

The individual practice with the highest growth is London - Banking & Finance - Acquisition & Leveraged Finance (+75%) , primarily driven by Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, and White & Case adding Partners. The AM Law 50 has increased London-based Partner headcount by +16% in the last 3 years and shows little sign of slowing down.

AM Law 51-100

In contrast to the top 50, firms ranked 51-100 have grown headcount in a wider variety of markets and practices, but M&A ranks highly in Denver (+94%) , Boston (+66%) , Houston (+50%) and Los Angeles (+44%).

Denver - Corporate - M&A has the strongest increase in headcount, partly influenced by Taft’s recent merger with the Denver law firm Sherman & Howard.

AM Law 101-200

The highest ares of growth for the AM Law second hundred have been more Litigation heavy than the top 100.

Partner headcount within Employment Litigation practices on the West Coast increased significantly, alongside General Litigation practices across the USA. The major +135% spike in San Diego is partly due to Quarles & Brady’s merger with the California-based labor and employment boutique firm, Paul, Plevin.

Which Markets Have Been In Decline?

Across the AM Law 200 a few practices have seen significant drops in Partner headcount since 2022. M&A in Detroit (-26%) , as well as Insurance Litigation (-26%) and IP Litigation (-20%) in the Bay Area are some of the highest drop offs. However, a key broader trend has been the sharp fall in lawyers in China-based practices.

Formerly key practices such as M&A, Capital Markets, and Litigation have lost more than 220 AM Law Partners since April 2022. This combined decline in headcount has occurred in Beijing (-75%) and across China's key financial hubs, Shanghai (-72%) and Hong Kong (-20%).

With a decrease of over 100 Partners across the 3 cities, M&A practices have contracted the sharpest. The drop off reflects a broader pullback by US law firms from the Chinese market in recent years.

For reprint permission, please contact the NALP office at 202-835-1001 or email info@nalp.org.

Written using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

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Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 690,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

Unlocking AI-Powered Client Intelligence: How Law Firms Use Lawyer-Client Data to Drive Growth

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 13:54:42 GMT

When assessing a potential lateral hire, recruitment teams are keen to know as much information as possible on each candidate's client history. Knowing an Attorney's key clients and the type of work they take on is invaluable data to factor into a hiring decision.

While Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) has always held client information on individual Attorneys, the data has proved difficult to collate and structure, meaning users had to do extra digging to understand a lawyer's clientele.

So, following some very targeted feedback from many of our clients, we're delighted to release our new AI-powered Client Work tab!

Here's What's New

1. More structured data

Users needed a simple and clear overview of the clients an Attorney has worked with — no more piercing things together from scattered mentions.

2. The strength of the client relationship

Has the Attorney worked on several matters for the client or was it a one-off deal? Users needed to understand how deep the working relationship is.

What Are The Results?

You can now easily view:

Which clients an attorney has worked with
The industries where they have the most experience
The depth of their client relationships (based on deal frequency, client type, and their level of involvement)

1. Find the Right Lateral with Shared Clients

A recruiting team was looking for a new Partner to help better serve a key financial services client. They wanted the Partner to have already worked with that client.

With Partner targeting based on a specific client, they filtered potential candidates by prior work with the key institutional client.

2. Map How Competitor Teams Are Structured Around Key Clients

Business Development teams want an winning edge when preparing for pitches. Success often comes down to knowing who you're up against and clearly stating how your firm stands apart.

Example: A team in a leading international law firm used the Client Filter to map out which competitor firms had existing connections to the client. By filtering for the target client, they quickly generated a list of attorneys across different teams who mentioned that client in their work history or public records.

Client Work on PLP helps teams to:

Identify which competitor firms already have relationships with the client
Understand how those relationships are structured across practice areas
Spot gaps or opportunities to differentiate your own offering.

3. Industry-Focused Recruitment

When evaluating attorney candidates or planning a sector-specific growth strategy, firms need more than just claims of industry experience, they need data they can trust.

Client Work on PLP helps teams to:

Break down an attorney's client work by industry
See industry exposure as a percentage of total transactions
Compare candidates more objectively when industry alignment is critical

Why does this matter?

One candidate might list Healthcare on their profile, another might have 60% of their recent transactions in Healthcare, backed by actual client data.

Client Work turns that difference into a clear, competitive insight.

NEW QUOTE NEEDED

 " There's huge value in leveraging AI to get better insights out of data, that you otherwise would not be able to get with a person looking through the records one by one. "

Omkar Joshi

Director Global Business Development & Strategy, Skadden

Find Out What Pirical Can Do For Your Firm

Essential Data for Lateral Recruitment and Strategic Growth

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 660,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

How SSQ Find Candidates Quicker and Strengthen Client Relationships With Pirical Data

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 09:46:23 GMT

We spoke to James Charlton , CFO & COO at SSQ about how his team uses Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) to research the candidate market and build stronger relationships with their clients.

SSQ is a legal search and recruitment agency, working with some of the world’s leading law firms and brands. The company has placed Partners, Associates, and other legal roles into firms and in-house teams all over the world, including a number of high profile team moves and office launches.

3 Ways Pirical Helps SSQ Find the Right Lawyers

Candidate research is +25% faster

The team used to manually collate market data, now they have up-to-date information at the click of a button and a much faster research workflow.

Access to high quality, reliable data

Having strong UK, US, and global data to hand allows the Research & Consulting teams to grab the information they need, wherever the client is looking to hire.

Building stronger client relationships

When meeting with key decision makers, the team can share market intel and candidate shortlists to build confidence and trust with their clients.

The Challenge

Having access to comprehensive and accurate candidate data

Prior to adopting Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , SSQ maintained a CRM with all their candidate data. This process required members of the team manually scraping individual lawyers' information from websites and other sources to add or update existing data.

Understandably, the process became difficult to manage and very time consuming, plus the data was full of holes so wasn’t fully trusted.

Around 2017, the leadership team at SSQ felt that their "CRM days were over", aware that there were tools out there that could provide the data they needed more easily. "Having a searchable database with all the law firm & candidate data in one place was more efficient than having to input it all yourself," James pointed out. After initially using a different provider, SSQ upgraded to PLP in 2018.

"Over the last 7 years, having access to Pirical has made our research process at least +25% faster than it used to be, and with a leaner team.

The old process was a lot more manual and required more resources to keep our information up-to-date. Now the team can just log into Pirical, perform a quick search and be confident that the data is accurate and reliable . Having a more complete data set that's quicker to access has resulted in some major efficiency gains."

James Charlton

CFO & COO, SSQ

The Solution

A reliable source of data that speeds up candidate research

Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) provides SSQ's Research and Consulting teams with quick access to the data they need to find candidates and the ability to easily save them to a shareable list.

“In the past, we used to try and compile all that information ourselves but the data was full of holes. So now we can use the information on Pirical and know it’s trustworthy," James said.

No more trawling through German law websites and copies of The Lawyer for the latest candidate information!

More complete market data that helps strengthen client relationships

The breadth of data available on PLP has also helped SSQ strengthen relationships with their clients.

When speaking with key decision makers at elite global firms the team can share insights & market trends, as well as candidate shortlists for a particular role, to build the confidence and trust that's vital to bolstering that relationship.

"It means we can act like a partner with our clients and help them with their strategy and decision making.”

The Result

Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) as an integral part of the team's workflow

Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) is now a key part of the teams' daily workflow and the primary tool when researching the talent market. The CRM, which used to be the core source of information, is now the 3rd or 4th product they turn to. The numbers don't lie, in the first 6 months of 2025 the SSQ team has run over 80,000 searches!

The team can quickly perform searches and easily save relevant candidates to lists. The Moves section has also proved useful for mapping who has moved where, including lawyer moves outside of the UK.

All in all, SSQ can now easily access the data they need on a daily basis, knowing that the information provided is trustworthy and reliable. The efficiency gains have left more time to find the right candidates, make high value placements, and build stronger relationships with key clients.

“The Research team always has Pirical open on a tab."

James Charlton

CFO & COO, SSQ

Which PLP Features do the SSQ Team Use?

Find out what Pirical can do for your agency

Essential data for lateral recruitment and strategic growth

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 660,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

AM Law 100 Partner Retention: Which Firms Have Been Retaining Their Lateral Hires?

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 13:33:16 GMT

Partner retention is a vital metric for law firms so we've decided to take a look at how lateral Partner retention compares across the AM Law 100 and uncover the firms with the strongest retention rates over the last 5 years, as well as any key trends among the hires that ultimately don't work out.

Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , we've analysed how many of the lateral Partner hires made by AM Law 100 firms between 2020-2024 are still at the firm.

Note on methodology: excludes firms that made fewer than 10 lateral Partner hires and moves as a result of mergers. Data is derived from tracked lateral Partner moves, numbers may be slightly incomplete due to limited public information. Exits include Partners that left but didn't lateral to another firm, eg. retired.

Ranked: which AM Law 100 firms have had the highest lateral Partner retention rates?

Lateral Partner hires and how many then left the firm

AM Law 100, Jan 2020 - Dec 2024

The firms with 100% retention made a relatively low number of hires during this timeframe

"From my perspective, I've seen an increased focus on Partner integration across the industry, which has seen the majority of firms improve lateral retention.

A few firms stand out from the above analysis, with retention rates at or near 100%. Although they typically hire a small number of Partners annually, Cleary Gottlieb, Davis Polk, Debevoise and Fenwick are all high prestige, strong culture firms and thus rank highly. Sheppard Mullin's strong showing of 97% retention from over 100 hires also stands out.

While the first five years are important, firms with the most successful integration results think longer term and endeavor to make their lateral hires part of the fabric of their firms. "

Charles Curtis

President, CLCurtis31Consulting

How likely are lateral Partner hires to leave a few years after joining the firm?

Our analysis covers more than 11,000 Partner moves over a 5 year period and from this we've calculated the likelihood of an exit after each subsequent year of joining. As expected, very few Partners leave the firm within the first year of being hired (0.4%) but by year 4 the chance of an exit rises to 7.5% .

More interestingly, is the difference between junior and more senior Partner hires. Newly promoted Partners who were hired from their previous firm as an Associate or Counsel, are less likely to move firm again within the first few years of joining than more experienced hires who joined already as a Partner.

How does retention compare across different segments of the AM Law 100?

The average lateral Partner retention rate across the AM Law 100 is 87% . The most prominent gap in retention is between the AM Law 1-25 (89%) and 76-100 (85%) , with the top 25 firms retaining, on average, more lateral Partner hires than the rest of the AM Law.

How often do departing Partners return to their original firm?

2.2% of the exits in our analysis resulted in the Partner moving back to the firm they had previously left, what we've termed a 'boomerang move'. 31 firms registered at least one boomerang Partner move across this timeframe, the firms with more than one are shown below.

Note on methodology

Source: Pirical Legal Professionals , using publicly available data

Excludes: firms that made fewer than 10 lateral Partner hires and moves as a result of mergers

Timeframe: Jan 2020 - Dec 2024

Written using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Essential data for lateral recruitment and strategic growth

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 660,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

Inside the Numbers: The UK Legal Market in 2025

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 15:04:15 GMT

London dominates much of the UK's legal landscape but other legal hubs play a significant role and some are even growing at a faster rate. We've taken a closer look at the current distribution of the UK's top lawyers, which markets have been growing the fastest, and how large a presence US firms now have in the UK.

Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , here's a snapshot of the UK legal market in 2025.

Where Are the UK's Top Lawyers Located?

Among lawyers working at firms in The Lawyer UK 100, 94% are based in England, followed by Scotland with 5% , while the remaining share is split between Wales and Northern Ireland.

As expected, London dominates the legal landscape and accounts for 56% of The Lawyer UK 100 lawyers, with 22,225 calling it home. The next largest city is Manchester, with just over 2,700 lawyers, nearly a tenth the size of London, followed by Bristol ( 2.1k ) and Birmingham ( 1.9 k ).

These numbers highlight London’s overwhelming scale compared to other regional centres, and its distinct appeal to the largest British law firms as well as global firms.

London May Have the Largest Headcount but Which UK Cities are Growing the Fastest?

Over the last 3 years, the cities with the largest Lawyer UK 100 populations have experienced varied levels of growth. Manchester ( +32% ), Exeter ( +32% ) and Bristol ( +31% ) have increased lawyer headcount the most. These three cities have grown faster than London ( +20% ) over the same period.

" Powered by a varied economy, strategic location, excellent transport links, and a comparatively lower cost of living ", Manchester has experienced strong legal sector growth in recent years. Manchester offers a wide range of potential clients to firms looking to grow, partly due to the city's role as "the UK’s foremost tech hub outside of London."

Bristol's rapid rise could be due to its growing status as a cost-effective alternative to London , attracting lawyers to move there and firms to open new offices , establishing the city as a key legal hub outside of the capital.

What Are the Largest Legal Practices in London?

Corporate remains the largest primary practice area among The Lawyer UK 100 firms in London, with 3,059 lawyers primarily focused on Corporate work, a 27% increase since 2022. This growth is likely driven by sustained M&A activity , which continues to fuel strong demand for specialist Corporate lawyers in 2025.

Real Estate holds the second-largest headcount with 3,047 lawyers and has grown by 14%, while Dispute Resolution & Litigation has increased by 17% to 2,438 lawyers. Banking & Finance ( 1,992 ) and Employment ( 1,367 ) round out the top five largest practices in London.

What Are the Fastest-Growing Practices in the UK?

The fastest-growing legal practices among Lawyer UK 100 firms, again highlight Manchester and Bristol as key legal hubs on the rise.

Manchester-based practices that have seen lawyer headcount increase the most are Private Client ( +55% ), driven by several law firms including JMW and Irwin Mitchell, Employment ( +29% ), from the likes of Lewis Silkin and Hill Dickinson, and Insurance ( +27% ), with DWF and Clyde & Co growing the most.

While in Bristol, Corporate ( +42% ) and Dispute Resolution & Litigation ( +39% ) have grown thanks to firms such as Burges Salmon and TLT.

The Largest Law Firms in the UK by Partner Headcount

UK Headquartered Firms

Firms within The Lawyer UK 100 have increased UK-based Partner headcount by +14% since 2022.

In terms of total Partners, CMS leads the way with 424 , followed by Keystone Law ( 372 ) and Addleshaw Goddard ( 346 ). Knights PLC has now entered the top six, promoting nearly 30 new Partners in its latest round, bringing its total to 328 .

In contrast, the Magic Circle firms operate with smaller Partnerships, collectively employing just under 950 Partners in the UK. A&O Shearman currently have the most with 224 Partners , followed by Linklaters ( 219 ), Clifford Chance ( 215 ), Freshfields ( 161 ), and Slaughter and May ( 105 ).

"Partner recruitment in London remains extremely active. In particular, US firms continue to make headlines, with some fast-growing firms such as Paul Weiss needing to hire multiple Partners and other firms looking to achieve more dominance by building out their London bases.

Despite this, we have seen a slight reduction in immediate partnership hires this year. Among both US and UK-headquartered firms, there has been more of a focus on hiring gradually and based on specific requirements. Many firms are moving away from high volume hires and showing a real appetite to attract Partners who can make a strategic difference."

Amy Hambleton | Director, RedLaw Recruitment

US Headquartered Firms

London has become a key area of growth for US firms in recent years, with AM Law 100 Partner headcount growing by +22% since 2022.

Kirkland & Ellis, in particular, has built up one of the largest UK-based partnerships of any non-UK firm, with 230 Partners, surpassing even some of the UK's biggest domestic players. Hogan Lovells ( 173 ), Norton Rose Fulbright ( 167 ), Dentons ( 159 ), and White & Case ( 150 ) aren't far behind, all maintaining large teams that signal a long-term investment in the UK market.

Written using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Unlock unparalleled coverage of the legal market

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 690,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

A Decade of Making Winning Decisions With Data: Top Takeaways From Pirical Pioneers 2025

Tue, 20 May 2025 16:31:38 GMT

Last week, Pirical celebrated a decade of innovation at our biggest Pirical Pioneers event to date! We brought together a fantastic crowd of law firm Recruitment, Strategy, HR & DEI leaders for some insightful panel discussions and previews of our latest tools & new features.

Now that the dust has settled, here’s a recap of the key takeaways from the day.

You’ve Shared Your Challenges and Data, and We’ve Helped Turn It Into Winning Decisions

Our CEO & Founder, Jason Ku, kicked things off by talking about his journey from a consultant at McKinsey to the founder of Pirical. Pirical was born from the idea of making better business decisions using data, plus a huge number of meetings over breakfast, lunch & dinner (who knew a free meal makes someone more likely to take a meeting).

From these meetings Jason found a home for his idea of ‘making data useful’ , the legal sector. And so began Pirical’s ongoing partnership with many of the world’s biggest law firms. 10 years down the line we’ve built a host of data-driven tools to address the variety of challenges faced by our customers. As Jason summed it up, “Pirical Pioneers 2025 marks the 10-year anniversary of us making winning decisions with data.”

How Much of an Impact Does Lawyer Productivity Have on a Firm’s Revenue Goals?

Next up, our Director of Analytics Consulting, Rob Griffiths, debuted an exciting pilot programme we've been running with customers of Pirical On Demand (POD) , the secrets of Associate productivity.

Back in 2024, we were approached by a law firm with an ambitious growth strategy to double revenues in 5 years. The firm was already growing headcount as much as possible and felt that after a recent period of high inflation and rate rises, increasing the rates of chargeable hours wasn't an option. This left productivity as the key area of focus.

In our deepest analysis yet, we shared insights derived from 10,000+ lawyers and more than 31 million billable hours over a 5 year period. The team compared how ‘Firm X’ was performing compared to a group of similar peer firms and found that productivity had been falling. So what factors were at play?

We tested dozens of hypotheses around hiring, retention, attrition, firm structure, offices, holiday allowance, business development, salaries and more. As a result, we uncovered plenty of areas for Firm X to work on in order to increase productivity to the Market Leaders level.

Using AI to Uncover the Clients That Work With Specific Partners

One of the most frequently asked questions we get from customers of Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , is around having better visibility over the type of work and types of clients that individual Partners take on. Naturally, when assessing potential lateral candidates, firms are keen to know which clients each Partner has represented.

Inspired by this topic, the team has been working on a solution that uses AI to structure all the client data Pirical holds on Partners in PLP. Fueled by the coffee break, our updated Client Work tab was the focus of the next session.

Client Work allows users to view a clear and concise breakdown of the clients & industries that each Partner on PLP has worked with. This new feature automatically extracts client information from a variety of sources using AI.

Navigating DEI in Today’s World: Some Practical Tips From Our Panelists

One of our panel discussions explored how leading law firms are practically approaching DEI in today’s shifting landscape. The conversation highlighted how some firms are beginning to integrate inclusion metrics directly into their core business analytics. Doing so requires a high level of transparency, but it’s also key to securing meaningful investment and long-term commitment.

Another theme that arose was the importance of interpreting DEI data carefully. Without context, data can be misleading, especially when dealing with complex outcomes like representation, progression, and belonging. Ultimately, the panel underscored that DEI data shouldn’t sit in isolation. When combined with performance, retention, and engagement metrics, it offers a more complete view of how people experience the workplace.

The session closed with a clear message: the firms making the most progress are those treating inclusion like any other core business priority, one that is measured rigorously, interpreted thoughtfully, and acted on with intent.

Bringing Your Firm’s Data to Life With Customisable Dashboards

As highlighted in Jason’s opening remarks, one of Pirical’s core principles is to make data useful. Our latest development in Pirical On Demand (POD) , has been designed with exactly that in mind, to make your firm’s data even more useful and accessible.

Some of our users have told us how helpful it would be to be able to create custom reports of their firm’s data directly in POD. In response, we've built Dashboards, a powerful way to explore and visualise your firm’s data. Stay tuned, Dashboards are coming soon!

Dashboards allow users to compile individual analyses to a customisable report at the click of a button. This gives you the ability to view different analyses side by side for better comparison & organisation, add notes to clearly explain the analysis or summarise key points, and easily download multiple analyses as one easy to read file. Dashboards can be edited to whatever layout, sizing and order you want to display, alongside text fields that help you tell the story you want to highlight. Sharing internal reports using POD data just got easier!

Curious to learn more about any of our latest features or programmes?

People analytics software & consulting for law firms

After 10 years working with the world’s leading law firms, we’ve learned one thing: great decisions start with great data. That’s why Pirical delivers the most definitive legal insights so you can run a winning law firm.

Mapped: What Would the McDermott and Schulte Merger Look Like?

Fri, 09 May 2025 15:46:44 GMT

Yesterday, McDermott Will & Emery and Schulte Roth & Zabel announced their plans to merge. The combination would create a law firm of around 1,600 attorneys and $2.8 billion of revenue. The merged firm would rank in the top 20 of the AM Law 100.

If approved, the merger would unite McDermott's broad expertise in healthcare, dispute resolution, and corporate law with Schulte's deep focus on hedge funds, private capital, and financial regulation. This latest announcement follows in the footsteps of other recent combinations like Herbert Smith Freehills & Kramer Levin and Troutman Pepper & Locke Lord .

Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , we've taken a look at which locations & practices would grow under the merger.

By Merging With Schulte, McDermott Will Bolster Their Presence in New York City and London

Shared Depth Across Corporate, Litigation and Finance Practices Makes the Merger a Natural Fit

Both Firms Can Expect to Lose a Small Number of Partners Between Now and the Completion of the Merger

Written using data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Unlock unparalleled coverage of the legal market

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 660,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

Inside the Numbers: The US Legal Market in 2025

Tue, 06 May 2025 12:45:54 GMT

The United States remains the country with the highest number of attorneys in the world but what does the US legal landscape really look like?

Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , we've taken a look at where US attorneys are located, which practice areas they're working in and the leading law firms by headcount.

Which US States and Cities Have the Highest Number of Attorneys?

The US market is vast but legal talent remains concentrated in a handful of major cities and states.

Our latest data shows that over 20% of all AM Law 200 attorneys are based in New York City, with 27,400 calling it home . That’s nearly double the population of the next largest city, Washington, D.C. ( 15.3k attorneys). Chicago ( 8.8k ), Los Angeles ( 7.8k ), Boston ( 5.3k ), and San Francisco ( 4.9k ) make up the rest of the major legal hubs.

Combined, these six cities account for 53% of US-based attorneys, highlighting that, despite growing flexibility in where attorneys can work, Big Law still thrives in cities with the highest client density and legal infrastructure.

A few other locations also boast significant headcount. Texas is the state with the 3rd largest attorney population in the US, after New York & California, where 7% of AM Law 200 attorneys are now based.

What Are the Most Prominent Legal Practices in Each Major US City?

Litigation remains the largest practice area across the United States, with New York City ( 8.9k ) and Washington, D.C. ( 6.6k ) being home to the majority of Litigation attorneys.

Corporate and Finance roles are heavily concentrated in New York City. Notably, Banking & Finance attorney headcount has nearly doubled since our 2023 article , reflecting the city’s dominant role as the country’s financial center.

Cybersecurity & Data Protection practices are also on the rise, particularly in Washington, D.C., where 474 attorneys now specialize in the field. This growth likely suggests the increasing demand for legal expertise in privacy and data regulation, as more organizations look to adopt new technologies whilst also working to safeguard sensitive information, especially following a record number of data breaches at law firms in 2024.

Who’s Leading the Market? The Largest Law Firms by Partner Headcount

Kirkland & Ellis have the most US-based Partners with 1,451 currently working at the firm, up from 1,263 in 2023, showcasing their continued dominance at the top of the US legal market. Close behind are Greenberg Traurig ( 1,199 ) and Holland & Knight ( 1,152 ).

One of the major developments so far this year has been the formation of Troutman Pepper Locke , the product of a merger between Troutman Pepper and Locke Lord. The newly-combined firm has climbed the Partner headcount ranks to now have 717 US-based Partners. Strategic mergers like this continue to reshape the legal landscape, as firms prioritize regional expansion and practice depth, signaling that scale and adaptability remain essential in today’s competitive legal market.

Written using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Unlock unparalleled coverage of the legal market

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 660,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

Fierce Competition For Legal Talent: How AM Law Firms Grew in 2024

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 15:19:03 GMT

Overall, 2024 was a strong year for the AM Law legal market, with demand for legal services experiencing a " historic growth surge " and most firms achieving " strong profits per equity Partner ". It was also a year that highlighted an increasingly competitive legal talent market, as lateral moves and mergers abounded.

Using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , we've taken a look at the lateral Partner hires and headcount growth from 2024, to see which law firms and practices had the most interesting growth stories of the year.

Lateral Partner hires in 2024

The number of lateral Partner hires increased across all segments of the AM Law 200

Both halves of the top 100 hired 8% more lateral Partners in 2024 than 2023, whereas second hundred firms increased lateral hires by 3%.

Lots of AM Law 100 firms were active in the lateral market

Kirkland & Ellis (134) and Lewis Brisbois (106) made the most Partner hires across 2024.

But not every firm grew headcount through lateral hires, some had a higher number of Partner departures

Kirkland & Ellis had a similar ratio of Partner hires (134) to Partner exits (132). Paul Hastings (+35), Polsinelli (+32), Greenberg Traurig (+30) and Gordon & Rees (+12) all hired more Partners than they lost.

Firms such as Paul Hastings, Baker McKenzie and Polsinelli grew aggressively by making large group lateral hires

Polsinelli's poaching of 47 lawyers (30 Partners) from Holland & Knight was the largest group move of the year.

"Firms tend to covet group lateral hires because there’s a higher likelihood of success, a group move often means stickier client relationships and more confidence that the assembled team will deliver. Secondly, large group moves make more noise in the press and show that the firm is growing, which is good for the brand!"

Gary Miles | Miles Partner Placement

Lateral Partner demand in certain practices shifted across different segments of the AM Law 200

"Ultimately, every law firm segment walked away from 2024 with something to brag about in terms of demand growth, although some had weightier hauls than others." Thomson Reuters, 2025 Report on the State of the US Legal Market

AM Law 1-50

The top 50 firms primarily increased lateral Partner hiring across Banking & Finance (+43%) and Corporate - Investment Funds (+36%) practices, where there were corresponding decreases in hiring activity among lower ranked firms. Real Estate (-34%) and Litigation (-7%) saw the highest drops in lateral moves to AM Law 1-50 firms.

AM Law 51-100

The second half of the top 100 saw major increases in Partner hires across Tax (+114%) and Litigation - Crime, Fraud & Investigations (+61%), while the sharpest declines were in Corporate - Investment Funds (-41%) and Banking & Finance (-27%).

AM Law 101-200

Second hundred firms increased lateral Partner hiring across Tax (+48%) and Real Estate (+37%), where the -34% decrease among AM Law 1-50 firms may have created an opportunity.

Partner headcount growth in 2024

Paul, Weiss had the highest growth in Partner numbers

The firm's significant rise in Partner headcount (+42%) is partly down to the adoption of a non-equity Partnership tier in 2024. The firm was also very active in the lateral market.

UK firms like Allen & Overy and Herbert Smith Freehills have used mergers with AM Law firms to grow in the US

In 2024, A&O Shearman completed its combination and Herbert Smith Freehills announced plans to merge with Kramer Levin . More trans-atlantic combinations are likely to continue, as British firms seek to cement their position in the US market and keep up with other UK rivals.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia had the highest increase in AM Law 100 Partners

Riyadh (+132%) had the sharpest growth in Partner numbers while Hong Kong had the largest decline (-18%). Back in 2023, Nashville was the city with the highest increase in AM Law 100 Partner headcount (+175%), but growth slowed to just +3% in 2024.

AM Law 100 practices with the highest headcount growth

The increased demand for hiring Finance and Corporate Partners is reflected across many of the highest growth practices from 2024. In terms of location, London and New York City feature heavily in the top 30.

Written using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Unlock unparalleled coverage of the legal market

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 620,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

Recent Growth in the New York City Legal Market

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 12:43:23 GMT

Using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , we've taken a look at New York City's Partner headcount growth and lateral market activity over the last 12 months to which firms and practices have been growing in the Big Apple.

Partner headcount growth ��

The highest growth firms are a mixture of AM Law 100 and UK headquartered firms

UK firm Freshfields tops the list with +36% Partner headcount growth in 2024, with Linklaters (+22%) also significantly increasing NYC headcount.

Banking & Finance practices have had some of the highest increases in headcount

Banking, Finance and Corporate related practices in NYC have seen the highest rates of Partner growth in the last 12 months.

Practices with the sharpest increases in headcount have been driven by a handful of firms; Financial Regulation (Norton Rose Fulbright, Freshfields, Sullivan & Cromwell) and Corporate (Kirkland & Ellis, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Loeb & Loeb).

Lateral market activity ��

The AM Law 50 dominate lateral Partner hires in New York City and increased hiring in 2024

The top 50 firms make more than double the number of lateral Partner hires than the AM Law 51-100 or 101-200. Firms ranked 1-50 also increased the number of lateral NYC hires they made by +23% in 2024, compared to +7% from the second 50 and -9% from the second hundred.

Demand for lateral Partners working in Investment Funds increased in 2024

The number of Investment Funds hires in NYC grew by +53%, compared to 2023. Kirkland & Ellis (+14), Simpson Thacher & Bartlett (+11) and Paul, Weiss (+7) have increased their Partner numbers in this practice area the most.

Despite increases in a couple of sub-specialisms of Litigation, Litigation as a whole, saw lateral hiring drop by -34%, alongside Capital Markets (-37%).

Kirkland & Ellis and Paul Hastings made the most lateral Partner hires

The firms most active in the NYC lateral Partner market are from the top end of the AM Law rankings.

Written using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Unlock unparalleled coverage of the legal market

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 660,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

Who Made the Cut? A Look at 2024's AM Law Partner Promotions so Far

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 16:30:44 GMT

As we near the end of the year, there have been a flurry of Partner promotion announcements from the top AM Law firms. Overall, promotion class sizes have decreased for the second year in a row . But is this a dramatic shift or an expected pivot in strategy?

Using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , we've looked into a few of the trends among the promoted Partners from 2024 so far and how the promotion classes compare to previous years.

Across most of the top AM Law firms, Partner promotion class sizes have decreased from 2023

After a record number of promotions in 2023 , Kirkland & Ellis promoted fewer Partners than the previous year, as have most of the AM Law 1-25 firms that have already announced their promotion classes for 2024.

There's a similar trend among the top UK law firms as well

Eversheds Sutherland and A&O Shearman are the only top 10 UK firms to have promoted more Partners in 2024 than 2023. A&O Shearman's Partner class partly grew thanks to the combination of Allen & Overy (32) and Shearman Sterling (8) Associates.

However, the decreasing volume of Partner promotions is a return to more normal levels after a peak in 2022

The number of promoted Partners increased dramatically in 2022 and remained high in 2023. This year's combined numbers are still higher than the 2020 or 2021 class sizes.

This year's decrease in BigLaw promotions has occurred across most practice areas, but Corporate numbers have grown

The share of promoted Partners that work in Corporate practices has increased by +6% compared to 2023, while most other practice areas have decreased by a small amount.

The focus on Corporate practices is primarily driven by attorneys working in M&A and Investment Funds

M&A demand has been growing steadily this year and ' activity is only expected to keep climbing because of the needs and desires of corporate leaders to transform their businesses — due primarily to the impact of AI and to accelerate their growth in a sluggish economy .'

Litigation and Banking & Finance also remain popular practice areas among this year's promoted Partners.

The promoted Partners are a mixture of homegrown talent and lateral hires

Some are homegrown talent who have spent the majority of their career at their current firm, while others have been laterally hired by their current firm after spending a few years working at a rival law firm. The top AM Law firms have all deployed slightly different strategies to acquiring and developing their Associates.

The level of experience among 2024's promoted Partners varies

The broad range of experience could relate to the mixture of equity and non-equity Partner tiers.

Kirkland & Ellis continue to remain an outlier in promoting more junior attorneys to their Partnership

Of the 200 Partners promoted by Kirkland & Ellis this year, most have 6-7 years of experience.

Note on methodology

Sources: Pirical Legal Professionals , using publicly available data

Press releases from AM Law 1-25 firms that had announced Partner promotions at time of writing

(Kirkland & Ellis, Baker McKenzie, DLA Piper, Latham & Watkins, Skadden, Ropes & Gray, White & Case, Morgan Lewis, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Hogan Lovells, Goodwin Procter)

Written using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

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Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 620,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

Seamless Lateral Partner Integration: Strategies for Success

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 11:34:47 GMT

This is a summary of a podcast we hosted on Lateral Partner Integration, you can listen to the full episode on Spotify or YouTube .

Earlier this year, we hosted a dynamic panel discussion featuring Bridget Salazar (Morrison & Foerster) , Kat Davis (Pillsbury) , and Chuck Curtis (CLCurtis31 Consulting) . These thought leaders shared invaluable insights into the often-overlooked yet crucial process of lateral partner integration. Beyond onboarding, integration is about crafting a strategic, supportive path that helps partners succeed and thrive within their new firms.

From fostering strong client connections to encouraging collaboration across teams, effective integration unlocks the full potential of incoming talent. Firms increasingly recognize that a well-executed integration program not only attracts top-tier partners but also secures their long-term success and retention.

Why Lateral Integration Matters

Successful integration is a competitive edge. New partners want to see how a firm will support their practice and client relationships. Firms that excel in this area start demonstrating their approach during recruitment, positioning integration as a core element of their value proposition.

Effective integration programs provide a clear roadmap, showcasing how the firm plans to empower new partners. This strategic focus creates confidence, reduces transition friction, and paves the way for mutual success.

Measuring Success

Evaluating lateral partner integration requires a mix of quantitative and qualitative metrics. Financial indicators like revenue generation, billable hours, and client retention offer clear, measurable outcomes. At the same time, qualitative factors—such as cultural fit, personal satisfaction, and positive feedback from colleagues—reveal important dimensions of a partner's impact.

The metrics for success can vary by individual. While some partners excel in client development, others shine through mentorship, leadership, or strengthening the firm’s culture. Firms that embrace these diverse contributions create a more well-rounded integration approach.

The Role of Integration Professionals

Dedicated integration professionals or teams are instrumental in ensuring smooth transitions. By coordinating activities, managing relationships, and addressing challenges, they provide consistent support throughout the process. Introducing these resources early—ideally during recruitment—makes a strong first impression and sets the tone for success.

Building a Strong Integration Program

Developing a robust integration program involves several key components:

1. Written Integration Plan
A tailored plan provides a roadmap for the integration process, outlining clear expectations and steps for success.

2. Dedicated Support
A professional or team dedicated to integration ensures partners always have access to resources and guidance when needed.

3. Stakeholder Buy-In
Support from practice leaders and stakeholders signals to new partners that their success is a priority for the firm.

4. Transparent Roles
Clearly defining roles and responsibilities fosters collaboration and avoids confusion during the integration process.

5. Open Communication
Regular check-ins and feedback channels create trust, enabling real-time adjustments to integration plans.

6. External Expertise
Coaches or consultants can provide impartial guidance, helping partners focus on their goals and navigate challenges.

 7. Continuous Improvement
Feedback from partners and stakeholders allows firms to refine their programs, ensuring they remain effective and adaptable.

Addressing Common Challenges

Integration isn’t without its challenges. Partners may struggle to connect when their specialties don’t align with the firm’s expertise, or when they are geographically distanced from the rest of the team. Addressing these issues early and thoughtfully is crucial to overcoming obstacles and fostering success.

Driving Long-Term Success

Seamless integration blends structured planning with flexibility, communication, and ongoing support. It cultivates a culture of collaboration, empowering new partners to feel valued and effective from day one. By investing in integration programs that focus on tailored strategies, law firms lay the foundation for long-term growth and collective success.

Firms that prioritize integration as a strategic initiative not only enhance the experience for new partners but also secure a brighter future for their teams and clients.

Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

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Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 620,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

Mapped: What Would the Herbert Smith Freehills & Kramer Levin Merger Look Like?

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 17:26:11 GMT

Earlier this week, Herbert Smith Freehills and Kramer Levin announced their plans to merge. The combination would create a law firm of around 2,700 lawyers and $2 billion of revenue. The Partner vote is due to take place in February 2025 and if approved, the merged firm would rank in the top 25 globally.

Using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , we've taken a look at which locations & practices would grow under the merger and where Herbert Smith Freehills might sit relative to rival UK firms seeking to expand in the United States.

Herbert Smith Freehills will gain a stronger foothold in the US if the merger with Kramer Levin goes ahead

Both firms have similar levels of practice area depth and would strengthen shared practices such as Litigation, Corporate and Finance

Herbert Smith Freehills could catch up with UK rivals in the US should the merger go ahead

Both firms can expect to lose a small number of Partners between now and the completion of the merger

Written using data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

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Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 615,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

What's Hot and What's Not? Practice Growth in the AM Law Second Hundred

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 12:01:28 GMT

Not long ago, we looked at practice area growth among the AM Law 100 and found some interesting trends. Cybersecurity and Corporate work led the way with the highest increases in Partner headcount, while various Litigation practices saw sharp decreases in Partner numbers.

So now comes the turn of the AM Law 101-200! Using data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , we've taken a look at Partner headcount growth by practice between 2019-2024 to reveal which practices are on the up and which have been shrinking.

Practices that have been growing ��

What's hot? Top 30 growing practices in the AM Law 101-200

Litigation work is fundamental to the AM Law second hundred

Across the AM Law 200 more Partners work in Litigation than any other practice group. For firms ranked 101-200, Litigation represents the primary practice group of 42% of Partners and accounts for almost half of the top growing practices listed above.

In particular, Partner headcount has increased in Employment Litigation and IP Litigation practices across multiple locations.

AM Law divide

Government Law and Private Client work are focuses of growth for second hundred firms, but not the AM Law 100

Two of the AM Law 101-200's highest growth practice groups make up some of the lowest growth areas among AM Law 100 firms.

The clear practice area in common across both halves of the AM Law 200 is Cybersecurity, Privacy & Data Protection, where Partner headcount has grown significantly for the top 100 (+36%) and the second hundred (+34%).

AM Law divide

California has been a focus of growth for AM Law 101-200 firms but has seen relatively low growth among the top 100

Across San Diego, San Francisco and Los Angeles, Partner headcount among second hundred firms has grown by +32% since 2019, compared to just +11% for AM Law 100 firms. Litigation work and a handful of firms growing aggressively (such as Buchalter, Fisher Philips and Fennermore Craig) has driven this West Coast increase.

Back in May, our analysis of practice growth among the AM Law 100 found that California had experienced relatively low growth, partly driven by a decline in some Litigation practices.

Practices that have been shrinking ��

What's not? Top 30 declining practices in the AM Law 101-200

Product Liability is the most common declining practice area

The practice has decreased in headcount across multiple cities since 2019, with a number of firms losing Partners to bigger rivals. Most notably, AM Law 100 firm Nelson Mullins has poached Product Liability Partners from several second hundred firms in recent years, including Tucker Ellis, Lathrop GPM and Benesch.

AM Law divide

The AM Law 100 are growing in Regulatory & Compliance, Corporate and International Trade more than firms ranked 101-200

Several of the AM Law 101-200’s lowest growth practice groups make up some of the highest growth areas among top 100 firms.

The gulf in Corporate work is particularly stark, the AM Law 100 has increased Partner numbers in Corporate practices by over 1,600 since 2019, compared to a headcount rise of just 167 Partners among the second hundred. Currently, Corporate is the primary practice group of 20% of AM Law 100 Partners and 10% of 101-200 Partners.

Detroit, Phoenix and a few Midwestern cities have seen decreases in Partner headcount

Detroit based law firms Honigman and Dickinson Wright account for a significant number of the Partner departures there. While Dickinson Wright again, makes up much of the decline in headcount in Phoenix, alongside Quarles & Brady.

Note on methodology

Source: Pirical Legal Professionals , using publicly available data

Timeframe: Jan 2019 - Sep 2024

Includes practices with more than 15 Partners and attributes 1 primary practice per Partner

Includes cities with more than 200 Partners and attorneys with multiple locations have been equally distributed across each

Written using data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

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Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 610,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

The New York City Legal Market in Numbers

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 14:38:52 GMT

The sheer size of the New York legal market relative to other US markets makes it rather unique. The city is by far the largest legal hub in the United States, with close to 10,000 Partners from AM Law 200 & Global 200 firms calling it home.

Using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals , we've taken a look at some of the trends and shifts driving the NYC market's ever-growing Partner population.

Firms have been growing their Partner numbers through lateral hires and increasingly, promotions

The volume of lateral Partner hires in New York has been consistently high since 2021 and the first half of 2024 saw a lot of movement

Lateral hires in NYC bounced back from a quiet 2020 and 2024 looks set to be as active as recent years, with almost 400 Partner moves to major firms occurring in the first half of the year.

The American Lawyer recently reported that the number of AM Law 50 Partner moves through the first two quarters of this year is tied for the second-highest total through Q2 of the last six years (in particular New York and London), with the increase being partly down to " a natural recovery, as firms are starting to feel like they’ve evened out."

Firms are also growing by promoting more and more Associates to Partner

Partner promotions in New York City grew by 114% between 2020-2023 and the 788 promotions recorded last year surpassed the number of lateral hires (579).

This significant increase could relate to stiffer competition for talent and the growing trend of law firms adopting 2 tier Partnership models. As Thomson Reuters state , "Since early 2020, the average law firm has replenished the ranks of its non-equity Partner tier at a noticeably higher rate than it has for its equity Partner tier."

The firms that promoted the most Associates to Partner in 2023, did so at varying levels of experience

Combined, Kirkland & Ellis, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Latham & Watkins made over 100 NYC based promotions in 2023.

However, the firms differed when it came to years of experience. Kirkland & Ellis predominantly promoted Associates with 6-7 years of experience, while Latham & Watkins and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett handed out promotions to more experienced attorneys.

BigLaw dominates growth in New York City and the fastest growing firms deployed different strategies to get there

The fastest growing firms in New York City are primarily from the AM Law top 30

Allen & Overy's merger with Shearman & Sterling helped the firm increase its NYC Partner headcount, while Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins have significantly added to their Partner numbers since 2020.

The lower ranked AM Law 100 firms are struggling to keep pace with the top 30

In 2020 and 2021, AM Law firms ranked 31-100 had higher rates of Partner growth than the top 30. But over the last few years, the top 30 AM Law firms have grown their NYC Partner numbers at a much higher rate.

In the last 12 months, the top 30 firms have increased Partner headcount by 6.8%, compared to just 1.2% for the rest of the AM Law 100.

The fastest growing firms had different strategies

The " Lateral Lovers"

Firms that grew mostly through lateral recruitment

The "Promoters"

Firms that grew their Partnership mostly through promoting their Associates

The "Happy Hybrids"

Firms that grew mostly through a balance of recruitment and promotions

Corporate and Litigation work remain the largest practices in New York City, but Cybersecurity has seen the highest growth

Corporate practices are still key

As the financial centre of the United States, "much of the practice is driven by corporate work and all of the firms located in NYC have financial institutions as clients." Georgetown Law's summary of the dominant practice work in New York is reflected in our data, with strong growth in Investment Funds (+28%), Emerging Companies & Venture Capital (+23%), and M&A (+22%).

Cybersecurity, Privacy & Data Protection has been booming

The fastest growing practice area since 2020, by some margin, is Cybersecurity, Privacy & Data Protection (+50%). In a recent article , we found that AM Law 100 Partner numbers in Cybersecurity had shot up in both NYC (+79%) and Chicago (+71%).

According to leaders of Sidley Austin's Privacy and Cybersecurity practice, views around privacy and data security are changing: "Concerns about misinformation and the misuse of personal information have created a ' crisis of new technologies ' or ' techlash ', which has shifted popular views about privacy in the United States and forced the hand of legislators and regulators."

Litigation work has seen relatively little growth in NYC

Despite Partner numbers in Litigation practices remaining high (over 3,200 Partners), growth in the practice has been quite low (+9%). The only Litigation practice areas that have seen significant growth are Real Estate (+49%) and Construction Litigation (+48%).

Note on methodology

Source: Pirical Legal Professionals , using publicly available data

Timeframe: 2020 - 2024

Written using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Unlock unparalleled coverage of the legal market

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 600,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

Merger mania: what's driving so many AM Law mergers and what will the combined firms look like?

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 10:59:49 GMT

In the first half of September, Troutman Pepper (51st in the AM Law 200) and Locke Lord (97th) voted to approve their merger, Womble Bond Dickinson (88th) announced they were combining with Lewis Roca (175th), and Ballard Spahr (99th) revealed their plans to merge with Lane Powell (sub-200).

This burst of activity clearly represents a desire from some AM Law firms to scale and grow. But why are so many firms planning mergers in 2024 and what will the combined firms look like once complete? We've taken a look using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals .

Second 50 AM Law firms have experienced slower growth than the top 50 and are merging in order to stay competitive

In 2020 & 2021, AM Law firms ranked 51-100 achieved much higher rates of annual Partner growth than their top 50 peers. However, since 2022 that trend has reversed and over the last 36 months the top 50 firms have registered stronger and more consistent headcount growth.

1-50 ranked firms are growing steadily, but for lower ranked firms " it's harder to grow through laterals without being dented by attrition of your own ." In the last 12 months AM Law 50 firms have increased Partner headcount by 3.2%, compared to just 0.7% from the second 50 firms.

In an effort to keep up with their competitors, continue to grow, and increase revenue, more & more firms outside of the top 50 are looking to merge.

Troutman Pepper will grow their Partnership in a few key cities and gain a foothold in Texas for the first time

The merger is likely to create a 1,600-lawyer firm, with revenue of around $1.5 billion, and rank in the top 30 of the AM Law. Troutman Pepper and Locke Lord share several key practice areas , namely Litigation, Real Estate and Corporate.

Womble Bond Dickinson will significantly grow their presence in the Southwest

The merger is likely to create a 1,300-lawyer firm, with revenue of around $742 million. By combining with Lewis Roca, Womble Bond Dickinson will primarily increase headcount across the firm's Litigation, Real Estate and Intellectual Property practices.

Ballard Spahr will open a new regional presence by expanding into the Northwest

The merger is likely to create a 750-lawyer firm, with revenue of around $584 million. Ballard Spahr will be boosting depth in Litigation and Corporate practice areas by merging with Lane Powell.

Written using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Unlock unparalleled coverage of the legal market

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 600,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

How an AM Law 100 firm leverages Pirical data for strategic research

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 16:43:03 GMT

We spoke to the Research team at an AM Law 100 firm, about how they use Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) to enhance their recruitment and competitor research strategies.

The challenge

Having access to rich enough data to support the firm's research goals

The firm places a lot of value on conducting regular research to better understand developments in the market. In order to satisfy their goals, the Research team needed access to an accurate and in-depth data source that could help them carry out competitive landscape analysis, lateral recruitment research and gather targeted competitor intelligence.

Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) has helped bolster the team's analytical approach and started saving them hours of time.

With all the relevant data in one place and backed up by powerful search filters, the team can research which markets, industries or practices multiple firms are in with one search; "Being able to search across all the biographies for all the firms we are interested in is a huge time saver... knowing the database is fairly comprehensive allows us to quickly get results instead of having to run the same search 1 to 500 times on various law firm websites."

Using the same granular search filters, they can also compile lists of candidates that match the firm's recruitment criteria and identity existing relationships between clients and other firms when carrying out competitive intelligence research.

With Pirical data the team can:

Save time understanding the competitive landscape

Researching law firms’ presence in specific markets and practices used to require individually searching each firm’s website.

PLP unlocks the ability to search across all relevant attorney profiles for the firms the team are interested in, saving significant time. Powerful search filters help them drill down into precise market research questions, results which can be gathered and saved quickly.

Find the right candidates for lateral recruitment

Using the same granular search capabilities, the team can build out lists of potential candidates for the firm's lateral recruitment purposes.

They can search for attorneys by role, experience, location, rankings and more to generate candidate lists that meet the criteria. Having previously used another provider, the team understand that in order to work, "You really need a comprehensive database."

Get deeper competitive intelligence insights

When conducting research for a RFP, it can be difficult to find extensive results on less public-intensive practice areas.

With PLP, they can search for firms and attorneys that have previous client work experience. This helps them understand which firms have worked with a client before and which matters were worked on. The clearer picture helps the Research team better articulate any potential clients' needs when bidding for work.

Find out what PLP can do for your firm

Unlock unparalleled coverage of the legal market

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 600,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

Which firms are driving growth in the London legal market?

Wed, 28 Aug 2024 10:45:45 GMT

At an event we recently hosted in London, we analyzed some of the trends driving Partner growth in London over the last few years.

Using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals , we've taken a look at London's Partner headcount growth, uncovering which firms & practices are flourishing and how UK firms are competing with their US rivals in the market.

Partner moves recovered to pre-covid levels in 2022 and are not showing signs of slowing down

According to Bloomberg Law , "Partner hires in London hit record high levels in the first half of the year compared with in 2023", primarily driven by US firms.

UK and US firms are using the lateral market and acquiring smaller firms to help fuel their growth

The firms with the largest increases in Partner headcount are a mixture of UK & US firms and each deployed different strategies in order to grow. Kirkland & Ellis, for example, have focused on lateral hiring, while Mishcon de Reya have primarily grown through the acquisition of Taylor Vinters.

When looking at Partner headcount growth as a percentage, US firms are growing more aggressively

In terms of relative Partner growth, the fastest growing firms in London are all from the US. In fact, Addleshaw Goddard and Mishcon de Reya are the only UK headquartered firms to make the top 20.

US headcount growth is dominated by Corporate, Litigation and Banking & Finance practices

The AM Law firms that are expanding in London have focused on a few key practice areas. In particular, Corporate - Investment Funds has seen a boom in Partner headcount.

Magic Circle firms are struggling to keep pace with the large US firms

The top 5 AM Law firms have maintained higher rates of growth than the Magic Circle since 2020, however the main focus of growth for these UK firms has probably been the US market.

Kirkland & Ellis are on course to have more Partners in London than any of the Magic Circle law firms in 2026

Highlighting the story of major US growth in London, Kirkland & Ellis look set to overtake A&O Shearman and Linklaters in terms of total Partner numbers (having already surpassed the rest of the Magic Circle).

Note on methodology

Source: Pirical Legal Professionals , using publicly available data

Timeframe: 2019 - 2024

Partners with multiple locations have been equally distributed across each.

Written using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Unlock unparalleled coverage of the legal market

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 600,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

How Miles Partner Placement use Pirical Legal Professionals to uncover high value opportunities

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 13:14:15 GMT

We spoke to Gary Miles, President and CEO at Miles Partner Placement, about how his team uses Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) to bolster its research process.

With PLP, Miles Partner Placement’s recruiters can unlock essential data, save time and find the most relevant candidates.

3 ways Pirical helps Gary and his team

A smart, simple interface

Recruiters don’t have the time to sort through unclear or irrelevant information.

Thanks to Pirical’s user-friendly platform, the team can move quickly and get straight to the conversations

Unparalleled data coverage

In legal recruitment, knowledge is key.

As a US-based firm, Miles Partner Placement trusts Pirical because its data isn’t just strong in one region, but across the country and the world.

Rapid feature delivery

The software you buy should provide long-term value.

As PLP continues to evolve, we’ve implemented Gary and his team’s feedback in a matter of days.

The challenge

Providing his team with the tools to excel

Gary started in the industry almost two decades ago, back when legal recruiters used physical directories to find candidates. In the years since, he’s successfully placed more than 100 partners.

So Gary’s market knowledge and network of relationships go deep, but with the founding of Miles Partner Placement he began using search software. His team needed a database to research the market and find relevant candidates, not every recruiter can rely on the years of expertise in their head like Gary can.

However, as the team grew and the company began placing Partners all across the United States, Gary realised their existing search database wasn't going far enough. "It was a little unwieldy,” Gary said. “It took time to refine the search categories, with hundreds of lawyers we weren't looking for.” They needed richer data and a more intuitive design.

The solution

Accurate and in-depth data to help build client relationships quicker

As Gary puts it, "In our business our currencies are information , relationships and time ." So any efficiencies that can be made in these areas takes the team closer to meeting new contacts. And when every phone call is an opportunity to make a large placement, any time saved is hugely valuable.

Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) provides the team with comprehensive and up-to-date bios on attorneys all over the world, equipping them with the information they need to ask the right questions and begin building those key relationships . With all the relevant data in one place and backed up by powerful search filters, Gary's recruiters can save hours of time .

The result

Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) as an integral part of the team's workflow

By helping Gary’s team refine their search process, Pirical has enhanced their output dramatically. “Pirical’s flexibility means my recruiters can create lists of different categories, for different firms, in different regions,” Gary said. Plus, if a feature needed improving, his team don't hesitate to feed that back. “We would point it out,” Gary told us. “And it would be fixed that day or within a couple of days.”

But even more than customer service, Gary pointed to Pirical’s data as its biggest asset. “Our searches are very specific... you’re looking for certain skill sets, certain years, certain pedigree of law school.” His recruiters need to ascertain who might have a relationship with a client, and Pirical does exactly that.

Pirical aligns with the way Gary gets new staff up to speed too. “My newest recruiter has been with us for six or seven months,” Gary told us. Importantly, this new hire also didn’t have a background in law or recruitment. “When we trained her up, PLP was very helpful and very accurate. She’s since generated four or five candidates and closed deals north of a million.”

Gary Miles, President and CEO

Miles Partner Placement

“ Pirical isn’t just accurate, it's also easy to use .

Most of my recruiters create all of their candidate lists using Pirical . We’re talking seven figure numbers in terms of the deals that have resulted from that.”

What features do Miles Partner Placement use?

People

Search 600,000+ legal professionals by location, practice area, seniority, law school and more.

Understand the client relationships a Partner might have, so you can ask the right questions during your first call.

Lists

With Pirical it’s easy to refine and save your search results, as well as create lists of attorneys based on your criteria.

Share shortlists of candidates, leave notes on profiles and easily export or contact the whole list.

Moves

Pirical helps you stay ahead of the competition by tracking lateral attorney moves and promotions.

Identify trends, monitor who’s hiring, who’s leaving and where candidates are heading to.

Find out what PLP can do for your firm

Unlock unparalleled coverage of the legal market

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 600,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

The Boston Legal Market in Numbers

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 15:54:24 GMT

In early May, Blank Rome and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett announced that they would be opening offices in Boston. This follows a number of AM Law firms that have set up shop in the city in recent years, looking to " break into the thriving technology and life sciences hub ."

Among the largest legal hubs in the United States, Boston has had the highest growth in Partner headcount (between May 2020 - May 2024). So let's take a deeper dive into the state of the Boston legal market and find out where this growth has been occurring.

Which law firms have the largest presence in Boston?

Goodwin Procter, Ropes & Gray and Mintz Levin have the largest number of Partners, with Boston acting as the headquarters for each firm.

Which law firms have been opening offices in Boston?

13 Global 200 firms have opened offices in Boston since 2020, with 3 taking place in 2024.

Lateral Partner hires have increased significantly in Boston

Overall, lateral Partner hires have increased by 76% since 2020. Much of this growth occurred in 2021 (+52%) and 2023 (+19%), with Partner moves decreasing slightly in 2022 (-3%).

Most Partners moving into Boston from another location come from New York City and Washington, DC.

Partner promotions have increased at a higher rate than lateral hires

Partner promotions have grown year on year and at a higher rate (+104%) than lateral hires (+76%).

Which practices have been growing in Boston?

"Boston is an incubator for technology and biotech companies, which drives much of the work. Because so many of these companies need funding, Boston is also popular for venture capital companies and private equity companies."

Georgetown Law's summary of why Boston has been attracting Big Law firms echoes our data on practice growth in the city. Corporate (+24%) is the practice group with the largest growth since May 2020, followed by Intellectual Property (+22%) and Insurance (+22%). Various Corporate and Litigation practice areas have registered significant increases in Partner headcount (Employment Litigation +35%, Insurance Litigation +32%, M&A +30% and Private Equity Transactions +27%).

Most of the fastest growing firms in Boston are AM Law 100

Kirkland & Ellis have added more Partners to their Boston office than any other firm since 2020, with Goodwin Procter not far behind.

Which practices have the top growing firms focused on?

Kirkland & Ellis has primarily grown their Corporate practice in Boston, with Partner headcount increasing in Investment Funds and M&A.

Goodwin Procter has increased their Partner numbers in Private Equity Transactions, M&A and Emerging Companies & Venture Capital.

Choate has added the most Partners to the following practices; Private Client, Intellectual Property, Crime, Fraud & Investigations and M&A.

The fastest growing firms had different strategies

The "Lateral Lovers"

Firms that grew mostly through lateral recruitment

The "Promoters"

Firms that grew their Partnership mostly through promoting their Associates

The "Happy Hybrids"

Firms that grew mostly through a balance of recruitment and promotions

The Promoters

+70% of new Boston Partners at Goodwin Procter and Foley & Lardner came via promotions

The Happy Hybrids

Kirkland & Ellis and others deployed both tactics to increase their Boston Partner headcount

The Lateral Lovers

Barnes & Thornburg, Greenberg Traurig and Withers primarily hired Partners from Boston based rivals in order to grow

Note on methodology

Source: Pirical Legal Professionals , using publicly available data

Timeframe: 2020 - 2024

Partners with multiple locations have been equally distributed across each.

Written using data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Unlock unparalleled coverage of the legal market

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 600,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

A glass of wine and 500 hours surfing POD: 5 key takeaways from our POD Pioneers event

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 13:23:13 GMT

Last week marked the 2nd edition of POD Pioneers, our latest gathering of Pirical On Demand (POD) customers for a day of product updates, networking and plenty of cake. This year we had fascinating sessions on how law firms are using HR and diversity data to effect lasting change, solve complex issues and achieve strategic wins.

Now the dust has settled, we’ve assembled our five key takeaways from the day.

1. Law firms are keener than ever for business leaders and HR Business Partners (HRBPs) to ground their everyday in data

Making data available and actionable to people leaders on the frontlines continues to be a common ambition among law firms. Firms have concluded that hiring ever more analysts to manually crunch numbers in Excel is not a scalable approach. More firms have experimented with business intelligence solutions like custom dashboards (PowerBI, Tableau) or analytics modules within operational systems (e.g. Workday HRIS) and have a more sophisticated understanding of the costs and trade-offs.

One particular shift mentioned at the event is new senior hires coming into law firms from outside the legal sector with higher expectations that data will be at their fingertips and lower appetite to make decisions without data. As a result, teams are being asked to invest in data quality and usability.

2. Showing what’s possible with data will increase appetite for more data

Even if law firm leaders are keen to adopt more data-driven practices, getting buy-in from the wider organisation can be tricky. In one of the discussions, a UK firm discussed their journey towards a more data-driven culture.

With the help of Pirical, the firm conducted a project with two key goals; (1) identify if the firm had an attrition problem in one of their key growth regions and (2) build some internal appetite for further data projects. The team addressed the first goal by identifying a specific problem office in that region and a specific reason employees were leaving. Using data they were able to convey the story of that office to the firm leadership and get real commitment to fix the attrition problem.

The data-driven approach to identifying the source of attrition helped make progress on their second goal, building an awareness of the data capabilities. Our speaker noted that internal stakeholders began to be more curious around this HR data, asking questions like “I didn't know we could provide this, what else can we do?”

3. Spending 500 hours mastering your data will help drive lasting organisational change

“Law firms love evidence”, one speaker pointed out. If you can use data to show the need for strategic and cultural changes, you'll be better able to bring everyone at the firm on board.

If you want to effect lasting change across organisations as large and complex as law firms, having access to data is only half the battle.

You also need to have a deep sense of what your data says. Simply having the numbers in front of you will not address the problems, as one speaker said, "Don’t think of data as the answer, think of it as a way to ask another question.”

"If you're a diversity leader, you can't just rely on a data analyst to summarise what you need to know. You need to have spent the time yourself - I think I've spent like 500 hours in POD or something - getting to grips with our data. What's interesting about it, what I want to look into next etc."

"You could be sitting in front of the telly just POD-surfing. You know, a glass of wine and a bit of POD."

4. Long-term strategic planning doesn’t work without good data

“Law firms are obsessed with other law firms.” This quote from one of our speakers highlights the competitive state of the legal industry. We discussed how understanding your competitors’ growth strategies can be an invaluable asset.

For many people working in this space, gathering named-firm competitor data would usually involve manually looking through websites and 'counting heads' to see where firms have been growing. We discussed Pirical's new legal market intelligence tool, PLP Strategy, which solves this gap in the market.

5. General Counsel (GCs) want law firms to back up their claims of diversity progress with hard data

As well as making plans, another element of using data is looking back to track progress. In one of the case studies presented on the day, we looked at how a law firm used evidence of the organisation’s DEI improvements to stand out from its competitors and build a strong high-trust relationship with a valued client.

In the case study, the client discovered that an underrepresented group had been disproportionately staffed on fixed fee matters with low billing potential. Intricate benchmarking data showed some firms on the client's panel had made more progress than others.

What is Pirical On Demand (POD)?

Pirical's people analytics software equips law firms with the HR, rewards and diversity data they need to make smarter and fairer people decisions.

HR data is messy, hard to analyze and difficult to distribute to people leaders. With Pirical On Demand , it's a lot easier for people leaders to get value out of it, without the need for an army of analysts and engineers. With Pirical , you can save time, get people engaged and take a more sophisticated, data-driven approach.

Book a demo today

How Eversheds Sutherland fills out diversity surveys in just a few clicks

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 13:30:09 GMT

We spoke to Katie McIntyre, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Manager, Data Analytics at Eversheds Sutherland , about how her team uses Pirical On Demand (POD) to streamline its diversity reporting.

Thanks to Pirical, the firm can save time, exceed client expectations and get more out of its internal data.

3 ways Pirical helped Eversheds Sutherland

Keeping clients happy

When you answer a diversity data request, your submission has to be perfect.

By delivering accurate data ahead of time, Eversheds Sutherland can keep clients (and relationship partners) happy.

Saving weeks of time

Diversity surveys cost firms a huge amount of energy and resources.

With Pirical, Eversheds Sutherland went from surveys taking weeks to completing them in under 15 minutes.

Making the most of its data

The data you collect should have long-term benefits for your firm, rather than descending into busywork.

Using Pirical, Eversheds Sutherland can ensure its internal data is also being used in more strategic ways.

The challenge

Sourcing complex, disparate data in a short timeframe

Like every firm, Eversheds Sutherland gets lots of requests for diversity data. This includes the big annual industry surveys, such as those carried out by The Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA). But it also means more short notice client requests, as well as data compiling for internal use.

For Katie, one challenge was sourcing data from teams with their own priorities. “When the surveys are due, my recruitment department is overwhelmed with summer associate résumés,” Katie told us. As if contacting multiple, busy departments wasn’t hard enough, each survey also had different definitions of diversity. Plus, these definitions changed each year. “It was difficult for me to set myself up for success,” Katie said.

At one point, these surveys were creating weeks of work for Katie. And any delays could have a real impact, especially when the requests had come from valuable paying clients. “Money is on the line when it comes to these surveys,” Katie told us.

The solution

A quick and easy way to organise diversity data

By prepopulating for the most common questionnaires, Pirical’s Survey Filler tool saved Katie a huge amount of time. “A lot of the client surveys would take us two weeks, with industry surveys taking much longer,” Katie told us. “Now it takes two clicks and a maximum of 15 minutes. It's literally a drop-down menu, with the exact wording as what’s in these surveys,” Katie said.

It has also taken the pressure off Katie’s interactions with other departments, which protects client relationships too. “It’s difficult to go to a relationship partner and say, "can you please ask your client for an extension?" Katie said. “Now I never need the extensions.”

What’s more, because of its point-and-click interface, Katie’s less technical colleagues can take over when she’s away. This same functionality has also freed her up to do other data projects. “I don’t have to focus as much on the grunt work of filling these surveys,” Katie said. “Pirical’s worth more than we’re paying for it. It gives us the power to truly look at our firm: here’s our wins, here’s our opportunities, here’s where we can go.”

Darwin Conner, Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer (US), Eversheds Sutherland

“One issue we run into when it comes to processing and coordinating data is that the software systems holding all of that data don’t necessarily ‘talk’ to each other.

"Pirical’s product is user-friendly and helps us coordinate the data we receive from multiple systems , making that data more accessible for internal purposes and for our data-based responses to client surveys.”

What features did Eversheds Sutherland use?

Survey Filler

Survey Filler helps you answer diversity-related questions in one place, and avoid the pain of gathering data from multiple teams.

It does this by providing easy access to hundreds of the definitions and metrics used in the most common requests.

Survey Templates

This tool is designed for surveys that require multiple cuts of data, or even hundreds.

Built alongside Survey Filler, it has all the data tables you’ll need for each survey pre-configured. So you can load them in just a few clicks.

Find out what POD can do for your firm

Pirical's people analytics software equips law firms with the HR, rewards and diversity data they need to make smarter and fairer people decisions.

HR data is messy, hard to analyze and difficult to distribute to people leaders. With Pirical On Demand (POD) , it's a lot easier for people leaders to get value out of it, without the need for an army of analysts and engineers. With Pirical , you can save time, get people engaged and take a more sophisticated, data-driven approach.

What's Hot and What's Not? Practice Growth in the AM Law 100

Thu, 16 May 2024 13:34:27 GMT

In Thomson Reuter's State of the US Legal Market 2024 , a key finding was the ongoing shift from the "Transactional decade" (a period of strength for transactional practices such as Corporate, M&A, Real Estate, Tax) "to the more recent period in which the majority of growth in demand for law firm services has relied on counter-cyclical practices" (eg. Litigation, Labor & Employment, Bankruptcy).

This made us curious to dig a bit deeper into practice area growth among the AM Law 100 over the past few years. Using data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , we've taken a look at Partner headcount growth by practice between 2019-2024 to reveal which practices are on the up and which have been shrinking!

Practices that have been growing ��

What's hot? Top 30 growing practices in the AM Law 100

Cybersecurity, Privacy & Data Protection has boomed in New York City and Chicago

It is interesting therefore, that the practice has also grown in Washington, DC (+14%).

Source: Lexology

Corporate has had the highest net growth in Partner headcount

Investment Funds has grown significantly across the East Coast of the US, Washington, DC (+44%), Chicago (+42%), Boston (+42%) and New York City (+36%).

M&A has grown by an average of +26% in almost all the cities in our analysis, with Minneapolis (+60%), Philadelphia (+48%), Dallas (+34%) and Denver (+32%) all ranking in the top 30. Only San Diego (-11%) and St. Louis (-6%) saw a decline in M&A Partner headcount.

Dallas has been a focus of growth for AM Law 100 firms

Partner headcount in Dallas increased by +31% between 2019-2024, with M&A, Tax, Banking & Finance, Employment Litigation and Real Estate being the key practice areas driving this growth.

Many AM Law 100 firms have opened offices in Texas in recent years, drawn by the state's growing rank of corporations, "strong economy and healthy legal market".

Source: Major, Lindsey & Africa

Practices that have been shrinking ��

What's not? Top 30 declining practices in the AM Law 100

San Francisco - Insurance Litigation is the practice with the sharpest decline

A number of AM Law 100 firms, including Cozen O'Connor, Gordon & Rees & Duane Morris have decreased their number of Partners working in Insurance Litigation in San Francisco. The practice has declined significantly from 2022 onwards.

Litigation practices make up much of the bottom 30

Although Litigation grew overall, by an average of +15% across the AM Law 100, various Litigation practices make up nearly half of the practice areas that have seen negative growth.

Changes in demand appear to vary by location and focus, eg. IP Litigation decreasing in Seattle (-16%), Palo Alto (-10%), Philadelphia (-9%) & Houston (-6%) and Antitrust Litigation shrinking in Chicago (-16%), New York City (-6%) & San Francisco (-5%).

California had relatively low growth over this period, partly driven by a decline in some Litigation practices

Silicon Valley has experienced a bit of an economic slump in recent years, with mass layoffs occurring in the tech sector. This trend may have influenced the decline of certain Litigation practices in the state. Some of California's top declining practices are Insurance Litigation (-29%) & Antitrust Litigation (-5%) in San Francisco, IP Litigation (-10%) in Palo Alto and Employment Litigation (-9%) in Los Angeles.

Although, bucking this West Coast trend with significant growth is Patents Litigation in San Francisco (+33%) and Employment Litigation in San Diego (+33%).

Note on methodology

Source: Pirical Legal Professionals , using publicly available data

Timeframe: 2019 - 2024

Only includes practices with more than 30 Partners and attributes 1 primary practice per Partner. Partners with multiple locations have been equally distributed across each.

Written using data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Unlock unparalleled coverage of the legal market

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 600,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.

Mapped: What Would the Troutman Pepper & Locke Lord Merger Look Like?

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 10:05:11 GMT

Last week, Troutman Pepper and Locke Lord confirmed they had opened merger negotiations.

If successful, the combination would create a law firm of around 1,600 lawyers and revenue of more than $1.5 billion. The merged firm would jump into the top 30 of the AM Law 100 (currently Troutman Pepper is 45th & Locke Lord is 96th).

This made us wonder, what would the merged firm look like, and which offices & practices would see the most growth?

Troutman Pepper would grow their Partnership in a few key cities and gain a foothold in Texas for the first time

Both firms have similar structures so would be boosting several shared practice areas

Written using data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 595,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures and research new markets.

How law firms can use data to differentiate their pitch

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 11:19:26 GMT

A few years ago, our founder Jason Ku, used data to select a law firm to work with (for those of you who know him this will come as no surprise). We thought there were some interesting parallels with what GCs are looking for when picking firms to work with, so we've broken down his approach and highlighted the key learnings for law firms.

Why does this apply to law firms?

Clients are becoming more analytical when it comes to selecting firms to work with. Therefore, there's a great opportunity for law firms to

take a data-driven approach to highlighting their offering.

As more and more clients look to access data when making their decisions, if your firm isn't providing it then your rival firms might be instead. Using tools like Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , you can analyze how your firm's offering differs from the competition and strategically emphasize your key strengths.

How Jason used data to pick a law firm

For context, Jason was looking for an immigration lawyer and reached out to several firms. He received nearly identical proposals from 3, all offering the same kind of generic service and quoting a similar price (within 5% of each other).

After price negotiations he ended up with 3 different options

Firm 1

Agreed to a 10% discount

Firm 2

Agreed to a 15% discount

Firm 3

Agreed to a 30% discount

But why would 3 firms with similar offerings accept different fees? And more importantly, which one should he pick to work with?

Using Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) , our legal market research tool which collects public data of almost 600,000 lawyers globally, Jason started to dig into the market and the 3 law firms he was considering working with.

He looked into the organization structures of each firm

Each one had a very different structure, which meant he was able to make some expectations around each firm's offering and make his final decision

Firm 1

Top-heavy

Premium priced service driven by expertise for difficult matters

Firm 2

Well-balanced

Flexible full-service for different needs

Firm 3

Light on Partners

Lower-cost offering for common immigration issues

Differentiating their services relative to the competition would have influenced Jason to make a different choice

Had any of the firms highlighted their specific strengths at the beginning of the process, Jason's choice could have been much simpler.

Firm 1

Top-heavy

"We have deep expertise in complex issues that our competitors can’t match. You will get personal service directly from our Partners who will work closely with you."

Firm 2

Well-balanced

"We are well-balanced to ensure we can optimally meet your different needs. As your business grows, you will have different needs, which we can handle."

Firm 3

Light on Partners

"We offer a cost-effective solution to your legal requirements, while maintaining a high level of service."

Using Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) to differentiate your offering

Benchmark your firm's strength against competitors

Understand the opposite team’s size, seniority split, legal rankings, tenure, previous clients, and their firm’s strength in associated practice areas.

Examples from PLP users:

Identified that the opposing team had a high proportion of Junior Partners (6-9 years experience) compared to their more senior & experienced Partnership team
Discovered that the rival team had more Partners who were listed in both New York City and London, but these same Partners seemed to be primarily based in London. When pitching for New York work, the rival firm was inflating their bench size numbers

Showcase the dimensions where your firm shines

Identify which KPIs make your firm stand out: financials, headcount growth, diversity representation, attrition rates, national or global presence, etc.

Examples from PLP users:

Identified that their firm's IP practice had 3 more Partners than their competitor's
Discovered that the other firm didn't have a strong Antitrust practice while pitching for M&A work
Emphasized their firm's strong retention rate and stressed the continuity of service the client would receive
Highlighted the diversity of the team pitching for work relative to the market

Research the Partners you're up against

Leverage a network of 10 million+ legal connections to identify who at your firm can share intel on teams pitching for the same work or RFP.

Data collected using Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters, BD & Marketing professionals and strategy planners, our data tracks over 580,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures and research new markets.

State of the Bay Area Legal Market

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 14:23:02 GMT

A few weeks ago, we presented a deep dive into the state of the Bay Area Legal Market to BALRA (Bay Area Legal Recruitment Association) while in San Francisco.

We uncovered some interesting insights on Partner growth and the different strategies that some of the fastest growing law firms have deployed there, so we've published the findings as an article.

Despite the burst of the Tech bubble in 2022/2023, lateral Partner hiring levels have slightly increased in the Bay Area

Even though there was a lot of negativity in the wider market last year, this wasn’t realised in the Partner hiring levels.

The Bay Area had about as many Partners moving in than moving out since 2020

Despite rumours that attorneys have been relocating out of the Bay Area, this turned out not to be the case.

Firms have also significantly increased their volume of Partner promotions, at a faster rate than hiring

Firms have been moving people up as opposed to hiring laterally, so good news for aspiring Associates.

Overall, Partner exits have been offset by lateral hires, promotions & firm acquisitions in the Bay Area

There were over 1,000 Partner exits but promotions, hires, a little bit of M&A and intra-firm location moves more than offset this.

The fastest growing firms in the Bay Area were quite spread across the AM Law 200 and also included the UK player Freshfields

Quite a few firms have grown their Partnership headcount. But how have these firms grown and what strategies did they use?

The fastest growing firms had different strategies

We found 4 main categories:

The "Lateral Lovers"

Firms that grew mostly through lateral recruitment

The "Super Mergers"

Firms that grew mostly through acquisitions

The "Promoters"

Firms that grew mostly through promoting their Associates to Partnership

The "Happy Hybrids"

Firms that grew mostly through a balance of recruitment and promotions

The Lateral Lovers / Lewis Brisbois has attracted talent through an “immediate route to Partnership” strategy

20% of Lewis Brisbois Partner hires were brought in through promoting them to Partner.

The Super Mergers / Two firms made a significant dent in the Bay Area market through combinations

There have been other mergers in the Bay Area but these firms stood out as having the highest proportion through M&A.

+40 Partners in Oakland & San Francisco through combination with full-service business law firm Wendel Rosen (2022)

+11 Partners in San Francisco through combination with litigation & transactional firm Cooper White & Cooper (2022) +2 Partners in San Francisco through combination with boutique litigation firm Simmonds & Narita (2023)

The Promoters / Latham & Watkins and Gordon & Rees have been making 5+ Partner promotions per year in the Bay Area

Both firms averaged around 5 promotions per year.

19 Partner promotions in the Bay Area between 2020-2023

~5 partner promotions / year

18 Partner promotions in the Bay Area between 2020-2023

~5 partner promotions / year

The Happy Hybrids / Goodwin, Baker McKenzie and K&L Gates had an even number of lateral hires and Partner promotions

These 3 firms almost made an identical number of Partner promotions to hires.

Written using data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 580,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures and research new markets.

How's the merger going? A look into Shearman & Sterling's Partner exits

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 12:31:35 GMT

A few weeks ago we published an article looking at which AM Law 100 firms have been the best at retaining their lateral Partner hires . In last place, with a retention rate of 60% (between 2020-2023) was Shearman & Sterling. Presumably, the upcoming merger with Allen & Overy has been a major factor in the firm's more recent Partner departures.

So this got us thinking, how many Partners have left the firm since the A&O Shearman merger was announced back in May 2023, and have there been more or fewer exits than in other recent mergers?

Shearman & Sterling has lost 9% of their Partners since the merger was announced

Allen & Overy has lost 3% of their Partners since the merger was announced

Shearman are losing more Partners than expected, when comparing to other recent mergers

The average decrease in Partner headcount among our comparison sample* of mergers is 4%.

As A&O Shearman, the merger is on par with the expected number of Partner departures, having seen a 4% decline in combined headcount since the announcement. But separated, Shearman & Sterling has lost 9% of their Partners to Allen & Overy's 3%. As is stands, Shearman has suffered a higher rate of Partner exits than any other firms in our comparison sample, while Allen & Overy has maintained an expected attrition rate for a firm undergoing a merger.

The merger is set to be complete by May 2024, so these figures could increase should more Partners leave over the next few months.

*Sample of comparison mergers: Bryan Cave <> Berwin Leighton Paisner (BCLP), Clyde & Co <> BLM (Clyde & Co), Faegre Baker Daniels <> Drinker Biddle & Reath (Faegre Drinker), Troutman Sanders <> Pepper Hamilton (Troutman Pepper), and Holland & Knight <> Thompson & Knight (Holland & Knight)

Most of Shearman's Partner departures have taken place outside of the United States

There has been a 13% decrease in Shearman's non-US Partner population, compared to a 6% decline among US based Partners.

The highest total number of exits have been in Paris and London, where 4 Partners in each office have left since the merger was announced. The Bay Area and Austin have registered the highest departures among Shearman's US offices.

"When contemplating a combination, firms must be mindful of how the two legacy firms will evolve to become “one firm” and ensure they retain their valuable talent.

Successful firms always start with a sound strategy before attempting a combination, taking the time to reflect on what their culture is, and what their “personal brand” is that defines them as part of their strategy planning process. This sentiment is echoed in the Thomson Reuters Institute’s research that shows that the strongest drivers of lawyer engagement are the firm’s direction and its leadership."

Tom Snavely | Thomson Reuters

Written using data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 580,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures and research new markets.

Which AM Law 100 firms have been retaining their lateral Partner hires?

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 11:56:56 GMT

Since a dip in 2020, the number of lateral Partner hires made by AM Law 100 firms have increased. In total, over 10,000 Partner moves have taken place, but how successful have the firms been at retaining these hires?

Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) we've taken a look at how many of the lateral Partners hired between 2020 - 2023 by AM Law 100 firms, are still at their new firm. We've excluded moves made as a result of mergers.

Ranked: which firms have had the highest Partner retention rates since 2020?

Firms with strong retention - 90%+

Cleary Gottlieb, Davis Polk, Debevoise & Plimpton and Fenwick (1st)

These 4 firms jointly claimed the top spot in our list, as all of them have managed to retain 100% of their Partner hires since 2020.

Interestingly, 3 of the joint top firms and a large portion of our top 30 have something in common, single tier Partnership models. It would seem that operating an equity model can lead to a more stable Partner population, as evidenced by the retention rates of Cleary Gottlieb (100%) , Davis Polk (100%) , Debevoise & Plimpton (100%) , Paul Weiss (97%) , Skadden (97%) , Arnold & Porter (97%) , Covington (96%) , WilmerHale (94%) , and Schulte Roth (94%) .

Source: Above The Law

Is 100% retention as good as it sounds?

"Even though 100% retention of Partners hired since 2020 is good, it's not yet the sign of success . A lot of law firms need around 5 years to judge whether a lateral Partner hire has been a success or not. Nonetheless, a low retention score after a few years is clearly still a bad sign. "

Gary Miles | Miles Partner Placement

Barnes & Thornburg (10th), Willkie Farr & Gallagher (14th), Gibson Dunn (15th), Morgan Lewis (17th) and Womble Bond Dickinson (27th)

These firms are noteworthy for ranking in the top 30 of Partner retention while making an above average number of hires. Each firm made well over 100 lateral Partner hires between 2020-2023 and have retained more than 90% of these new recruits.

Mintz (34th)

Mintz's strong showing in retaining Partners (93%) could relate to the firm's fairly new compensation model. Mintz have capped the origination credit for bringing in business at 75%, awarding credit on a matter-by-matter basis instead. This approach leaves more room for newer Partners to be fairly recognized and rewarded for their part in developing client relationships.

Source: Reuters

The benefit of more selective Partner hiring

"The ranking reinforces the notion that purposeful, more selective Partner recruiting seems to have a much higher success rate. The firms who are recruiting less, appear to have a higher retention rate."

Almost 90% of the top 30 ranked firms in our list made fewer hires than the overall average. Furthermore, 50% of the 10 firms with the highest total number of Partner hires rank in the bottom 20 of retention rate.

Warren Smith | Smith Legal Search

Mid-table performers - 80%+

DLA Piper (64th) and Kirkland & Ellis (65th)

As two of the largest law firms in the market, DLA (88%) and Kirkland (88%) have had similar retention rates over the last few years. Both firms have hired around 450 Partners since 2020 and lost over 50 each, marking some of the highest total exits in our list. However, DLA and Kirkland operate non-equity tiers and maintain huge Partnerships so a high number of exits is to be expected.

Firms with slightly lower retention - 60%+

McDermott Will & Emery (96th)

McDermott (79%) registered 49 Partner departures, one of the highest total exits on our list. In fact, the firm has lost almost as many laterally hired Partners as the likes of Kirkland and DLA, both of whom made twice as many hires as McDermott in the same timeframe.

Lewis Brisbois (99th)

With the highest total number of Partner exits, Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith (64%) claim 2nd last place on our list. 152 laterally hired Partners have joined and subsequently left the firm since 2020. In fact, a massive 126 of the 152 exits left Lewis Brisbois within the first 2 years of moving. The firm was rocked by mass departures and scandal last year, one possible reason behind the poor Partner retention record.

Source: LA Times

Shearman & Sterling (100th)

Last place in our ranking goes to Shearman & Sterling, soon to be A&O Shearman. The upcoming merger with Allen & Overy is presumably the overriding factor in the firm's 60% retention rate. 27 Partners have moved elsewhere since the merger was officially announced and lateral hiring ground to a halt in 2023.

We mapped out what the US presence of the combined law firm could look like in a recent article, have a read of The American dream: a look at Allen & Overy's potential US presence post-merger .

What can motivate Partners to leave?

"Each lawyer will have their own deeply personal reasons for making a switch, yet our research at the Thomson Reuters Institute uncovers several common reasons offered by those who do leave (Fig 1). Dissatisfaction with firm leadership and strategy are top the list, although compensation issues and a lack of opportunities to grow and progress within their careers were also cited.

The firms that have high retention rates are taking a strategic approach to lateral hiring and integration across the entire talent management lifecycle (Fig 2). Firms that have strong retention rates have a talent management strategy that ensures success.

Our previous Stellar Performance research has shown that lateral partners bring roughly 22% of their books of business to their new firms, on average; but that number can reach much higher or shrink to nothing, depending on how well-organized and effective the hiring law firm’s on-boarding and integration strategy is for new laterals."

Tom Snavely | Thomson Reuters

Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Empower your firm’s Recruitment and Strategy teams with our global database of 580,000+ attorneys. Source top legal talent, leverage a network of referrals, map out your competitors’ organisations and identify areas for growth.

Note on methodology

Source: Pirical Legal Professionals , using publicly available data

Excludes: firms with less than 10 lateral Partner hires since Jan 2020 and Partner moves as a result of mergers
Timeframe: 01 Jan 2020 - 31 Dec 2023

Citations

Written with commentary and feedback from Gary Miles (Miles Partner Recruitment), Keith Fall (Walker Associates), Maria Ho (Vault), Warren Smith (Smith Legal Search) and Tom Snavely (Thomson Reuters Institute).

How To Forecast Diversity With Predictive Data Analytics

Tue, 23 Jan 2024 15:25:40 GMT

How can you make predictions about the future diversity of your organization, with a model grounded in real data? In this tutorial we will explain how diversity projections work in Pirical On Demand (POD).

Pirical On Demand is a library of over 1,000 tried-and-tested analyses, kept up to date with your firm’s data. HR professionals use POD to benchmark statistics against competitors, to analyze bias in recruitment and work allocation systems, and for real-time or predictive capabilities like highlighting which employees may need extra support. POD addresses all core diversity traits: Gender, Ethnicity, Social Mobility, Sexual Orientation, Disability, Age, and Religion.

Pirical has been supporting law firms to forecast diversity representation since 2018

Our latest model is now available to customers today through POD, a self-service analytics platform.

Diversity projections are an essential tool for:

Unifying stakeholders around the state of diversity today
Identifying the most effective levers for change
Setting and evaluating progress against diversity targets
Defining the boundaries of healthy progress: avoiding underperformance (discrimination risk) and overperformance (affirmative action risk)

The model is designed on the principle that what has happened in the last 5 years is a good baseline for what might happen in the next 5 to 10 years.

Projections in POD are available for all roles, both timekeepers/fee earners and staff/business professionals.

Projections can be generated for any diversity trait, practice group, business function or office.

Users with the right privileges can also access the underlying headcounts generated by the model.

POD generates three scenarios to illustrate their relative impacts on the rate of diversification:

Equal promotion rates (for example, the number of women promoted is proportional to the population of women)
Equal attrition rates (for example, the number of women leaving is proportional to the population of women)
Custom diversity of new hires - set your own parameters for roles and employee categories

As well as the combined scenario: what is possible if multiple scenarios are achieved.

The model uses recent historical trends to project the future

The algorithm takes, for every role in a law firm over the last 5 years:

Recruitment rates and diversity of new hires
Attrition rates and diversity of leavers
Promotion rates and diversity of promotions

Then steps forward with these numbers each year to see how representation is expected to evolve, if the firm keeps going as it has.

Headcounts are rounded to the nearest whole individual.

No artificial growth rates are imposed at any level. Instead roles will have their 'natural growth rate'. For example, if the 5-year rate of recruitment for a role has been higher than the 5-year rate of attrition, then the role might increase headcount over time.

Career ladders are not linear

An important aspect of the model is that it takes into account the whole network of roles in your firm, including moves that deviate or flow against the traditional pathways. For example, the model might take into account individuals' different pathways to partnership:

This will look different for each firm, as roles and movements will vary.

The Pirical team can help you get the most from projections

Pirical analysts are available to support customers with training and advice, or on a project basis to manage complex projects involving projections. Contact us today for a quote.

Not yet a Pirical On Demand customer?

Explore the demo today to see the power of On Demand.

Stroock from all sides: which rival firms have benefited from the demise of the 150-year old firm

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 09:43:32 GMT

At the end of October Stroock & Stroock & Lavan announced that the firm was dissolving after nearly 150 years of history.

The struggling New York firm had recently tried to save itself through merger talks with Nixon Peabody and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw & Pittman. The failures of these talks coupled with a string of high profile departures has resulted in a rapid recent decline to Stroock's Partnership.

All of Stroock's offices have suffered from Partner departures

54 Partners have left the firm in 2023, marking a 76% decline in headcount. All four of the firm's offices have felt the impact as rival firms across the US have capitalised on Stroock's difficulties.

Rival law firms have been poaching large groups of Stroock Partners

Quite a few rival firms have benefited from Stroock's struggles in recent years. The first major loss of a large group of Partners came in March 2022 when Paul Hastings hired an 18-Partner Restructuring team based in New York.

In 2023 the scale of the departures increased. Shortly after Stroock's merger talks with Nixon Peabody failed, both Steptoe & Johnson (5) and Morgan Lewis (8) hired a significant number of Partners from a variety of offices and practice areas. While a number of other rivals picked off smaller numbers of Partners here and there.

Hogan Lovells just hired a huge group of Stroock Partners

At the end of October, amid the failed merger discussions with Pillsbury and increasing uncertainty about the future of the firm, Hogan Lovells announced it was snapping up 28 of Stroock's Partners. The vast majority of these hires are attorneys based in New York, with Real Estate being the key practice area.

The mass departures to Paul Hastings and Hogan Lovells gutted the leadership of two of Stroock's key practices, Restructuring and Real Estate. That impact plus the continued wave of smaller scale departures, has left Stroock with only a handful of Partners who will now likely join their former colleagues and move onto other firms.

Interested in legal market insights?

Understand the market better and gain insights on your competitors with Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) .

Our comprehensive market coverage and historic data allows you to monitor which law firms are thriving & which are churning, track attorney movements, and identify trends within the legal industry.

Partners piling up: Kirkland & Ellis's record number of attorney promotions

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 11:25:54 GMT

At the start of October Kirkland & Ellis announced their latest cohort of Partner promotions, with a record 205 attorneys making the cut.

Kirkland promote more Partners, relative to their size, than any other AM Law 100 firm

The number of Associates the firm elevates to Partner has been increasing year on year, setting new industry records each time. This year's figure is, yet again, the largest class to be promoted to Partnership and significantly eclipses the number of promotions handed out by Kirkland's nearest AM Law 100 rivals.

This round of Partner promotions was spread across most of Kirkland's global offices

Over 80% of the promotions were based in the United States

All of Kirkland's US offices increased their Partner numbers within this round of promotions.

The firm's largest offices elevated the highest total number of Associates:

New York City = 49 promotions
Chicago = 40 promotions
Washington, DC = 17 promotions

While the offices with the highest levels of Partner growth relative to their size were:

Salt Lake City = +36%
Bay Area = +24%
Boston = +20%

The bulk of Kirkland's international promotions were in London

There were 39 Partner promotions among the firm's international offices. The 26 in London means that it remains Kirkland's largest office outside of the US.

There were a handful of promotions across Munich and Paris to complete the round of European activity. While the Shanghai (+25%) and Hong Kong (+18%) offices had the largest relative increases to their Partner numbers.

Kirkland promote their Associates to Partner much earlier than other firms

One of the reasons behind Kirkland's much larger Partner population is the promotion model they operate. The firm tends to promote Associates with 5-10 years of experience to Partner, whereas their peer firms typically hand out promotions after 9-14 years of experience.

How Kirkland source their Associates varies depending on the location

This cohort of promoted Partners are a mixture of homegrown talent, who have spent the majority of their careers at Kirkland and lateral hires, who have been poached from other firms as Associates a few years into their careers.

Where this year's batch of promoted attorneys began their careers varies depending on the location. Among the US based promotions there is an even split between homegrown talent and lateral hires, but among the firm's international offices there is a clear tendency towards lateral hiring.

The London office is very reliant on bolstering its Associate ranks with lateral hires, with 85% of this year's promotions being attorneys that began their careers at a rival firm. As a US firm operating in a very competitive local market this makes some sense. In fact, we recently explored the stiff competition between US & UK firms vying for London's legal talent in a recent data insights article .

Out of all the US offices, New York City leans the most heavily towards hiring Associates from other firms. Chicago meanwhile, being the firm's headquarters and largest office, is the only Kirkland location to have a greater number of homegrown attorneys.

Interested in legal market insights?

Understand the market better and gain insights on your competitors with our data-driven legal market intelligence tools.

Our comprehensive market coverage and historic data allows you to monitor which law firms are thriving & which are churning, track attorney movements, and identify trends within the legal industry.

The American dream: a look at Allen & Overy's potential US presence post-merger

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 17:03:26 GMT

Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling are due to begin their Partner votes on the proposed merger at the end of September. If approved, the merger will create a mega firm of almost 4,000 attorneys worldwide. Given that the deal would represent a major milestone for a UK firm securing a foothold in the US market, we decided to have a look at what Allen & Overy's presence in the United States could look like if the merger goes ahead.

Magic Circle firms have been growing their US Partner numbers over the last few years. Some faster than others.

Using data from Pirical Legal Professionals we dug into the current headcount of US based Magic Circle Partners and mapped out the potential Partner headcount of A&O Shearman, comparing their improved regional presence to their British rivals.

The figures are based on all current Shearman & Sterling US Partners staying post-merger. However, even if 50% of Shearman's Partners leave between now and the completion of the merger, A&O Shearman will still be the largest Magic Circle firm in the US with around 150 combined Partners.

For context, Shearman & Sterling's Partner attrition rate in the United States over the last 12 months has been 15%.

New York City

The four Magic Circle firms with a US presence (Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy, Linklaters, and Freshfields) all have their largest offices in New York City. Between them they currently have almost 200 Partners based in NYC, with Clifford Chance leading the pack in terms of headcount.

Should the merger go ahead, Allen & Overy will overtake their British rival and substantially increase their headcount to well over 100 New York Partners.

Washington, DC

It's likely to be a similar story in Washington, DC where Allen & Overy could increase their headcount from 19 to over 30 Partners, compared to Clifford Chance (23 Partners), Freshfields (17 Partners), and Linklaters (7 Partners).

Texas

Thanks to Shearman & Sterling's 3 offices in Texas, Allen & Overy will gain a new regional presence in the US.

Texas has been a real growth spot among the AM Law 100 over the last few years and Clifford Chance's recent opening of a Houston office (9 Partners) highlights the desire for Magic Circle firms to get in on the action. Allen & Overy's new foothold in the state is likely to overshadow Clifford Chance's presence and given that competition for Texan talent will be tough, gaining Shearman's offices in Houston, Dallas, and Austin could prove to be a huge win for A&O.

California

Allen & Overy and Freshfields are the two Magic Circle firms to have expanded into the Californian market, with both firms opening offices in Silicon Valley in the last few years. Freshfield's 14 Partners currently outweigh Allen & Overy's 8, but should the merger go ahead A&O Shearman would double their Partner numbers in the Bay Area.

Allen & Overy already have a strong presence in California with 6 Partners also in Los Angeles. The addition of Shearman & Sterling's Bay Area based Partners would comfortably give the new firm a clear lead in California as a whole.

Interested in legal market insights?

Understand the market better and dive into competitor insights with our legal market intelligence tools . Make decisions based on data with our comprehensive market coverage; monitor which law firms are thriving and which are churning, track attorney movements, and identify trends within the legal industry.

How Osborne Clarke used Pirical to overhaul its diversity strategy

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 16:39:32 GMT

We spoke to Bola Gibson, Head of Responsible Business at Osborne Clarke, about how the firm used Pirical On Demand (POD) to get more from its people data.

By digging into its numbers, Osborne Clarke was able to pinpoint problems, overhaul its strategy and create lasting organizational change.

3 ways Pirical helped Osborne Clarke

Uncovering issues

Sometimes internal data isn’t rich enough to tell a clear story.

By comparing its data with other firms, Osborne Clarke was able to diagnose issues and tailor its response.

Winning hearts & minds

When the data tells you to switch strategy, you still need to get stakeholder buy-in.

Using Pirical, Osborne Clarke created a compelling case: “Pirical gives us the evidence to drive change,” Bola told us.

Saving valuable time

Even if you have strong data capabilities, capacity can be a challenge.

With the help of Pirical’s tools, Osborne Clarke streamlined analytics work and freed up time for more valuable projects.

The challenge

Understanding the why, not just the what

When it comes to diversity and inclusion, Osborne Clarke has been ahead of the curve for some time. After receiving the National Equality Standard (NES) accreditation in 2019, the firm set a range of ambitious targets.

A few years later, Bola’s team wanted to better understand how Osborne Clarke could set new, more meaningful goals. Pirical gave the team access to a wider range of analyses, including a clearer understanding of attrition among its ethnic minority population and a longer term view of attrition & promotion trends which they were able to marry with other qualitative data. “There’s only so much our old data could tell us,” Bola said. “By combining the deeper analysis from Pirical with what our people were telling us, we were able to get closer to understanding why it was happening and plan to take action.”

Bola also felt they weren’t seeing the full picture because the firm wasn’t able to benchmark its data against the market. “We were comparing ourselves to ourselves,” Bola said. “I wanted to probe the why, not just the what.”

The solution

The data to create a new strategy

Osborne Clarke used Pirical On Demand (POD) to look at its projections more closely. POD showed the firm was having to effectively over-recruit, due to the fact they were struggling to retain minority ethnic employees.

Importantly, Osborne Clarke used POD to compare itself against other firms’ diversity data. These insights paved the way for the firm’s new Race Action Plan , which aims to increase diversity in senior roles by overhauling trainee recruitment, in tandem with a range of progression and inclusion schemes.

But before Bola’s team got these programmes off the ground, they had to convince practice group leaders. “Pirical enabled us to build a really strong case for our Race Action Plan, ” Bola said.

“Let’s face it, lawyers love evidence. Pirical allows practitioners to add weight to their recommendations.”

Bola Gibson

Head of Responsible Business

Osborne Clarke

"For me, Pirical’s biggest selling point is its usability . It’s like a bunch of nerds have designed a system for people who are not nerds. Whoever designed the UX was (thankfully) thinking about D&I or HR people, not technical specialists."

Which features did Osborne Clarke use?

Goals dashboard

With the Goals Dashboard, you can load up your firm’s diversity targets to see if you’re on track with your targets, which was key to the analysis Osborne Clarke carried out.

Whether you’re looking firm-wide or by practice group, this feature allows you to set custom goals, organize your projections and return to this data whenever you need it.

Recruitment and retention screens

Recruitment is a bit like pouring liquid into a bucket of water. As you add in something new, it’s important to monitor how you dilute or concentrate what’s in there already.

By browsing Pirical’s readyma de recruitment and retention graphs, Bola’s team could measure exactly how the makeup of Osborne Clarke was changing, then take action.

Find out what POD can do for your firm

Pirical's people analytics software equips law firms with the HR, rewards and diversity data they need to make smarter and fairer people decisions.

London's legal talent contest: the data behind US & UK firms vying for Partners

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 15:09:11 GMT

For years now, competition for London's top legal talent has been characterized by large US firms swooping into the UK market and offering significantly higher salaries than their British rivals. The ongoing US expansion has created a stiff contest for London based Partners, so we decided to dig into some of the data behind this trend.

Using Pirical Legal Professionals we looked at Partner headcount growth over the last three years, among the London offices of a sample of US & UK law firms. Unsurprisingly perhaps, UK firms have been struggling to compete with their US peers when it comes to hiring Partners.

Based on the sample of law firms we looked at, British firms have experienced a 9% growth in their Partner headcount since August 2020. Meanwhile, the US firms have increased their London based Partner numbers by 24%, more than double the growth of their UK peers.

A handful of UK firms have seen comparable increases to their US rivals, with Eversheds Sutherland (+17%) and Ashurst (+22%) increasing their Partner numbers at a similar rate to Skadden (+21%) and Latham Watkins (+22%). However, these firms fall well short of the largest US growers such as Gibson Dunn (+35%), Kirkland & Ellis (+44%), and Simpson Thacher & Barlett (+75%).

The large US law firms are likely to continue their push into the London market and given the gulf in salaries being offered, this trend of US firms dominating Partner hires is also set to continue.

Interestingly, when looking at where these Partner hires are being sourced from, it's not a case of the US firms simply poaching the top talent of the UK firms.

From a similar time frame, the data shows that the US firms used in this analysis made their Partners hires from both UK & US firms. Magic Circle firms represent a significant source of the moves, but the majority of Partner hires are being taken from other London based US firms.

Interested in legal market insights?

Understand the legal market better with Pirical Legal Professionals , the leading global database of over 560,000 attorneys. Make decisions based on data with our comprehensive market coverage; monitor which law firms are thriving and which are churning, track attorney movements, and identify trends within the legal industry.

How law firms can use Pirical On Demand to report diversity data: Survey Filler tutorial

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 15:16:43 GMT

Law firms are spending an increasing amount of time reporting their diversity data to clients and third parties including regulators. Learn how Survey Filler in Pirical On Demand (POD) can save you 90% of the time spent reporting diversity data.

What is it?

Survey Filler is a comprehensive and flexible table of your firm's diversity data, where you select what to populate the rows, columns & fields with. Easily access all the data you need in one place, apply a wide range of metrics and extract it at the click of a button.

Already a POD customer? Check out Survey Filler now.

What you can view

With Survey Filler you can combine a number of different data points to view granular diversity information about your firm. See demographic data across various metrics, role information, client work, location and more. Grab the absolute and percentage % figures for all key diversity traits, allowing you to answer any specific diversity related questions that come your way.

View your firm's diversity data by...

Diversity trait

Gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background and disability.

Headcount

View the overall demographic figures at your firm; apply the distinct headcount , headcount at start & end of period , average headcount and average FTE metrics.

Career progression

See the diversity breakdown of how staff are progressing in the firm; apply the hires , terminations and partner promotions metrics.

Utilization

Analyze diversity data against how staff at the firm are utilized; apply the hours worked metric.

Financial

See how different groups at the firm are performing from a financial perspective; apply the achieved revenue and discounts and write-offs metrics.

Client work

View the diversity data of staff that worked for specific clients and on specific matters.

Role information & location

Look at demographic info by role, department, employee category, division, office and region.

Pre-populated templates

Survey Filler contains pre-populated templates for the most common legal industry surveys.

Select a template and view your firm's data in the exact format needed for the diversity survey in question. Easily copy and paste the results directly into the survey in just a few clicks.

Templates include:

Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) Law Firm Diversity Survey
American Bar Association (ABA) Model Diversity Survey
General Counsel for Diversity & Inclusion questionnaire
Law.com International UK Diversity Survey

How to view different data points

On the right hand panel under Filters , you can select to view different data points from a series of drop down lists. The table automatically updates after each selection.

Under Metric you select which of the metrics listed above you'd like to look at; headcount, career progression, utilization or financial related.

Choose which data points to populate the table with from Rows and Columns , select various diversity traits and role information such as:

Role
Department
Employee category
Gender
Ethnicity
LGBT+
Socioeconomic background

Under Client and Matter you can choose to look at data for staff that worked for specific clients and on specific client matters.

The rest of the filter options include Employment status , Office , Region , Role , Employee category , Department and Division .

Adjust the timeframe for your data under Options in the right hand panel. Choose between financial year, calendar year or a custom timeframe.

Easily export any data set with the Copy to Excel button on the right hand side of the screen.

What is Pirical On Demand (POD)?

Pirical's people analytics software equips law firms with the HR, rewards and diversity data they need to make smarter and fairer people decisions.

HR data is messy, hard to analyze and difficult to distribute to people leaders. With Pirical On Demand, it's a lot easier for people leaders to get value out of it, without the need for an army of analysts and engineers. With Pirical , you can save time, get people engaged and take a more sophisticated, data-driven approach.

Book a demo today

Partner headcount growth by city (USA)

Thu, 13 Jul 2023 16:00:58 GMT

A look at US Partner headcount growth over the last 3 years among some of the top AM Law 100 firms. See which firms have been growing in which cities, where their partnership has been shrinking and where new offices have opened up.

Get in touch if you're interested in accessing legal market data like this.

Fresh Approaches to Drive Business Development and Strategy with Data

Fri, 23 Jun 2023 11:23:18 GMT

6 real and practical examples of how Business Development & Strategy teams in law firms have been using Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP) for their projects.

1. Plan an expansion strategy

High level competitor analysis is useful when you want to understand the lay of the land, but when defining a winning strategy for a practice or office, firms need in-depth and precise analyses.

2. Identify merger and acquisition (M&A) targets & conduct due diligence

Depending on the need, whether it’s to acquire a certain expertise, to add bench strength, or to enter new markets, the criteria for M&A targets will vary.

Strategy & BD teams require a quick way to identify firms with the right profile, presence, and talent.

“ The Artificial Intelligence (AI) market is buzzing. I used PLP to identify which firms are starting to set up AI practices, or Data Privacy practices.”

3. Leverage competitor intelligence to differentiate your pitch

Business Development teams want a winning edge when working on a pitch or tendering for a panel.

PLP can help to:

understand who you might be up against
and work out how to differentiate your firm's offerings effectively.

4. Identify leads in target organizations

5. Conduct due diligence on prospective partner laterals

PLP profiles centralize information about:

Education & Bar admissions
Deals information & potential clients
Connections
Rankings

The firm used the deals & client information to identify any potential conflicts between the Partner’s clients and the firm’s clients. The Connections feature enabled them to quickly identify individuals who could give them a reference.

6. React quickly to market changes

It’s good to have a strategy but it’s even better to be able to quickly adapt it if the market shifts, and if significant changes may affect your firm.

Explore the leading global database of 500,000+ attorneys across 130+ countries.

Pirical Legal Professionals is trusted by law firms and legal recruiters all over the world to source top legal talent and stay up to date with the latest market trends & insights.

We've improved the Jobs section in Pirical Legal Professionals

Fri, 26 May 2023 13:42:33 GMT

We recently made some improvements to the Jobs section in Pirical Legal Professionals , our feed of the legal market's open roles. By expanding our market coverage and how we source open roles, our jobs feed is now more comprehensive and up to date.

Identify business opportunities

Monitor the legal market's live roles. Easily search through the constantly updating feed and see which firms are currently hiring and in which areas.

Discover the key positions that need filling and gather the insights you need to identify potential leads for your business. Reach out to law firms that are actively hiring in the right areas.

Find relevant roles

Filter down the comprehensive feed of legal jobs to find relevant positions for candidates looking to move.

Search through jobs using keywords or refine your results with a combination of filters; narrow your searches by date, role, location, practice area & years of experience.

Stay up to date with the latest insights

With Pirical data you can keep an eye on emerging trends in the legal jobs market. Insights on the most common roles by practice area, position and location, as well as information on which firms are currently hiring the most can all be gained using Pirical Legal Professionals .

Pirical Legal Professionals

Pirical Legal Professionals is the leading global database of 500,000+ attorneys across 130+ countries. Used by law firms and legal recruiters all over the world to source top legal talent, as well as stay up to date with the latest market trends & insights.

We'd love to show you how Pirical Legal Professionals can transform your legal recruitment efforts.

If you're interested in learning more book a free demo!

Introducing POD Survey Filler

Tue, 23 May 2023 15:22:21 GMT

DEI teams at law firms are spending an increasing amount of time filling out diversity surveys. From requests from clients to third party benchmarking, the number of surveys that need completing each year can easily rise into the hundreds for a large firm and be an incredibly time-consuming task.

Our latest tool on Pirical On Demand (POD) can save 90% of the time spent filling out diversity surveys and client data requests.

Client requests for diversity data

Access all the data you need to answer diversity related questions in the one place, avoiding the pain of gathering different data points from multiple teams.

With Survey Filler you can view your firm's demographic data across headcount, hours worked, hires, terminations, promotions and achieved revenue. Filter results by all key diversity traits, as well as role, practice group & financial year. For more granular diversity questions you can filter the data by office, location, role, practice group and specific client data, providing a quick overview of the teams that worked on individual client matters.

Save 90% of the time spent filling out diversity surveys

Based on your own estimates, calculate the potential savings per year from using POD to complete diversity data requests much quicker.

Diversity surveys

Complete large third party diversity surveys in just a few clicks with pre-populated templates for the most common legal market questionnaires.

We've built Survey Filler referencing key questionnaires such as the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) Law Firm Diversity Survey, the American Bar Association (ABA) Model Diversity Survey , the General Counsel for Diversity & Inclusion questionnaire and state bar association surveys.

Pre-populated templates

We've designed Survey Filler to make completing third party diversity surveys as quick & easy as possible. It includes pre-populated templates for the most common diversity questionnaires, with your firm's data arranged in the exact format needed.

Select the relevant metrics then copy & paste directly into the survey.

And More Very Soon…

We are always adding new analyses and everything we build is designed with our clients’ needs in mind. As we continue to build more tools we’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

Talk to us about your ideas

What is Pirical On Demand?

Pirical's people analytics software equips law firms with the HR, rewards and diversity data they need to make smarter and fairer people decisions.

Book a demo today

Advancing DEI & building a compelling firm identity: 5 key takeaways from our POD Pioneers event

Thu, 18 May 2023 10:35:19 GMT

From retaining talent to creating fairer and more inclusive places to work, law firms have no shortage of challenges. That’s why for our first POD Pioneers event, which took place last week, we wanted to look at the legal profession’s biggest problems – and uncover practical ways to solve them.

It was one of our most compelling sessions yet. Across a set of fascinating talks and panels, we invited people leaders from across the industry to explore the good and the bad, diving deep into notoriously tricky areas like data, employer value propositions and getting people engaged with DEI.

Now that the dust has settled, we’ve assembled our five key takeaways from the day. (Since the session was held under the Chatham House Rule, we’ve anonymised all speaker quotes.)

1. DEI succeeds when it’s collegial

If you work in people management, you’ll probably know how hard it is to get other teams involved with diversity. All too often DEI feels cut off from the rest of the business, even though it really blurs into everything. That’s why it helps to “bring everyone into the fold,” as one of our speakers said.

Creating this sense of shared responsibility is about making every colleague, regardless of level or business function, feel like they have a stake in making things better. And that doesn't just mean fee-earners; it applies to IT, marketing, business development, personal assistants and more. While your people team sets the strategy, everyone else makes it happen.

The same collegial spirit should extend beyond your organisation too. So share what you’ve learned with other firms, especially if your DEI work has been successful. As stated by one of our speakers, “We don’t gain anything by being the only place to have reached this pinnacle."

2. Avoid a blanket approach to data

With diversity metrics, it can be tempting to talk in more general terms. And while firm-wide stats have their place, issues tend to play out in a more granular way. With more tailored insights, you can invest resources in the right places and drive real change at a practice group level.

Let’s say your firm has a problem keeping female staff. Even if a certain office looks like it's bringing the wider firm’s retention stats down, there may be more to it than that. The issue could actually be down to a specific practice group within that office, while other teams in the same place are performing well.

By drilling into the detail, you can avoid tarring everyone with the same brush. Not only do nuanced insights allow you to be more targeted, they also mean you don’t “lose credibility” internally, as one of our speakers put it.

3. Be mindful in the way you share information

Even though granular data can be more useful, you still have to be careful with it. Many teams choose to include summary sheets when they’re presenting data, depending on who they’re putting it in front of, rather than sharing the figures as they are. “We don’t want to overwhelm [people],” one of our speakers said. “You need to have context.”

So sharing DEI data involves a level of tact. Introducing material in a positive way, by giving credit where it’s due, can soften the blow when you broach a practice group’s shortfalls. Praise goes a long way in other areas too, since so many legal professionals don’t feel confident around DEI more broadly.

Tact is particularly important when clients ask about DEI. So for lawyers who are less fluent on the topic, it’s worth providing them with a few high-level talking points. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hold someone to account if they haven’t addressed a specific client request. Your department can help, but their client is still their responsibility.

4. What’s pushed externally has to be true internally

As with diversity, you need to think carefully about how you express what your firm stands for. An employer brand isn’t something you can just make up. What’s more, misguided messaging can undermine how your organisation is perceived internally too.

So when you set out to craft your employer value proposition, it’s worth doing enough work up front. That means holding focus groups, carrying out internal surveys and poring over Glassdoor reviews, so that your messaging is grounded in what your workforce actually thinks. “You’ve got to be able to articulate what your staff will recognise as true,” one of our speakers said.

Still, the DNA of your organisation may not always live up to your principles – and that’s okay. As one of our speakers explained, not everyone will have the same experience all the time. But if 90% of your staff experience something close to what you’re aiming for, it’ll be clear that your employer brand has grown out of a kernel of truth.

5. Law firms have to work harder to stand out

For a long time, lawyers have accepted the late nights, the weekend work and all the other sacrifices involved in the job. Why? Because in exchange, they get compensated extremely well, with salaries that beat out most other sectors.

Yet many law firms still have serious retention problems. What’s interesting here is that when it comes to salaries and benefits packages, many leading firms simply offer the same as their competitors. But with so little variation, it can be hard to stand out.

One way you can do better with talent acquisition is by bringing your culture to life with the help of advocates from inside your organsiation. As one audience member explained, producing a company podcast series is a great way to do this, since it gets real, human stories out there in a format that applicants engage with.

In a way then, both DEI and employer brand initiatives have a lot in common. They’re both about listening to staff, getting everyone involved and striving to make your firm more human.

What is Pirical On Demand (POD)?

Pirical's people analytics software equips law firms with the HR, rewards and diversity data they need to make smarter and fairer people decisions.

Book a demo today

The US Legal Market In Numbers

Fri, 05 May 2023 16:42:38 GMT

The United States is one of the largest legal markets in the world so we thought it would be interesting to analyze some US attorney data. Using our attorney database, Pirical Legal Professionals , we looked at the number of attorneys in the US, where they're located, what practice areas they work in and which US law firms are the largest.

How many attorneys are there in the US & where are they located?

Unsurprisingly, the majority of attorneys at AM Law 200 firms in the United States are located in New York City (25k).

Washington DC (15k), Chicago (8k), Los Angeles (8k), Boston (5k) and San Francisco (5k) make up the next most populous locations. In fact, these six cities account for over 50% of the entire AM Law 200 attorney population.

The high density of attorneys in New York City and these other major cities - as a proportion of the national total - still doesn't represent as much of a dominant force as other countries’ top legal hubs. For example, London alone accounts for over 50% of the lawyers in the United Kingdom.

How many attorneys work in Corporate, Finance or Dispute Resolution law?

Each of the major six legal cities in the United States has its own strengths, but by far & away the largest practice groups across all are Dispute Resolution & Litigation and Corporate.

New York City is indisputably the home of Banking & Finance in the USA, while Washington DC has a disproportionately high representation of Dispute Resolution & Litigation groups.

Which are the largest law firms in the USA?

We last looked at this data in a blog article in 2020. Since then, Kirkland & Ellis have retained the top sp ot, while Lewis Brisbois have snatched 2nd place from Greenberg Traurig. Holland & Knight and Dentons make up the rest of the top 5 US law firms by Partner count.

As with our 2020 analysis, Latham & Watkins continue to have a relatively modest number of partners for the amount of revenue the firm generates. Latham ranked 2nd in terms of revenue in 2022 , despite having over 500 fewer partners than the top revenue holders, Kirkland & Ellis.

Looking for legal sector data?

We sourced all the above insights using Pirical Legal Professionals , the leading attorney database of 500,000+ legal professionals across 130+ countries. Better understand the legal market with stats & beautifully designed charts, view complete market maps in seconds and monitor which law firms are thriving or which are churning.

We'd love to show you how Pirical Legal Professionals can transform your legal recruitment efforts.

If you're interested in learning more book a free demo!

How To Set Diversity Goals From Data

Fri, 21 Apr 2023 12:16:41 GMT

Pirical on Demand can give you the data and corresponding actions to set and achieve your firm's diversity goals. Some firms will call these 'targets'.

The most common target set by law firms is for partner representation

Unless you have a specific population in mind, Pirical recommends that diversity targets focus on partner representation. It is commonly an area of underrepresentation and encourages attention on the performance of your entire pipeline to partnership.

Furthermore, we recommend that the targets are set for 3 to 5 years’ time. This is enough time to effect change and for the current leadership to see change.

Set diversity targets with a bottom-up approach

↓ Top-Down Approach

Set targets for the firm and then push the targets down regardless of individual practice groups’ constraints.

This method is a one-size-fits-all approach. Some practice groups benefit, others are disadvantaged.

The firmwide target of 50% female partnership by 2033 is applied unilaterally to every practice group.

Practice group 1: We are already above that target. Practice group 2: We will not be able to reach that target by 2033, maybe if there was more time we could. Practice group 3: This target is totally unrealistic for our practice group and we cannot achieve it.

↑ Bottom-Up Approach

Set targets for each practice group and then aggregate them up for the firm.

This method allows for personalisation of goals and for reality to be included in the plan when it is made. This makes the ultimate goals of the plan easier to achieve. Pirical on Demand enables you to analyse practice-specific targets which ultimately lead to a firmwide aggregate.

Practice group 1: We can hit 55% female partnership by 2033 if we do X and Z.

Practice group 2: We can hit 49% female partnership by 2033 if we do Z.

Practice group 3: We can hit 47% female partnership by 2033 if we do X, Y and Z.

If the practices achieve their individual plans, the firm can expect to hit 50% female partnership by 2033.

Using Pirical on Demand to Set Diversity Targets

This bottom-up method of setting diversity targets uses a spreadsheet and Pirical on Demand data to fill it out.

Step 1

The first step is to define the current practice group partner populations by gender.

To help keep track of all the numbers, you will find it helpful to set up a spreadsheet like this one.

Smaller practices may present a challenge: the target-setting process works better with large enough population sizes. Pirical recommends grouping them together into an 'Other' row.

Step 2

This step uses Pirical on Demand projections. There are 4 different scenarios plotted on this graph. Each scenario focuses on a different lever that affects the % of female partners over the next 10 years.

This graph shows the various projections for the Tax Practice

This information needs to be added to the spreadsheet. There are two columns that need to be added. The first column is the scenario in black; change nothing/keep going, also called the 'Baseline'. The information for the Employment and Capital Market practice groups was taken from their projections.

The second column will be a combination of all the scenarios depicted which will be a stretch target. This target is calculated automatically in POD as the 'Combined Case', example:

Add this stretch target to your sheet as another column:

Step 3

This step is aggregating the individual practice’s targets to produce a firmwide target. This is calculated as a weighted average. Taking the Employment row as an example, if the target was 56%, the number of female partners is 8.4 (56% x 15). The last column was worked out this way for each practice. The firmwide target is 55%, worked out by taking the total number of female partners/total number of partners (30.3/55).

Next Steps: Present and get buy-in

An important part of setting diversity targets is getting the buy-in from everyone at the firm. Presenting the spreadsheet above might not be the most persuasive way to do this. A simplified version with the key facts and figures that make up this spreadsheet will be easier to understand and digest.

This is an example of a slide that was put together using a spreadsheet like the one above. It is broken down to show the present position of a tax practice, the future position and how the practice can get there. It is to the point and only focuses on the key highlights. If you wanted to supplement each statement with evidence, you could add links to each that make use of the charts and graphs behind the numbers.

Next Steps: Monitor progress against targets

Pirical on Demand has a screen that can help you monitor the progress of each target. The information on this screen will be updated monthly. This gives you ownership of the goal. These goals can be set up by Pirical once you have decided what they should be for your firm.

Protecting Personal Diversity Data during Reporting and Analysis

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 12:41:34 GMT

POD features a protective mechanism to avoid accidental disclosure of sensitive personal data. It is called small-group masking.

What is the risk?

When a group is too small, it is easier to infer who the data refers to. This could result in accidental identification of an individual and their diversity trait. Most POD users won’t be authorised to see personal data at an individual level, only aggregated data.

What does small-group masking look like in POD?

When a total headcount is too low, the number will be hidden and represented by < k .

What determines the minimum threshold, k?

When Pirical on Demand is set up for your firm, you can choose a minimum threshold. Most firms choose a minimum of 3. If < k appears, it means that the number of people is less than the agreed threshold.

For example, if it is decided that k =4 then any number less than 4 will be hidden.

What if <k shows as the total?

If < k appears in the total column it is because a headcount, < k , is a part of that total. If the total was revealed, then the value of < k could be determined.

Does this apply to all diversity traits?

Small-group masking is applied to all diversity traits in POD.

What if a screen I want to see is k-masked? Is there a way around it?

An admin on your account may be able to authorise a special cut of the data. Please discuss with your POD account manager.

Introducing POD Rewards

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 14:53:04 GMT

We've launched a brand new Pirical On Demand (POD) content module for Rewards teams at law firms! Our latest people analytics tool helps you make smarter and fairer compensation decisions.

The need to adopt a data-driven approach to compensation has become even more important as the legal sector reacts to global market changes like high inflation and a looming recession. Factor in the ever-changing pay expectations of employees, then live compensation data is vital to staying up-to-date with salary trends and making sure your pay is competitive enough to attract the best talent and boost employee retention. Maximise your compensation budget with POD Rewards by understanding where best to allocate pay raises and bonuses.

Benchmark Law Firm Salaries

How competitive is your compensation?

POD is the most up-to-date source for legal salary data, helping you stay ahead of a highly competitive market. Review your salary ranges and benchmark bonuses against the market for fee earners or business services, with granular role, office, and department combinations. Simpler and more accurate than filling in salary surveys: POD uses live HR data direct from your peer firms' HR & payroll systems.

Should your firm open up an office in a new city, you can now get a sense of what other firms in the area are paying their employees. Breaking salary data down by role and location gives you the ability to accurately set salaries of new hires based on the market average.

Use POD Rewards salary trends to support increases to compensation budgets and stay competitive across the departments and locations you operate within.

Track Salary Changes Over Time

Are you matching the market salary position?

Understand your historical position against the market, alongside inflation and market changes data. This analysis contains predictive modeling that allows you to instantly apply market alignment scenarios and easily calculate the cost to achieve them. "My team spends weeks doing modelling in spreadsheets. Now they can do it at the click of a button!" - Head of Rewards at an international law firm.

Use this monthly refreshed data to plan salary budgets for the following year with precision.

Starting salaries of NQ employees saw a rapid increase across the whole market in 2022, drastically affecting overall costs for law firms. With our historic market insights you can track major changes and better plan for the future.

Calculate Accurate Salary Raises

Our People Extract tool is the smarter and fairer way to calculate pay recommendations within law firms. Extract compensation and performance data for each individual then compare them against the market for their granular role and location. Build up a complete picture of an individual's value to the firm and reference all the performance metrics you need to justify pay decisions & bonuses.

Avoid the long and painful process of gathering all the information needed for pay reviews from multiple sources. This analysis effortlessly extracts complex compensation, finance and HR data. Contains all the information needed in one place: current salary, last raise, market median, compa-ratio, utilization, billed hours, revenues realized, salary multiplier and more!

And More Very Soon…

We are always adding new analyses and everything we build is designed with our clients’ needs in mind. As we continue to add more content to POD Rewards we’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

Talk to us about your ideas

What is Pirical On Demand?

Pirical's people analytics software equips law firms with the HR, rewards and diversity data they need to make smarter and fairer people decisions.

Book a demo today

How Pirical helped a leading law firm build a data-driven diversity and inclusion strategy

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 15:29:35 GMT

A UK-based law firm with thousands of lawyers globally has been working with Pirical for several years, mostly focusing on gender equality. The Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the firm was looking to use Pirical’s HR data analytics to strengthen its wider diversity strategy too.

The DEI team has a wide range of responsibilities, including shaping and implementing new policies. A big part of their work is getting the backing of senior figures, as well as securing engagement more broadly. As one of the team states, “We try to get everybody engaged at a ground level, we’re always working hard to create a culture of inclusion.”

The challenge: Making an ambitious strategy a reality

The firm has six major legal practice groups, covering areas like finance, real estate, technology and much more. The Diversity, Equity & Inclusion team was tasked with setting DEI targets for each of these groups, including the percentage of ethnic minority individuals at partner level.

The team lead was keen to take a 'bottom-up' approach rather than a blanket one, by tailoring targets to each practice group and its individual circumstances, to make them fairer and more motivating. “It was evident to us that flat targets wouldn’t work, because they were too generic," they said. "It wouldn’t encourage responsibility.”

The biggest challenge was figuring out where to start. For organizations of all sizes, it’s hard to decide what’s realistic, how ambitious to be and how far out to plan. What’s more, making a clear and compelling pitch to internal stakeholders can be just as tricky. “All that data can be overwhelming, I wanted to know what it was really telling me.”

“The last thing we wanted to do was to have targets where nothing changes.” For practice groups that were already doing well, they wanted to challenge them to do better. And for other parts of the firm that have more to do when it comes to diversity, it was important to make sure they weren’t disheartened by unrealistic, blanket targets. “We needed to have a more granular approach.”

The solution: Accessible information that inspires action

Pirical helped this client deliver the bottom-up targets setting process, beginning by analyzing gender and ethnicity data for each practice group. With the help of Pirical On Demand the firm was able to carry out quick and simple modeling, run analyses repeatedly and explore different cuts of data.

After this, they used Pirical’s tools to assess each practice group, which involved looking at how diversity had evolved over time. Pirical allowed the firm to compare each practice group’s performance, both internally and against competitors. Next, they used Pirical’s tools to build models for each practice group – around recruitment, attrition and promotion – which forecast what would happen around these three areas if they continued at the same rate.

The firm and Pirical then presented these findings to each practice group, in an accessible and engaging way, with projections around what would happen if no action was taken. “It was all super informative and non-judgemental,” the Head of DEI said. “Being able to see how each practice group compared against each other helped tease out a level of competitiveness too.”

Finally, the firm used Pirical to aggregate each practice group’s targets into a firm-wide target, rooted in that granular analysis and shared equally across the company. “The whole process enabled more meaningful conversations. Instead of scratching our heads, figuring out what to do, there was a sense of excitement. We were ready to crack on.”

The results: Faster target-setting with clearer goals and deeper engagement

Pirical initially projected that the firm could increase the number of people from an ethnic minority background in partner level roles to 18% by 2030, although some practice groups would find this goal more difficult. By working backwards from tailored targets, with some practice groups accountable for more ambitious figures, Pirical helped them ramp this up to a realistic overall firm target of 21%.

As Jason, CEO & Founder of Pirical points out, “Issuing a firm-wide goal and expecting every practice to hit it would be ineffective and unfair. Some would find it easy, but for others it would be nearly impossible. Giving every practice tailored targets actually increased the overall firm target substantially.”

With Pirical’s help, the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion team was also able to win hearts and minds more easily. “Pirical turned something difficult into something digestible. Being able to show leadership how other firms are doing has been a real eye-opener. Pirical helped us understand where it was worth investing our time and energy, by unlocking the possibility to have a conversation.”

Overall, by working with Pirical, our client was able to drastically speed up its entire target-setting process. “Put it this way, I don’t think we would be anywhere near where we are now without Pirical’s help,” said the Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

What is Pirical On Demand?

Pirical's people analytics software equips law firms with the hr and diversity data they need to make smarter people decisions.

HR data is messy, hard to analyze and difficult to scale. With Pirical On Demand , it's a lot easier for people leaders to get value out of it, without the need for an army of analysts and engineers. Setting HR or diversity targets in-house is no easy feat. With Pirical , you can save time, get people engaged and take a more sophisticated, data-driven approach.

Book a demo here

What are p-values?

Wed, 07 Dec 2022 09:22:00 GMT

What are p-values?

A p-value, or probability value, is a number between 0 and 1 which indicates the likelihood that results occurred by chance. Generally speaking, the smaller the p-value, the more solid the result.

A p-value of 0.04 can be read in any of the following ways:

There’s a 4% chance the result of this analysis occurred randomly and cannot be relied on.
There’s a 96% chance the result of this analysis is real and can be relied on.

Why do p-values matter?

Noise - or randomness - in data is inevitable.

Even in identical scenarios where both Group A and Group B perform equally, you can still expect small fluctuations in the data.

This presents a challenge.

If you can see a difference (in our example here: ±4%), at what point should you be concerned?

p-values tell you how confident to be

The p-value allows you to determine whether or not to believe the difference you are seeing.

The lower the p-value, the more confident you can be that the results are real. The greater the p-value, the more likely the results are coincidental (the effect of normal random noise), and hence, you should not draw any conclusions.

What influences p-values?

Sample size: The effect of random error decreases as the size of a sample increases. So the larger your sample, the more confident you can be. This is why it’s hard to make a judgement based on 2 data points, but it’s easy when you have 2,000.

Distribution of results: The less variance in results, the more confident you can be. The more outliers there are, the larger the p-value will be.

How should you interpret p-values?

In the natural sciences, a p-value of less than 0.05, which is 5%, is generally agreed to be significant. This implies a less than 5% likelihood that results occurred by random chance, so conclusions are therefore deemed to be noteworthy. Similarly, a p-value less than 0.01, or 1%, is considered highly significant.

When considering impact-driven business decision, we need to add risk and reward. For example, a p-value of 0.15 may be acceptable if the cost of an initiative is low and the reward is high.

“You need to ask yourself, for the action I’m considering taking, am I happy to accept there’s an X% chance we made the wrong conclusion from the data?”

As a general approach, Pirical will highlight to clients where p-values are less than 0.10.

Analysing p-values in Pirical On Demand

You will find p-values throughout Pirical On Demand where two populations are being compared.

P-values below 0.1 will be highlighted.

Running Up That Hill: Five issues shaping social mobility in the legal profession

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 10:13:38 GMT

Like many industries, the legal profession has a social mobility problem. Although many firms have been working hard to become more diverse, they still have a long way to go. Data can help by uncovering issues, putting them in context and helping firms take the right action. But collecting this data can be a challenge in itself.

We held a panel exploring these topics last week, with speakers from two major law firms and a leading inclusion consultancy. We wanted to understand how firms can do better, by gathering richer data and working to remove obstacles to employee progression. It was a lively debate, with a lot of audience participation and positive feedback.

We dug deep into the issues – not only to see how they’ve emerged, but also to identify the steps we can take to start solving them. From resource management to making people feel safe, read on for our five key takeaways from the session.

1. The difference between who gets in and who gets ahead

Even if it looks like your firm has an increasingly broad church, more granular data could tell a different story. By analysing multiple firms who use Pirical, the data suggests that diversity tends to decline with seniority, due to attrition and slower progression along the way. This means fewer people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds reach the top.

Our speakers expressed similar points: “traditionally, law has emphasised being ‘reassuringly expensive’,” one panelist said. By hinging on social capital, things like accents have become a proxy for talent, which has made it harder for underrepresented candidates to break through. For those that do win a training contract, persisting attitudes can mean they’re given less impactful work, which holds them back.

Our audience suggested one solution here lies in resource managers. By ensuring those in gatekeeping roles understand diversity, they can challenge old behaviours and champion underrepresented staff. As a result, a more diverse set of people can get staffed on crucial matters and ultimately, get ahead.

2. The reality of working in law

Another recurring theme during our session was the reality of working at a law firm. “In our pursuit of democratising access, I’ve taken it for granted that people will understand what it means to be a lawyer,” one speaker said.

There’s a tension between traditional working practices and the need to make firms more diverse. The reality is that firms are built on a model that relies on billable hours requirements, which can translate to much longer hours than other professions. Even if firms want to change these practices, culture shifts like this take time. So in the meantime, more needs to be done to prepare new hires for the sacrifice involved with a job in law, especially those who haven’t had lawyer parents.

But there are deeper, more problematic issues at play too. Audience members mentioned the racism and bullying that people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds can experience, which is obviously unacceptable. It goes without saying that systemic racism needs to be rooted out from the legal profession. If firms are to attract diverse talent – and allow them to progress in the same way as everybody else – they must start there.

3. More trust breeds richer data

Another common challenge is collecting reliable data, particularly when it comes to candidates’ and existing hires’ backgrounds. Response rates can be a real issue, since people often don’t feel safe enough to answer questions about class and race honestly.

Sometimes it starts at the top. When senior figures speak openly about their family background, professional experiences and problems they’ve faced along the way, it encourages others to do the same. Another way to drive up response rates is to explain precisely what you’re going to do with personal information, to make applicants and staff feel at ease.

A simple way to make data collection more transparent is to include explanatory text in questionnaires, which tells candidates how their input helps improve the firm. “Without safety, there’s no inclusion,” one speaker said. It may sound simple, but a lot of that sense of safety can be achieved through clearer communication.

4. The jargon doesn’t work in real life

The way we talk about social mobility can feel overly dry and technical. In normal conversation, people rarely say things like “low socioeconomic background”, but more familiar terms like “working class” have their own limitations too. In any case, people may prefer to avoid the stigma attached to either of these terms, in the same way that they may choose not to disclose that they received free school meals.

“You need to have two conversations at the same time,” one audience member suggested. There’s the hard-edged conversation you have in the boardroom, where it’s about the numbers and convincing decision-makers to take action, by identifying how acute problems are. But there’s also the reality of speaking to people in less formal environments, where the conversation needs to be more human.

5. Holding a mirror to your firm

“If we’re not collecting data, we don’t have an informed strategy,” one speaker said. This idea was echoed by both speakers, in that data should hold a mirror to your firm, so that you can see what’s really going on and come up with a plan of action. Otherwise, “it’s just collecting data for the sake of collecting data.”

The bigger step is publishing your findings, so that your firm can put a stake in the ground and be held accountable moving forward. This level of openness won’t be right for every organisation, but by publicly sharing your people data, it can show that you're serious about addressing diversity issues. This doesn’t just incentivise staff to stay with you, it also encourages people from more diverse backgrounds to apply.

Still, getting your data to a point where you can share it – internally or otherwise – is easier said than done. As we’ve seen, there are plenty of things you can do to put your firm on the road to improvement when it comes to socioeconomic diversity. But whatever approach you take, this type of data can be messy, hard to analyse and difficult to scale.

Sometimes getting started can be the hardest part. With Pirical On Demand, it's easier to get value out of your people data, without the need for an army of analysts and engineers.

How working class lawyers get in and get on at large UK law firms

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 14:46:36 GMT

The following case study was presented by Pirical at an event in October 2022.

It is based on a real law firm's data. The firm is large, with over 600 Fee Earners in the UK. The data comes directly from the firm's HR system.

Pirical On Demand helps people leaders conduct this analysis themselves by self-serving from the firm's live data.

We're using Main Parental Occupation Aged 14 to analyse Socioeconomic Background (SEB)

The UK government's Social Mobility Commission recommends this metric as the "single best measure to assess someone's background".

The question asked is: "What was the occupation of your main household earner when you were aged about 14?"

We will drop Intermediate SEB and compare Low SEB directly to High SEB. There are relatively few people in the Intermediate category. Including it adds noise and complexity.

Some people prefer the label 'Working Class' instead of 'Low SEB', and 'Professional' instead of 'High SEB'. We will use 'Low/High SEB' in this analysis to be clear we have excluded the intermediate category, which contain occupations some may consider Working Class.

The firm in our case study has about 50% data completeness for parental occupation data. This is enough to get good insights.

Using parental occupation as our primary measure of socioeconomic background is supported by a host of government, campaigning and research organisations, as well as large employers .

The % of Low SEB Fee Earners has been increasing slightly, and is above market average.

The market average for 2022 is 13%. The market average is calculated across firms using Pirical On Demand.

The firm has 23% fewer Low SEB Fee Earners than would be expected if drawing randomly from the UK working age population.

The firm has 80% High SEB Fee Earners, 43% more than the population .

Low SEB Fee Earners are more likely to be from ethnic minorities.

Ethnic minority includes Black, Asian and Mixed/Other Minority ethnicities. 'Black+' includes Black & Mixed Black ethnicities. Same for Asian.

There is a pyramid: the firm’s socioeconomic diversity declines with seniority.

The percentage of Low SEB partners is actually higher than might be expected. One suggestion is that this is due to age, and how UK society has changed over time (the implication is fewer people work in manual and service occupations today than 50+ years ago). Pirical is keen to explore this further as more parental occupation benchmarks are made public.

The firm’s diversity exceeds market average for junior roles.

Diversity in senior roles has been decreasing, despite a diversity increase in junior roles.

What’s happening?

There seems to be an issue with the pipeline: how talent is progressing through the firm.

There are three issues to investigate:

Who is coming in: recruitment
Who is going out: attrition
How people are moving up through the pipeline: promotion

The recruitment team seems to be doing OK - not obviously a recruitment issue.

We can rule out recruiting bias.

Low SEB Fee Earners at the firm have higher attrition rates than High SEB peers.

This attrition bias - to continue our metaphor - means the pipeline is leaky.

High SEB Associates are expected to stay at the firm for 2.2 years longer than Low SEB peers.

An Average Firm would also have higher attrition rates for Low SEB Associates and Senior Associates.

Using attrition data from all firms on Pirical On Demand, we can construct a market average.

Excess Low SEB associate attrition costs our Average Firm nearly £100k per year

We estimated the financial cost of excess Low SEB associate attrition by considering the impact of reducing the Low SEB attrition rates to equal those of High SEB peers.

We have identified attrition bias.

At every step of the career ladder Low SEB Fee Earners at the firm progress more slowly.

The pipeline for Low SEB talent is not just leaky, it’s clogged too.

Comparing against the market average, lower promotion rates for Low SEB Fee Earners is common across firms.

Although not at Trainee level.

We have identified promotion bias.

There are no obvious utilisation differences to explain outcomes.

Utilisation is the number of billed hours as a proportion of total hours. It is sometimes used as a metric of performance.

What else could be happening? Maybe it’s about access to opportunities. Low SEB Fee Earners on average work within larger teams.

We have some evidence that working on larger teams is associated with higher attrition rates and lower promotion rates.

And Low SEB Fee Earners work on fewer matters per year, particularly Associates.

We also have some evidence that working on fewer matters is associated with higher attrition rates.

Ensuring balance in work allocation may be an effective mechanism for future change.

Something for next time. For the Business Services (Non-Fee Earning) population of the firm, the issues are similar, and potentially more acute.

Promotions from coordinator (or individual contributor) roles into the managerial ranks have the highest promotion gap.

Pirical On Demand is a flexible solution for real-time social mobility data analysis, and for all diversity traits. Ready to learn more? See how Pirical On Demand works.

How To Handle Unknown Or 'Prefer Not To Say' Diversity Data

Tue, 02 Aug 2022 14:51:00 GMT

When analysing or reporting on diversity data, two cases are important to consider:

Individuals who haven’t been asked or did not respond -> Unknown
Individuals who decided not to participate -> Prefer Not To Say (PNS)

A common confusion is how to analyse these records.

Do not include them

It’s important to only consider individuals with known diversity characteristics; including unknowns will actually understate how diverse your organisation is.

Here’s an example. This organisation has 176 individuals, of which 23 are Unknown/PNS. To say 17% of their staff are Black would be underreporting their diversity. They would be saying they are less diverse than they actually are. The actual figure is 30 out of 153 = 20%.

Including the Unknown/Prefer not to say values misrepresents the percentage of employees in each ethnicity category.

In practice, excluding Unknown/PNS values is the same as assuming they will be distributed in the same way as the known values. In our example, we can expect 20% of the 23 to be Black.

It’s worth noting there is no consensus that individuals who choose not to fill in diversity surveys or respond 'Prefer Not To Say’ will skew one way or another, so no correction is required.

Be clear they are excluded

Include the total numbers of Unknown/PNS to make clear people are not missing from your sample, but you are instead missing some diversity data about them.

The number of Unknown / Prefer Not To Say responses should not change the result, it is a measure of uncertainty

It’s good to understand what Unknown/PNS values represent. They aren’t a category in themselves but actually represent a margin of error. The way to think about this is: the ‘true’ value lies somewhere within this range, but we’re not sure exactly where.

If everyone has responded and no one has said ‘Prefer not to say’ (100% data completeness), the margin of error would be zero. The more Unknown/PNS, the larger the margin of error.

The technical way to report on these representation figures would be to state them with a ±%, for example, 20±2%

Here's a worked example:

More Unknowns mean we can have less confidence about exactly where the ‘true’ value lies. Technical note: error calculated at 90% confidence interval.

It’s generally not necessary to report in this level of detail for people analytics. Pirical’s advice is keep an eye on your data completeness levels. Anything above 60-70% is enough to get reliable insights.

Statistical testing takes into account smaller samples

Analyses in Pirical On Demand can offer an additional layer of insight to determine whether you have enough data to have confidence in the conclusion.

Higher levels of Unknown/PNS values can reduce your level of confidence in the data. Our primer on R^2 and p-values will help you understand more.

How To Control Access To Sensitive HR Data

Wed, 11 May 2022 14:03:00 GMT

As more users have access to self-serve from your firm’s HR data, how can you make sure commercially or personally sensitive data is protected? In this tutorial we will explain the privileging system in Pirical On Demand (POD).

Pirical On Demand is a library of over 1,000 tried-and-tested analyses, kept up to date with your firm’s data. HR professionals use POD to benchmark statistics against competitors, to analyse bias in recruitment and work allocation systems, and for real-time or predictive capabilities like highlighting which employees may need extra support. POD addresses all core diversity traits: Gender, Ethnicity, Social Mobility, Sexual Orientation, Disability, Age, and Religion.

Privileging is by datasets

An analysis in POD may use one or multiple datasets to answer a question.

Each dataset can be restricted, so only certain individuals can see analyses using that type of data.

A POD user can have any of the following privileges:

Headcount . Can see active headcount data, including joiners and leavers.
Diversity . Can see analyses using any diversity data (e.g. Gender, Ethnicity, LGBT+).
Disclosive Diversity Data . If small group anonymity protections are applied across the account, individuals with this privilege will be able to see screens where the protections can be removed. For example, the 'Survey Filler' screen offers the ability to see small groups.
Finance . Can see analyses looking at utilisation & hours, as well as revenues, discounts and write-offs. Also includes client names.
Compensation . Can see analyses using salary and bonus data.
Absences . Can see analyses using absences data (e.g. holiday, sick leave, parental).
Individual Compensation . Can see analyses that show individual salaries and bonus data (including names).
Individuals . Can see analyses that show individuals (including their names and reasons for leaving). Importantly, does not reveal diversity data for individuals. May however include diversity data completeness for individuals (i.e. whether value is 'Known' or 'Unknown'). Does not grant access to see individual compensation (for this, a user needs the Individual Compensation tag).
Performance . Can see analyses that show utilisation and performance rating data.

What if an analysis uses multiple datasets?

Many analyses in POD combine multiple datasets. If multiple datasets are used, a user needs to have all of the privileges associated with the analysis to see it.

For example, an analysis of utilisation by gender will appear restricted to users who have not been given privileges to see both Diversity and Performance datasets .

Who can manage privileges?

The manage privileges feature is only visible to selected users, called admins. By default it will only be available to account owners. Other users can be set up as admins on request.

The feature can be found on the top right-hand-side of the POD site.

All active POD users are visible from this screen, and their privileging tags can be set.

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How To Build Presentation-ready HR Reports That Update Themselves

Fri, 11 Mar 2022 17:04:00 GMT

Creating simple, beautiful, and insightful analytics from HR data can be hard work. Particularly if you want to keep those analyses up to date and circulate them to stakeholders each month.

In this guide we will look at how to use Pirical On Demand (POD) to assemble custom stories, which are then automatically kept up to date with your firm’s latest data.

Pirical On Demand is a library of over 1,000 tried-and-tested analyses, kept up to date with your firm’s data. HR professionals use POD to benchmark statistics against competitors, to analyse bias in recruitment and work allocation systems, and for real-time or predictive capabilities like highlighting which employees may need extra support. POD addresses all core diversity traits: Gender, Ethnicity, Social Mobility, Sexual Orientation, Disability, Age, and Religion.

What is a custom story?

Custom stories in Pirical On Demand allow you to accumulate analyses into a presentation-ready format, similar to a slide deck.

Custom stories can be shared directly and securely through POD to other users, or downloaded to PDF.

When should you use a custom story?

‘They should see that’

The custom stories feature in POD is a great tool for capturing specific data analyses that you want to present later. POD analyses are designed to be easily interpretable to a non-specialist audience.

‘This makes sense alongside that’

Custom stories allow you to sequence analyses, and shuffle the order around, so you can build a storyline around your data, to inform and influence stakeholders.

‘We need to keep an eye on that’

Custom stories allow you to track progress over time. You won’t have to rebuild the story every time the data changes. Within a custom story, all analyses will update automatically each time your data is refreshed. To see what’s changed, just come back to the same story you built before.

How to create a custom story

Step 1: Create a story in the ‘ Stories ’ navigation.

Give your story a name.

Step 2: Add analyses to your story from the ‘ Discover ’ navigation. On an analysis, use the ‘ Save to Story ’ button.

Then select your story from the dropdown menu.

Step 3 : Now it's time to edit your story. Find your story back in the ‘ Stories ’ navigation.

Edit the custom story to adjust its name, and the order of the analyses within it.

Use the

Arrows to edit the order
Bin icon to delete slides

Once you are happy, click ‘ Save ’ to save your changes .

Sharing your custom story

Who can view my story?

Custom stories are only visible to you, by default.

You can send the link to someone else, so they can view it in POD, but you will need to share the story with them first. Click ‘ Share ’ and search for their name or email address.

Can’t find the user you want on POD? They might need an account created first. Please contact us.

Stories will only be accessible to those who have both:

- Permission to view the story and
- Permission to view all the analyses within the story

For example, Alex might have access to a story that Benita created. However, if Benita adds analyses to the story which Alex is not authorised to view, such as an analysis using compensation data, Alex will not be able to access the story unless that particular analysis is removed.

Your custom story will update automatically

The analyses within each story will update automatically when the data in POD updates. Your story will always reflect the most up-to-date data in POD.

Exporting your custom story

The ‘Download’ button allows you to export any custom story as a PDF.

You should receive a notification that your PDF is ready within 1-2 hours. If you don’t receive this notification please contact support@pirical.com

Not yet a POD Diversity customer?

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‘Third Wave’ diversity leaders are changing the internal structure of law firms.

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 08:55:00 GMT

Pirical sat down (virtually) with D&I pioneer, Alexis Roberston, a powerful voice in the Diversity legal world. Known for her role as Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Foley & Lardner, as well as having a background both as an attorney and as a legal recruiter, Alexis is fantastically placed to talk with authority on this topic. Through a humanised approach to D&I, Alexis is working internally at Foley to relook at the structures it has in place through a people-centric lens. Alexis is a ‘Third Wave’ diversity advocate (explained below) and says the industry has not yet confronted the systemic issues within law firms.

When people are your product, a diversity issue is a business issue

‘Third Wave’ diversity recognises that within company structures, D&I is a people-related issue and therefore a business issue.

“The first wave of D&I looked at the numbers of diverse talent hired into the sector. By the second wave, the industry considered the lived experience within firms, that’s when inclusion was the main agenda. The campaign for social change has made some headway, with the focus being on ‘winning hearts and minds’ through discussions and teaching. Third wave diversity includes all of these, but also takes a look at company structures. There’s no reason to exclusively focus on winning hearts and minds. We must also use workplace systems to help us get to where we need to be.”

For Alexis, tackling barriers faced by minority groups needs a revised approach. She believes it is time to reframe ‘diversity issues’ as an overall talent issue, as opposed to one of only social responsibility. And therefore as the kind of business critical issue that a professional services organisation should care deeply about. For Alexis, to subsection ‘diversity’ issues off as a separate, theoretical notion, results in minority experiences ending up siloed and put last on the agenda.

“It’s great that we say the word diversity, and we use this phrase consciously, seeking to educate, make change or seek cultural change. But a number of people don’t feel this is relevant to them, or this is just another diversity programme .”

“For those who assume that diversity isn’t relevant to them, we can sometimes engage them by reframing the issues as a people issue. For example, analysing retention disparities between men and women or between Black and white associates, is also a talent or people issue. For the sake of the broader organisation, we must be curious about and endeavour to address those gaps, whether or not we’re labeling it as a diversity issue.”

Other words you end up using, Alexis says, “are fairness, equity, and uniformity."

Alexis works with a people-centric outlook, one that encompasses all areas of people related issues. Her view is that, as much as her role as diversity director is focused on representing minority groups within Foley, her investment should be on each individual within the firm. Foley has introduced weekly podcasts, where Alexis speaks with its attorneys to uncover the varying pathways into law. It is unique, Alexis says, for a firm of that size to dig into the underbelly of people’s personal experiences of working towards and within the industry.

Dismantling the structure of a firm against the ingrained traditions of the legal sector

As a third wave diversity advocate, Alexis works beyond programmes and instead focuses on the real structural issues within the sector. Initially, law firms had placed a lot of attention on the sentimental win, or what Alexis describes as “winning hearts and minds”. A lot of D&I initiatives focus on implicit training, affinity groups and outsourced sponsorship programmes. However, Alexis argues that despite these measures being important in driving cultural change, the results have not pushed the industry far enough.

“I see people getting tired with the same programmes, and when we look at the data they are not working within the industry in the way they hoped.”

Alexis believes that she will not need to win over “hearts and minds” in her campaign for cultural change if she has the support systems in place to do their job. When too much focus is placed on the sentimental, it's difficult for a campaign to remain effective and achieve its goals.

By way of example, Alexis mentions the way in which the industry is not unified in its approach to interviewing or feedback for attorneys. That’s where Alexis notices how bias creeps in, unintentionally. All factors need to be at play, she says, not just a handful.

Alexis plans for a systematised approach to support change which doesn’t rely on people modifying their behaviour without assistance.

What Alexis does run up against are the very historically entrenched traditions within the profession of the law. The way in which lawyers progress into the profession follows a historic tradition, preserving a setting that is very risk averse. It’s in the DNA of lawyers, she says, to find “it scary to innovate and I think we struggle at it as an industry.”

Using data to support the D&I journey

Alexis says that in a perfect world her job wouldn’t exist. However she identifies that blind-spots in firms require the support of a professional to come in to offer a D&I-focused perspective. Alexis remarks on the advantageous position she is in to be able to make changes. Depending on where D&I is situated within the company structure, Alexis says, can make an impact on how much can be achieved.

Alexis acknowledges how the industry needs to be going faster, but there are some realities of how long this process takes.

“For example, depending on how many laterals a firm hires per year, recruiting new associates and promoting partners all take time.” By virtue of the fact that the firm is dealing with people, Alexis recognises that, “data analytics aggregates over many years.”

Alexis advocates using more sophisticated methods of data analytics to support and refine D&I strategy.

“Often, a diversity officer will be the first person to walk in and say - can we pull your data? How do you record your data? What are your trends showing? I need to be able to benchmark where we are in order to record progress. You can’t manage what you’re not measuring.”

Accelerating change

Third wave diversity is elevating the conversation and not afraid of trying new methods to accelerate change. Alexis is looking to elevate D&I but also embed it across the firm in all aspects. She considers D&I in every “people function” across the organisation, from initial recruitment to partner and beyond. Her focus is to look at the life-cycle of people's experiences and the organisational systems, and then the education and training component. Alexis is actively investigating the use of real-time data analytics to help and inform the journey gaps.

Pirical On Demand (POD) is the UK’s first on demand people analytics service for HR in legal and professional services. Track your firm’s diversity and inclusion strategy with real-time data and thousands of pre-populated data questions.

Magic Circle Firms are losing lawyers to US firms

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 09:20:00 GMT

Over the past year, the UK legal climate has experienced a lot of changes. Trying to understand trends has become increasingly difficult, but remains an important task.

The pandemic has caused many to reevaluate and recalibrate their career paths for a multitude of reasons, which perhaps might include relocation, unemployment, and work from home which has allowed individuals the time to reassess their career trajectories. This has led to a huge shift in the legal sector, from small firms to the Magic Circle. At Pirical we put evidence before guesswork, and didn't want to make assumptions on the impact of these changes on employment, so we didn’t. We looked at the data, and this is what the data said.

The most popular destination for Magic Circle firm leavers in 2020 was US law firms

It might come as a surprise that the most popular destination for Magic Circle firm leavers in 2020 was US law firms in the UK, absorbing 56.8% of leavers, while non-Magic Circle UK firms absorbed a total of 36.6%. Only 6.6% of these leavers left to join another Magic Circle firm.

Linklaters and Allen & Overy have experienced the most leavers to US law firms in 2020:

We took this a step further and looked at which Magic Circle firms were losing the most to US firms, and which US law firms were gaining the most of these leavers.

Linklaters and Allen & Overy have experienced the most leavers to US firms in 2020, losing 29 and 27, respectively, to US firms. The most popular US firms to join were Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins, with some other surprising appearances by US firms with a relatively small presence in the UK, like Cahill Gordon & Reindel.

Clifford Chance experienced the most leavers to UK firms

Taking a look at which Magic Circle firms lost the most lawyers to non-Magic Circle UK firms, you can see that there is a near inversion of the results compared to the US leavers results, with Linklaters losing the least lawyers to UK firms and Clifford Chance losing the most. At the top of the list of UK firms to employ Magic Circle leavers in 2020, was Ashurst.

Who left Magic Circle firms to become partner?

Finally, we took a look at who left their respective Magic Circle firms to make partner elsewhere. There seems to be a slight favouring of UK law firms as destinations for new partner promotional moves. While Allen & Overy and Slaughter and May have been seemingly unaffected by these moves, Linklaters has experienced the most leavers seeking partnership at other firms, both US and UK.

Final thoughts

So there you have it: in 2020, a majority of 56.8% of lawyers who left Magic Circle firms joined US firms in the UK, followed by 36.6% joining non-Magic Circle UK firms. It’s worth noticing that Linklaters and Allen & Overy experienced the most leavers to US firms, while Clifford Chance experienced the most leavers to UK firms. Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins seem to be the US firms to watch as they collect Magic Circle leavers and grow in their UK presence.

Most law firms report the wrong social mobility data

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 15:41:00 GMT

New guidelines issued late last year aim to stop the confusion

How do you measure success when it comes to social mobility, also known as socioeconomic status?

It’s a question many firms have grappled with at some point.

Monitoring progress on gender and ethnicity is pretty straightforward by comparison. There’s a high level of consensus about how they are defined, how to collect the data, and what ‘good’ looks like: usually some combination of how your firm compares with the population, and equal outcomes in areas like recruitment, retention and work allocation.

But social mobility presents a more complex challenge: how do you measure something for which there are many definitions and no consensus yardsticks?

What metrics of social mobility do firms currently use?

We took a sample of 40 of the UK’s top law firms to understand more.

We found that the most commonly reported metric was the type of secondary school attended.

25 firms (or 96% of firms regularly reporting) in our sample were disclosing the balance of state school educated and independent school educated staff.

Number of firms in sample using each metric for regular social mobility reporting

As of December 2020

Many firms point out their reporting is in line with the UK’s Solicitors Regulation Authority , which asks firms to collect and submit data for three metrics: Type of Secondary School, Parents’ Highest Educational Qualification, and Main Parental Occupation aged 14.

While the SRA has asked for type of secondary school for several years, the other two metrics were only introduced in 2019.

Why are some social mobility metrics better than others?

Pirical’s clients are not unusual among major employers in that, faced with no clear consensus metric, they often collect and report on a combination of metrics to be safe.

Pirical has worked with many and found that most of the commonly used ones have at least one major drawback.

Summarising an extensive body of research on the subject, there are 5 criteria that determine the usefulness of a social mobility metric:

Simple . Is the question straightforward enough to receive high response rates and unambiguous answers?
Accurate . Do responses correlate well enough with other more detailed and academic assessments of social mobility to be a decent proxy of socioeconomic status?
International . Is the metric applicable across many, if not most, countries?
Multigenerational . Is the metric relevant across all age groups?
Balanced . Does the metric account for both social advantage and social disadvantage?

What changed?

In November 2020 a consortium of organisations interested in making progress around social mobility collectively issued revised guidance on which metric should be prioritised.

The initiative was driven by the Social Mobility Commission, and backed by major players including CIPD, The Sutton Trust and the Social Mobility Foundation.

A number of major legal and professional services organisations are even represented on the steering committee including:

BCLP
Clifford Chance
EY
KPMG
Linklaters

This revised guidance, which promotes a single, universal metric for social mobility is the biggest intervention in this space for years.

The consortium came together to extoll the benefits of collecting data about the main occupation of an individuals’ parents aged 14 , above all else.

The consortium’s guidance says this metric is the ‘single best measure to assess someone’s background’.

Main Parental Occupation Aged 14 performs well across the 5 criteria discussed above, which makes it the best proxy available to employers interested in assessing social mobility in their organisation:

Main parental occupation distinguishes between higher socioeconomic status individuals, whose parents had ‘Professional’ occupations as well as those with intermediate and lower/working class occupations.

The guidance also offers a simplified question that boasts high response rates and tests well as a proxy to other, more detailed assessments of social class.

The question asks individuals to categorise their parental occupation according to a number of granular categories with examples, for example:

Modern professional & traditional professional occupations such as: teacher, nurse, physiotherapist, social worker, musician, police officer (sergeant or above), software designer, accountant, solicitor, medical practitioner, scientist, civil / mechanical engineer.
Senior, middle or junior managers or administrators such as: finance manager, chief executive, large business owner, office manager, retail manager, bank manager, restaurant manager, warehouse manager.
Clerical and intermediate occupations such as: secretary, personal assistant, call centre agent, clerical worker, nursery nurse.
Technical and craft occupations such as: motor mechanic, plumber, printer, electrician, gardener, train driver.
Routine, semi-routine manual and service occupations such as: postal worker, machine operative, security guard, caretaker, farm worker, catering assistant, sales assistant, HGV driver, cleaner, porter, packer, labourer, waiter/waitress, bar staff.
Long-term unemployed (claimed Jobseeker’s Allowance or earlier unemployment benefit for more than a year).
Small business owners who employed less than 25 people such as: corner shop owners, small plumbing companies, retail shop owner, single restaurant or cafe owner, taxi owner, garage owner.

Responses are grouped and firms are encouraged to compare their results against the national benchmarks:

Of the firms Pirical sampled, we found only 9 (34% of firms reporting) were already using Main Parental Occupation Aged 14 for their regular reporting. The firms were:

Charles Russell Speechlys
DAC Beachcroft
Fieldfisher
Linklaters
Macfarlanes
Mills & Reeve
Mishcon de Reya
Osborne Clarke
Travers Smith

Note this was from a selection of major firms, and so is not an exhaustive list.

What difference will this change make?

It is likely that 2021 will see a sudden shift in the number of firms reporting on this data, particularly if the SRA changes their guidance accordingly.

Those responsible for collecting and analysing their firm’s social mobility data are likely to find this guidance cuts through what has been a tricky conversation to date.

By focusing on a single metric, the guidance will reduce the need to have multiple angles of reporting, enable more benchmarking, and ultimately elevate the social mobility agenda to compare more directly with ethnicity and gender reporting.

Law firms are knocking out competitors with a strong D&I strategy

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 09:14:00 GMT

We had the great opportunity to speak with Danielle Kelly, Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion for Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF), about her development and delivery of HSF’s global D&I strategy and the role of data analytics within that.

Clients are interested in firms with diversity on their agenda

The last few years have seen a real turning point for the legal industry. Danielle started by highlighting how the priorities from HSF’s clients have evolved, noting a shift from “rarely followed up on” standardised questions, towards more serious signals of commitment to D&I.

HSF responded to a rise in demand by engaging openly in conversation with their clients, and delivering diversity data analysis upfront.

This range of D&I initiatives has been “directly influential in broadening the scope and range of discussions that many clients are now having with HSF.” Danielle believes that clients who truly understand the benefits of D&I have enormous power to require greater transparency from their panel firms in relation to D&I. HSF partners are often encouraged by clients to engage with them around how they can each nudge the legal profession to be more inclusive - both from the client side and the private practice side. In other words, it’s both a supply-side ‘push’ and a demand-side ‘pull’. With Pirical we are equipping partners with the diversity data they need to engage in this conversation. HSF is proud to have sparked competition with other firms and helped set standards across the industry, as it pushes others to “focus more seriously on their diversity strategy which in turn raises the bar across the whole legal profession.”

The advantage of competing in a global economy

HSF operates a number of international offices, which has posed a challenge for D&I practitioners to create a model best suited to each region. In relation to race and ethnicity, Danielle says it is “difficult to look at ethnicity targets at a global level - it needs to be understood within the region you are operating.” Danielle emphasises the importance of tailoring the questions for each region, “setting a global ethnicity target in partnership, for example, would be counterintuitive.” Across HSF regions there are varying levels of sensitivity to collecting and discussing ethnicity data and so the issue of ethnicity data collection must always be handled with care.

In the UK, HSF is familiar with asking questions in relation to ethnicity by way of the Solicitors Regulation Authority , whereas in Australia, there is “no regulatory requirement to ask your people about their ethnicity”. As a result, it can be more difficult to obtain good ethnicity data in Australia - data which is very important for informing a diversity strategy. This contrasts with the position in relation to gender in Australia, where the Workplace Gender Equality Agency has been requiring organisations with more than 100 employees to report on their gender profile for some years. (Each year, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency collects a series of data across six gender equality indicators, including promotion, representation and utility of resources and working arrangements).

In September 2020, HSF announced its 10 Actions for Change which are a series of actions the firm has committed to in order to improve ethnic diversity across the firm, particularly at more senior levels. Action 4 concerns better informing the approach to ethnicity through robust data collection. Very few, if any, organisations have managed to come up with a set of ethnicity questions that resonate across their global footprint. This has not stopped HSF, which is currently on track to have collected ethnic diversity data on its partnership and senior businesses services roles by early 2021.

Danielle also discussed the importance of psychological safety - i.e an environment which supports interpersonal risk taking and divergent thinking (to use Professor Amy Edmondsen’s definition). One of the ways in which the firm has sought to “operationalise” psychological safety and tap into diverse perspectives is their recently launched People Forums, which are made up of groups of around 10 people of varying seniority in each region whose role is to engage with the regional executives around people and cultural matters.

Inclusive culture poaches the best talent

As a diversity leader, Danielle comments that it is “facile to say there is no competitive element, [between firms] because there simply is.” She describes D&I, and culture more broadly, as a “key differentiator” between firms for many aspiring lawyers. In the recruitment process, law students will look at the culture of a firm when considering their options. A more diverse and inclusive environment makes for a “better place to work” and a firm that has a good reputation for inclusivity is more likely to poach the best talent.

When HSF created its global “IRIS” (Inclusion, Respecting Identity and Sexuality) network, the received feedback from graduates and students on campus, that this initiative was a key indicator to them of an inclusive culture, particularly given the leadership of that network was coming from HSF’s CEO, Justin D’Agostino.

Measuring diversity & inclusion

“By its nature, it is a lot easier to measure diversity over inclusion. Some aspects of identity (such as gender) are easy to measure. Other information is harder to gather (ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability status). Measuring inclusivity, by its very nature, ventures into a more subjective realm. It requires carefully worded, sometimes nuanced questions to garner the subjective views of staff as to their experience of belonging and respect within the firm.”

When reflecting on the firm’s D&I journey, Danielle points to some key milestones where data has been instrumental in shifting perceptions. One example of this was some years ago when the firm led a gender analysis of how individuals rated others on a talent matrix. “Having this objective data really gave colour to what we had been saying for some time - that, for many of our people leaders, their assessment of “merit” in the team was coloured by unconscious bias, and particularly affinity bias.” Having granular data which can be measured over time in order to signify progress is very important for demonstrating the robustness of your D&I strategy.

Danielle describes the importance of giving consideration to the setting of targets within a D&I strategy. Clear, measurable and transparent targets (with a due date for achievement) helps maintain momentum and ensures a constant focus on the underlying data. “Our gender and ethnicity targets are a clear indication to our people and our clients that we see these issues as important and that we are prepared to set ourselves an aspirational goal to do better.”

Danielle argues that there is much scope for collaboration between firms to develop better ways of comparing and improving on their D&I data, including:

Content, scope and format of regular reporting
Common descriptors of roles, seniorities and gradings
Data sharing protections
Counting methods and statistical tests

The legal profession has been focused on diversity and inclusion for over a decade now, and there is scope for law firms to collaborate more in addressing the D&I issues that affect the whole sector.

“Recently Jason brought together a number of large law firms to consider what we could do as a profession to improve ethnicity in our organisations in response to the increased focus on Black Lives Matter. It is an important conversation to be having, and I am keen that HSF remain at the heart of driving ourselves - and the profession more broadly - to do better.”

Corporate law firms are demanding diversity but not diverse candidates

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 08:29:00 GMT

We had the opportunity to speak to Somaya Ouazzani, CEO & founder of Mimoza Fleur legal search agency. We discussed with Somaya the current issues around diversity and inclusion in the legal sector today and the importance of “responsible recruitment” by firms and agencies towards creating equal opportunities.

Firms need to work with recruitment agencies that have diversity on their agenda

Somaya recognises that awareness of diversity has increased and become more of a “talking point within the law sector”. She notes that the prominence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 led to a greater and heightened awareness of the need to address representation and diversity within the legal profession.

The top 20 or so UK law firms have led this conversation and responded to added pressure from their own clients.

Yet, from Somaya’s perspective as a supplier, this increase in engagement has not led to an explicit rise in client demand for a more diverse range of candidates. She does not have clients asking her to - for example - compile shortlists that keep in mind the inadequate female representation in certain sectors and she does not feel that enough firms are prioritising affirmative action when considering the candidates she puts forward. Engagement has however prompted her clients to ask more direct questions like, “what have you been seeing in the market on the best practices for diverse recruitment? What’s the demand for flexible working?”

Somaya notes it is possible Mimoza Fleur clients implicitly trust the agency to deliver a diverse range of applicants. After all, Mimoza Fleur has built a reputation around the recruitment and development of diverse senior talent.

Law firms are switching to direct sourcing to take control of their talent acquisition

Somaya has also noticed a shift within the sector with law firms turning away from outsourcing all roles to agencies and increasingly towards operating their own in-house teams for some (usually junior / support level) recruitment. There are several possible reasons for this shift, including the availability of technologies to reduce the time and cost of researching potential candidates for a role, but this could also suggest a concern over talent acquisition and talent process within the sector. She recognises that firms are developing a “stricter idea of what agencies they will work with” and focusing on those who can support their inclusivity and diversity objectives. Somaya believes, “you need firms that are focused on the bigger picture”, and will make addressing those issues a priority, rather than a box ticking exercise.

Somaya has first-hand experience in the range of diversity issues relevant to the legal profession. She is aware of the chances for women and ethnically diverse candidates being invited to interview, and the likelihood of them making it into senior positions.

Declaring diversity statistics is not enough to dissuade candidates or make change happen

Somaya recognises the pressure from the younger generation of lawyers for firms to adopt a D&I strategy, and the competitive advantages it can bring firms especially in the recruitment process. However, she notes that whilst “change is on the agenda from younger generations, choice is a luxury.” When poaching young talent, candidates are most likely to opt for a firm that shows itself to have a diverse and inclusive culture, which Somaya describes “as best demonstrated by a diverse partnership”. This competition over talent creates a positive pressure for firms to adopt a strong D&I strategy.

However, Somaya believes that having a choice of firms is “a rare privilege for female and BAME candidates”. Based on her experience of tracking candidates over time, “ the ratio of female and BAME applicants to successful offers is low.” In addition, young lawyers who enter the legal sector from non-target universities, are less likely to have multiple job offers.

Somaya recognises the pressure on large corporate firms when pitching for work to be part of a panel - law firm’s approach to diversity and inclusion is now part of the pitching process for a lot of the very big – panel led - work. And, as a lot more dynamic and radical young lawyers come through, it is her opinion that they are people “who are more prepared, bold and willing to make changes.”

Somaya’s view is that the legal profession has “got to move away from just wanting to focus on Oxbridge for graduate recruitment”. Often the legal sector focuses on the binary of ‘did this person attend Oxbridge or not’? Yet there are many other signals firms can use to recruit, beyond simple information on demographics or professional experiences. For example, there is some evidence that - in some firms - having experience in retail or another service sector role makes a better performing lawyer. Nevertheless, entrenched biases continue to prevent a diverse range of candidates being considered by the most desirable firms.

Candidates faced with fewer options would go “anywhere that is good and has a decent salary.” Somaya identifies an issue around interview biases as adding to a “lack of authenticity of self” in the workplace. If candidates are made to feel they are less desirable from inception, it is more than likely these lawyers will follow their career with, what Somaya describes, as an attached “gratitude tax”. For some firms, the issue around authenticity in the workplace (or lack thereof) may explain low retention and attrition rates of ethnically diverse and female lawyers within the ‘big law’ firms.

The role of “responsible recruitment” in tracking a candidate’s career

It is Somaya’s opinion that “responsible recruitment” is a key leveler in opportunities for diverse talent in the legal profession. Her approach as a search agent specialising in team and partner moves focuses on delivering diverse talent at early stages of the recruitment process, and further supporting candidates throughout their careers. Mimoza Fleur offers coaching and events, which focus on a range of issues from authenticity in the workplace and its effects on retention and attrition, to representation of ethnically diverse and female lawyers in senior levels. Examples of events Somaya has been involved in includes Authenticity in the City, hosted with Macfarlanes, How Did She Do It? Hosted with Arnold & Porter and Authentically Speaking hosted with the Women Lawyers & Mothers association (WLAM) and Hannah Beko, a coach and real estate partner.

Somaya believes this type of activity is an intrinsic part of the role of “responsible recruitment” and by tracking a candidate's career recruiters can identify “most important and effective ways of getting more ethnically diverse, female lawyers into partner positions.”

Where to find the top attorneys in the USA (Infographic!)

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 11:07:00 GMT

So you’re hunting lawyers.

Trying to recruit? Sell your services? Or maybe someone owes you money…

First you’ll need to know where to look: Which are the biggest firms? In which cities are the top lawyers based?

Historically, to answer this question you’d need to trawl through the bar association for each state, or click around on LinkedIn hoping to gather a comprehensive list.

Today, you’re in luck. Pirical Legal Professionals aggregates data sources for a rapid, comprehensive, international overview of legal talent.

Just to illustrate what data we’re collecting: let us be your guide to the state of the US legal market in 2020.

If the charts on this page do not load, you may need to refresh the page.

Which US cities have the most top lawyers?

Of the biggest law firms in the US market, their lawyers are focused in just 2 cities: New York and Washington, DC. Between them, these two cities host 40% of all AM Law 200 lawyers.

New York City 26% (22.0k)
Washington, DC 14% (12.4k)
Chicago 7% (6.1k)
Los Angeles 7% (5.9k)
San Francisco 5% (3.9k)
Boston 4% (3.6k)
Other 37%

The top city, New York, at 26% is - as a proportion of the national total - not as much of a dominant force as other countries’ top legal hubs. Sydney and London, for example, each boast around 40% of all the lawyers in Australia and the UK respectively.

Which US cities are best for Corporate, Finance or Dispute Resolution law?

Each of the major USA legal cities has its own strengths.

While New York is indisputably the home of Corporate, Banking & Finance attorneys, Washington has a disproportionate representation of Disputes, Investigations, and (perhaps unsurprisingly) the greatest number of Public Law specialists.

Which are the largest US law firms?

While Kirkland & Ellis takes the top spot by number of US-based partners, note the relatively modest number of partners at Latham & Watkins, which has more lawyers worldwide and in September boasted the number 2 spot for global revenues (Kirkland was number 1). In this case the difference is primarily due to higher numbers of salaried partners at Kirkland and restricted use of the same title at Lathams.

What is the partner to fee earner ratio for AM Law 200 firms?

To give you a sense of how partner numbers impact the size of a firm, firms in the AM Law 200 typically have somewhere between 2.3 and 3.6 fee earners per partner, not including legal support or business services staff.

A Wealth of Knowledge: Our Market Insights, On Demand

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 00:01:00 GMT

Company announcement from Pirical’s CEO Jason Ku

I’d like to share some thoughts about what we’ve been seeing in the market, and then some exciting news about how Pirical is responding.

Since 2015 Pirical has been using data to answer knotty people strategy questions

People Analytics, using data about people to continuously improve your business, continues to mature as a practice and we have been at its coalface with our legal sector clients for several years now.

I am proud of the reputation Pirical has built for busting people management myths, identifying biases, and driving profitability.

We have used firms’ data to identify tens of millions of pounds worth of HR opportunities.

We have helped spur market-wide collaboration on diversity and inclusion with our breakthrough benchmarking exercises.

We have set awesome data-driven recruitment metrics, including showing that kids who outperform their school’s average A-level results make better lawyers .

As our customers have embraced more data-driven management, and experienced better financial outcomes from People Analytics, Pirical has been called upon to answer more questions, supply more beautiful board-ready stories, and refresh insights on a regular cycle.

It’s been an amazing, lively journey and I’m grateful for the hard work of our staff to this point, and to our customers who have entrusted us to go on this journey with them.

Our most popular product isn’t what I expected

The business case for using Pirical has always been clear: we drive impact by asking the right questions, finding hidden insights in data, and presenting the call to action in a simple and beautiful way. Towards this we have relentlessly focused on making our work faster, more insightful, and more impactful.

But we have found that customers' needs are changing.

Having worked now with the majority of the top firms, customers are increasingly asking us to share our wealth of experience.

Customers want us to help benchmark their firm, to see how they’re doing in context. And we’re more often being asked what else they could or should be doing with their data.

It used to be that customers would ask us to help with analyses that answered specific questions. But now, in 8 out of 10 customer discussions, I am asked ‘what else is Pirical working on that I need to know about?’

It’s about opening up what we know

As we tackled more and more People Analytics topics, and as the Pirical team grew, we needed new ways to manage and make use of everything we had learned.

First, we established a Knowledge Engineering team tasked with building technology that helps us manage everything-we-know, and record how-we-came-to-know-it (think Knowledge Management System on steroids).

Then we established a Data Operations team to help standardise the way we processed and derived insights from each customers’ data, so we could benefit from similarities and make sure we were comparing apples-to-apples.

More recently we set about thinking, what if we could give all of our customers direct access to Pirical’s knowledge?

Towards this ambition we started to design a cost-effective service that can deliver all of Pirical’s accumulated People Analytics insights for the legal sector, On Demand. And so, as Pirical’s knowledge continues to grow, so will that of our customers.

The tech and expertise to deliver this vision of an On Demand Service has been 5 years in the making

I won’t dwell on the technology story, because we prefer to focus on the value created, except to say that it has been no small feat.

Since 2015 we have developed a suite of cutting-edge analytics and data engineering capabilities. Concretely, Pirical is now one of only a handful of companies worldwide deriving steady commercial value from knowledge graphs, a novel way of storing data popularised by applications such as Wikipedia and Amazon Alexa.

Most comparable solutions to Pirical are plug-ins to a single data system. They expect complete data. They expect standardised data. They are only as good as you are at jamming your square-shaped world into their round-shaped holes.

But Pirical has always met our customers where they are, in the real world, where data is nuanced and multidimensional. The legal sector has its own data-personality that cannot be standardised with off-the-shelf HR reporting. As a rule, insights that lead to impact can only be derived when domain experts are leading both the processing and the analysis.

With this post, I want to publicly credit the team’s ingenuity at scaling the ways we can handle the volume, complexity and idiosyncrasies of our customers’ data, and say thank you for their efforts.

Our On Demand People Analytics Service is being used by law firms today

Folks, we built it. Pirical On Demand (POD) is now live with customers.

Having been co-developed and piloted by top law firms in recent months, POD is now and will be the core of our analytics offering going forward.

Pirical On Demand is filled with pre-built answers to the most common questions we've answered for clients over 5+ years.

Today’s users can access insights on demand that answer their most critical people strategy questions. Not only that, but they can access hundreds more insightful analyses they didn’t expressly ask for, but we know will create enormous value for them.

This is only day 1 and the team will continue to build this service alongside our customers, responding to their changing demands as we have done since we started.

Today I am pleased to mark the official launch of a revolutionary service that has been long in the making, and - most importantly - is already in the hands of our customers.

Best wishes,

Jason

Data-smart recruiters aren’t looking at your A Levels anyway

Fri, 21 Aug 2020 08:38:00 GMT

This article was originally published in the Lawyer.

Never mind the headlines. Graduate recruiters at some of the top law firms have been cooling for a while on the importance of applicants having top A Level grades.

In fact, if you were to look at the recent trainee intake of an example firm, broken down by top three A Level grades achieved, you’d notice a significant and sustained change in direction in recent years.

What’s driving this move? Well, for a start, law firms are getting better at analysing their HR data and taking the long view on what high-performing lawyers really have in common. They’re weighing up whether A Level grades are actually much of an indicator, or whether they’re more of a distraction.

Let’s go through the evidence.

Can you use A Levels to predict who will become the highest performing lawyers?

As it turns out, having 3 As (or A*s in recent years) at A Level doesn’t actually predict training contract performance. For this firm, for example, there is no difference between trainees with the highest A Level grades and their peers.

And – in case you were wondering – nor do A Levels bear much relationship to the performance or newly qualified associates in their first few years.

(A insignificant p-value means we shouldn’t draw a conclusion from the difference, because it could be due to normal statistical noise).

So A Levels are not a great predictor of future performance; they’re unlikely to be able to tell you who the highest performing trainees will be.

Another way to think about grades is as a filter

You could potentially use A Level results to draw a line of demarcation between candidates who are more likely to meet expectations and candidates who are less likely to meet expectations.

The way to test this is to ask: what if we had put in place higher standards, and rejected all candidates with BBB or below? Would we have increased our cohorts’ average performance?

In short, no. Filtering out those with the lowest A Levels would be a worse move than simply asking candidates to complete a popular off-the-shelf critical thinking test and discarding applicants in the bottom quartile of scores.

There’s one exception to the usefulness of A Levels, however

We wrote about this early last year , and it has become one of the most widely read blogs on pirical.com.

We found that A Levels can be predictive of high future performance when candidates have achieved great results despite coming from a school with poor average results. i.e. the candidate has significantly outperformed their schoolmates.

And finally, some good news for early birds

It’s increasingly common for graduate recruiters to make early job offers to undergraduates in their first or second year of their degree.

The danger here is they’re ‘flying blind’ – making an assumption that these candidates will perform as strongly in their degree as they did at A Level.

With the warning that applicants to law firms are a slightly self-selecting sample, there is good evidence that candidates with top performance at A Levels will be able to convert that into a coveted 1st or 2:1 grade, more so than their peers who dropped an A Level or two.

So performance at school/college is related to performance at university, but isn’t a good predictor of performance in the workplace. How about that!

Jason Ku is the CEO and founder of Pirical

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Getting to the bottom of black lawyers at the top

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 11:10:00 GMT

This article by Pirical CEO Jason Ku was originally published by the Law Society .

Partners at law firms respond well to hard statistics. That’s one thing I’ve learned in five years of analysing their HR data. While they may not be maths geeks, they are certainly critical thinkers. They love to see messy, intractable, everyone-has-an-opinion issues broken down into simple questions that can be tested using data:

Do we have a problem with X? Yes or no
Which of these possible factors are driving the problem?
Will we make more of a dent by focusing on A or B?

Not many people realise how much we can do with their HR data, particularly when it’s linked with their historic matters and billing records.

We have previously helped clients discover that BAME associates found themselves as the only minority fee earner on a project team seven times more often than if work allocation was random.

The firm was using them tokenistically to add ‘diversity’ to every team, meaning the experience of these associates was that they were always surrounded by White people. (Incidentally, algorithmic resource managers solve this problem entirely).

My favourite insight from recent projects has been to identify which of the firm’s major clients were a bad influence on the attrition of their diverse staff members!

Benchmarking law firms

But as the questions become less about the firm and more about the whole industry, the more we butt up against the limits of what we can answer using data from one organisation. Our customers need more context to know whether they are doing well or badly. They need to know where they are relative to competitors.

For no issue is this more true than for ethnic diversity. Barriers facing black, Asian and mixed ethnicity legal professionals transcend firms and, while no single organisation expects to solve them alone, firms are coming to realise that without each other’s help they may not even be able to detect them.

In a recent interview on the subject, Segun Osuntokun of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner mused that if you were to ask fish about the kind of water they were in they would likely respond “What the hell is water?” In other words, some things are so pervasive that they are barely detectable at an individual level.

Aggregating data from across the market, Pirical’s BAME Benchmark product looks at why ethnic diversity in law firms declines with seniority. Or – to be more human about it – why some people face barriers to entry and progression based on the colour of their skin.

We’re already working with two dozen major UK, US and international law firms to pool and benchmark their ethnicity data, analysing biases in recruitment, performance, retention and promotions to show firms whether they are laggards or leaders in each, and to help them make decisions about what to do about it. The data is regularly refreshed, so firms can track progress over time.

We have discovered many surprising trends for participating firms, and sparked collaborative action at the highest levels of their partnerships.

I’m proud that we have supported nine of the top 50 firms to assess their progress, define key firm metrics, and set realistic targets for the future, based on the state of the industry.

What’s coming next?

Interest in our ethnic diversity products has rocketed in recent months. Partly because of changing social attitudes, and partly because we’ve built enough technology to handle this kind of data collaboration at scale, and in a way that’s accessible for all shapes and sizes of firm.

We are particularly proud of our recent engagements with smaller firms that have no existing HR analytics capacity, and relatively less data.

Looking ahead, it might give you a flavour of what’s coming around the corner to know I spend as much time talking to general counsel about the diversity of their panel firms as I do talking to regulators and NGOs about what ‘good’ could look like across the industry.

I’m not a betting man but I do work in probabilities: I’d say it’s very likely that transparency around ethnic diversity will be a defining feature of UK legal practice management for many years to come.

The Australian Legal Market in Numbers (Infographic!)

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 22:00:00 GMT

Did you know? Australia is one of our fastest-growing countries for Pirical Legal Professionals users.

Let’s show you around and give you some interesting facts about the 100 largest Australian firms for your next Zoom call. ��

If the charts on this page don’t load, you may need to refresh the page.

In some ways, the Australian legal market is very similar to the UK. The country’s major legal hub, Sydney, just like London houses about 40% of the lawyers in the country. But one thing that’s different is the relative importance of the country’s second- and third-ranked cities. Melbourne and Brisbane host nearly 50% of the population between them. (By contrast Manchester and Birmingham in the UK have just 7% combined.)

So what? In Australia the 13,000 practising lawyers in its major law firms are highly concentrated in just a few major cities. Take a look at our interactive map.

The 20 biggest firms, by fee-earning population, have about 8,000 lawyers on their books.

At the senior levels, HWL Ebsworth has the most Partners in Australia , followed by MinterEllison and King & Wood Mallesons.

The gender profile of the lawyers in Australia follows a similar profile to that of the UK, except the gap at partnership level is even more acute.

We’d love to show you how the search and statistics functions of Pirical Legal Professionals can transform your legal recruitment and sales enablement efforts.

Ranked - The most common first names for UK lawyers

Wed, 01 Jul 2020 07:12:00 GMT

Pirical Legal Professionals is the leading database for recruitment and sales enablement, with 350,000+ legal professionals across 130+ countries.

Our unrivalled technology aggregates data from news articles, professional social media accounts, firm websites, bar representative bodies and more, to make sure our database is always up-to-date.

Using our database - just for fun - we looked at how the top names vary by seniority in the UK legal profession.

Starting with the newbies - those with fewer than 1 year of post qualification experience (PQE) - our visualisation tracks the top names all the way through to 40 years PQE.

If the charts on this page don’t load, you may need to refresh the page

The most popular name among new recruits is Charlotte . You quickly get a sense from the data that the class of 2019/20 has more women than men. In fact, the latest cohorts of newly qualified solicitors are some of the most gen der diverse the legal profession has ever seen, with 61.3% women.

The most popular name among senior lawyers is David . This is true for both PQE 35-40 lawyers and for partners with any number of years PQE.

At partnership level, there are more than twice as many Davids than Sarahs .

With both ends of the profession looking so different, it seems likely that tomorrow’s law firms will look very different to today’s.

Pirical are the market leaders in people analytics at UK legal and professional services firms.

While our database is the most popular by UK market share, some of our other products include:

BAME Benchmark - a pioneering collaboration that analyses ethnicity data across firms to help you focus your diversity and inclusion initiatives. There’s a new round starting now. See which firms signed up last year.
Gender in Partnership - one of our longest-standing diversity products. Deep-dive into the inequalities at the top of your firm and see how you compare to the market. Identify high-impact levers for improvement. Contact us to learn more.
Graduate Recruitment Reporting - A constant companion for operational decision-making, focusing on what you need to know when you need it. Explore diversity, performance and common characteristics of high-performing trainees. Graduate recruiters will not find a more comprehensive or cost-effective option. Contact us to learn more.

Ethnic diversity at top UK law firms

Fri, 12 Jun 2020 07:01:00 GMT

The diversity discount: an idea whose time has come?

Despite years of public statements, monitoring programmes, and much else besides, there has been scant evidence to this point that major companies would ever penalise or walk away from legal services providers on the basis of poor diversity.

What if 2020 was the year that changed?

A small stream of companies have started to change the terms of engagement with legal providers, and are putting real money on the line for diversity:

“HP Inc.’s chief legal officer and general counsel, Kim Rivera, warned law firm partners in a recent letter that U.S. firms could see 10 percent of their fees withheld if they fall short of the company’s diversity requirements.”

— 15 February 2017 / Bloomberg

“Novartis has agreed diversity and inclusion targets with its new roster of preferred global and US law firm advisers and will withhold 15% of their fees if they are not met.”

— 13 February 2020 / Global Legal Post

“Telecoms giant BT has come up with a novel way to encourage its panel law firms to be more diverse [...]: a guaranteed renewal for the firm with the best diversity and inclusion record.”

— 27 April 2020 / Law Gazette

The impact? Law firms are doubling down on diversity.

What we’re seeing is that the prospect of losing (now quantifiable) revenue for being too white and male has ignited a new wave of activity. Diversity can no longer be the domain of a single department or working group. The whole partnership has a stake in knowing how they’re doing compared to the sector, and drawing up detailed plans of how to improve.

While some law firms have already been taking serious action on ethnic diversity in recent years, others are more recently embarking on their journey, encouraged by a clear direction of travel in social attitudes and public policy.

Our UK clients in particular are anticipating the introduction of something similar to the mandatory gender pay gap reporting, but instead about ethnicity.

In this article we introduce the emerging best practices around diversity analytics, and share our view of what the real pioneers are doing: which is going beyond lip service and opening up their HR data to clients directly, demonstrating a deeper commitment to their diversity agenda.

The fastest improving firms have grown their share of BAME fee earners by 5% in recent years. How?

The firms competing to win have been approaching their diversity strategy in three distinct phases:

Sector Benchmarking . The entry-level activity. The objective: to get a comprehensive understanding of what good looks like.
Detailed Introspection. The next step. Only for the brave. Take stock of your own performance and practices. Uncover the difficult truths. Identify the priority areas for change and set meaningful targets.
Client-specific Reporting. The emerging frontier of diversity analytics. How can firms and clients work together to improve diversity? For each client, how representative is the service they receive? And how do they influence the firm’s diversity and culture, for better or worse?

Phase 1 - Sector Benchmarking: You can’t fix what you can’t see

Benchmarking is the best first step for most firms.

The objective is to understand where you currently are, what you’ve done well, what you need to work on, contextualised with what good looks like in your peer group and which challenges are shared across the sector.

Some of the most important questions to ask are:

How does ethnic diversity vary with seniority at our firm? And how do we compare to the market average?
Is our recruitment - both at graduate level and among lateral hires - helping or hindering our diversity ambitions?
Are we retaining BAME trainees, particularly at NQ level, and losing BAME employees through attrition equally compared to White colleagues?
Are our promotion rates fair, particularly to the partnership?
How does the experience vary by the constituent demographic populations (e.g. Black, Asian, Mixed Ethnicity)?

Ethnicity data collection can be a real challenge, often restricted if not by a firm’s own policies and culture, then by regulation.

In the UK, unlike - for example - France, we are lucky to have a supportive legal framework that allows employers to collect and process ethnicity data.

For many firms just being able to participate in benchmarking is the real breakthrough.

See which firms are participating in our BAME Benchmark exercise

The ‘Sir Roger Bannister’ Effect

For each of our analyses we include the data point for ‘Best Performing Firm’. See image below.

We think showing people what’s been achieved so far is an important part of lifting ambitions for the sector overall.

Too often we are faced with apathy about what’s possible and what’s within the control of a law firm. Senior leaders may blame the education system, the hiring market or the culture across the legal sector. We want to make it impossible to drag your feet and mutter ‘everyone has this problem’.

So we make sure to highlight ‘the score to beat’.

Nobody thought running a 4-minute mile was possible, until they saw Sir Roger do it.

Phase 2 - Detailed Introspection:

After benchmarking, many firms go for a more granular assessment of their own performance.

This will typically dive into some detail to explore differences by practice areas, by geography, or by team.

Examples of some of the more detailed analyses that can be done at this stage include:

How does the experience of Fee earners compare with Business Services staff?
Which areas are most/least attractive to junior BAME colleagues?
Do BAME employees attend training at the same rate?
Which of the firm’s recruitment channels and practices are best for attracting diverse groups?
How do intersectional individuals experience barriers in the firm? In particular how do gender and social class interact with ethnicity?

Detailed Introspection is a great way of providing a focus to qualitative research, or an objective baseline to inform a wider review. A lot of our clients use diversity analytics this way.

Headcount is only part of the story

While investigating ins and outs is a great jumping-off point, focusing too much on it can distract from a number of other challenges related to tokenism and equality of opportunity.

Using a blend of HR, finance and matters data, law firms can identify common issues including:

Employees from minority ethnicities working fewer billable hours or a different balance of billable hours vs. investment hours
Different spread of opportunities to be client-facing
Unequal allocation of high-value or high-prestige matters. See image below.
Write offs and discounts falling disproportionately

Phase 3 - Client-specific Reporting:

The real pioneers of ethnicity diversity reporting are now producing tailored reports for each of their major clients.

While the firm’s motivation is typically to demonstrate a higher level of commitment to diversity than competitors, best practice is to keep the reporting as objective and authentic as possible.

Not all analyses will shine a relentlessly positive light on the firm. Some are likely to highlight areas for action.

But it shouldn't be considered a one-way street. Law firms have deep and long-standing partnerships with their clients. People and ideas are a revolving door. Clients influence culture as much as anything else.

Client-specific reporting is about finding ways that the firm and the client can work together, to make shared progress and to strengthen their partnership in future.

Conclusion

We are increasingly prepared to talk about ethnic diversity - and the challenges around it - frankly, openly and in a professional context.

Since 2015 Pirical has been working with legal and professional services firms to introduce decisions based on data instead of those driven by hunches, opinions, and old ideas.

We have helped dozens of clients to kick-off major culture change projects, to retire counterproductive practices and programmes, to set smart but ambitious targets, and to form bold cross-sector collaborations at the most senior levels.

With our help, top law firms are identifying the good, the bad, and the opportunity by analysing diversity in three phases:

Sector Benchmarking
Detailed Introspection
Client-specific Reporting

While each unlocks a deeper level of insight than the previous, it also demands higher levels of bravery, trust and commitment.

You may be interested to know the next round of BAME Benchmark is due to start soon.

To learn more about what many consider to be the most significant diversity initiative happening right now in the legal sector please see the BAME Benchmark page or contact us directly.

We’re used to helping clients at the start of their journey, and can provide advice about data collection and management too.

Set up a demo of BAME Benchmark

How much could Law Firms save by relocating Business Services to UK regions?

Thu, 14 May 2020 07:46:00 GMT

Lockdown has forced the legal industry into a giant pilot of Work From Home (WFH). As things settle, feedback on WFH seems positive. Perhaps WFH is feasible not just for desk workers, but across the legal industry. Reportedly courts and tribunals have been handling their cases remotely with greater efficiency .

As governments are considering the lockdown exit strategy and we are learning the lessons from this WFH experiment, an important question emerges: why pay expensive London salaries and office rent if your employees can work remotely or from elsewhere?

Today we wanted to dive into this as an increasingly attractive opportunity for many London law firms.

The idea: location independent hiring

As advocates of remote working don’t cease to point out , location-independent hiring has one main advantage: you’re fishing for talent in a vastly larger pool. Yes, London is big. But the UK is bigger. And the world even more so. What are the chances that the best possible person for the job will live in London, which represents only 0.1% of the world’s population?

So not only is remote working cost-advantageous (as almost everywhere in the world has lower living costs and salaries than Central London), it has the potential to bring better talent into the organisation.

How much lower are salaries in the regions?

That salaries are lower in the regions when compared to London goes without saying. The question is, by how much? Our Salary Analytics data tells us that on average, salaries in the regions are 35% lower than in London, or a £20,000 difference across Business Services roles and 43% or £36,000 difference across fee-earning roles.

Among Business Services, differences range from 22% for IT roles and 48% for Risk roles.

Across the regions, the savings are not equal. In aggregate, the Midlands offer the biggest savings compared to London, and even compared to other regions. For example, average salaries in the Midlands are £7,333 lower than in Scotland.

As we are considering location independent hiring of Business Services, we could benefit from these regional differences by hiring in the “lowest cost” region for each specific role.

With this cost-conscious approach, one can achieve savings as high as 58% of a London salary for Risk roles or 45% for Finance.

What are the aggregate savings possible for a London-based law firm? Using anonymised data from our Salary Analytics product, we ran 3 simple scenarios to estimate potential savings.

Scenario 1: Relocate 1 in 5 Business Services employees currently based in London

As WFH has largely proven successful, we could imagine that a fifth of employees based in London continue to work fully remotely after the end of the lockdown period. In which case, these roles could be permanently relocated to the regions.

In our data panel, the average firm has 216 Business Services FTE based in London.

If 20% of these 216 employees were now working from the regions and paid the average salary in these regions, our average firm would save £857k annually on salaries, or over £1m when you include National Insurance.

The figure below shows the annual savings for different sizes of firm.

Scenario 2: Relocate entire functions

In this scenario, firms could relocate entire Business Services functions to the regions.

In our panel, IT, Finance, Risk and Business Operations are the 4 functions with the most FTEs based in the regions.

If London-based employees in these functions were moved to the regions to achieve a target of 90% FTEs based in the regions, our average firm with 216 Business Services in London could save £1.5M annually in reduced salaries .

Of course, this example is either very hypothetical (it’s hard to imagine an entire team would voluntarily give up half their salary and move to the middle of the country) or can only be accomplished over the course of several years whereby organic attrition gets replaced by new staff in the Regions.

But in keeping with the hypothesis, to achieve these savings, each function would be moved to the “Best Region”, offering the highest level of savings.

Scenario 3: Relocate all Business Services functions

Assuming that the great WFH experience proved that all Business Services functions could work remotely, an extreme scenario could see some Law Firms decide to relocate the vast majority of Business Services employees (meaning 90% as a 100% figure will be unrealistic to achieve in most cases).

For our average firm with 216 Business Services employees in London, this re-shoring of all Business Services functions would save £3.6M in annual salaries.

Scenario 4: What about (junior) Lawyers?

As the above three scenarios only consider Business Services, here is a bonus scenario: what could a firm save if 90% of Associates, Trainees and Paralegals were to relocate to the regions?

If London-based Associates, Trainees and Paralegals were moved to the regions to achieve a target of 90% FTEs based in the regions, our average firm with 322 Associates, Trainees and Paralegals in London could save £6.8M annually in reduced salaries .

To achieve these savings, each function would be moved to the “Best Region” for that function, offering the highest level of savings.

Granular data can help Law Firms take optimised decisions and reduce costs

With the right data, Law Firm leaders have the opportunity to take advantage of this successful WFH pilot.

Our 4 simple scenarios provide food-for-thought on the potential that relocating staff can have on salaries. By adding the potential office space savings on top, a back-of-the-envelope calculation shows us that relocating an employee from London to the regions adds a 57% saving on office space for that employee

(200sq ft per person, from £70/sq ft in London to £30/sq ft in the regions: £8k annual saving on office rent - source ).

Office rent savings would be reduced even further, of course, were the employee in question to work from home.

We were able to produce these analyses using anonymised data from our product Salary Analytics.

If you would like to hear more about our Salary Analytics product, or have any questions on the information above, please contact our Commercial Director, Jenny Burton on jenny@pirical.com

We’ve Seen This Before: The Impact of Crises on Minority Employees

Thu, 07 May 2020 07:51:00 GMT

This blog is part of a series exploring strategies through economic turmoil.

In the introduction to this series, Pirical CEO and Founder Jason Ku introduced three things that resilient companies focus on to weather a downturn:

Relentless focus on customers
Strategically manage costs and invest for the future
Get ready to ride the wave of recovery

This article looks at the second theme - strategically manage costs and invest for the future. More specifically, what are the dangers to diversity if not enough care and consideration is given.

“We won’t unlock the full potential of the workplace until we see how far from equality we really are.” — Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook.

Coronavirus has and will continue to have a disproportionately negative effect on BAME employees. COVID-19 is hitting people with diverse ethnic backgrounds especially hard. BME groups make up 1 in 3 of the critical cases (33.3%), even though they only represent 13% of the British population.

On the business side, law firms are, understandably, focusing on ensuring short-term survival and resilience. Many are doing so by furloughing and potentially laying off staff.

However, in the focus to survive, it is important not to unwind years of strides made with diversity.

Recent historic precedents

As unique as the current situation seems, we’ve all seen this before. Similar events unfolded during 2008, as the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) wreaked havoc on economies and societies. Just as it’s playing out now, the brunt of the fallout landed on ethnic minorities.

For starters, ethnic minorities were disproportionately overrepresented in the total number of unemployed. For example, US numbers show that while unemployment rates rose for every group during the GFC, the rates for non-white men rose even higher. In fact, at its peak, white unemployment is only slightly higher than the lowest unemployment rate of Blacks before the GFC started.

Source: Macrotrends

A long road to recovery

The fallout from recessionary unemployment doesn’t simply go away once the economy corrects course. The impacts on ethnic minority groups are felt long after indicators all start to tick up again.

A study by the Pew Research Center showed that 5 to 6 years AFTER the GFC, median net worth had widened between white households and other groups:

White households vs black households: 10x before the crisis (2007), 13x after the crisis (2013)
White households vs hispanic households: 8x before, 10x after

Source: Pew Research Center

What does this mean for diversity?

Here are a few considerations that could potentially have big impacts for diversity over the next few years and potentially over the next generation.

Consideration 1: Impact on school results

In the UK, the rich / poor divide is also more apparent than ever during the crisis, with examples such as:

A boom in private tuition is helping better-off students continue learning while schools are shut, while those with less money don’t have the same resources.
Children from lower-income families being disconnected from their classroom during the pandemic, as they don’t have a PC or tablet to access remote learning.
In the US, disparities in broadband access are highly correlated with ethnicity. A McKinsey analysis found that 21.2% of white households report having either no broadband internet or no computer at home, compared to 36.4% of black households.
As exams have been cancelled, GCSE and A-level grades will be determined by prediction , with experts saying this will disadvantage minority and working-class students

Invariably, this impact on school-age children and teenagers will continue to ripple into the future and impact their chances to get into and excel in a university setting.

Consideration 2: Impact on University education

Here’s an example of how subtly and gradually people from a low socioeconomic background could be impacted in the context of higher education.

The SAT — a US university entrance exam — can be taken as often as someone wishes, with only the highest result counting.

However, a fee is due for each attempt, which means students from well-off families can sit the exam multiple times to aim for a better result - there is ample evidence that the more you take the test, the better your results. Students from lower-income families may only be able to take it once. And, as this report shows , this is only one way wealthier students hold a significant advantage.

The impact of this is far-reaching: Another recession will come, and when it does, the less educated will be more greatly affected.

Unemployment rate by educational level

Source: Macrotrends

With schools now closed, there are those at risk of never being able to sit the SAT, which negatively impacts their ability to go onto higher education.

Treading carefully

What’s the upshot? Opportunities for diversity and inclusion are always important, but when a crisis hits, they become even more significant because of the stronger impact the event has on minorities. Some are predicting a “V” or “U” shaped recovery, but if a second wave were to hit (the way the 1918 Spanish Flu did), we could see a “W” shaped recovery (a recovery, followed by another sharp drop from a second wave). It is important to carefully consider how things that may seem subtle today, could have big negative impacts several years down the line.

Fast decisions may feel necessary, but they won’t always serve for long-term success and longevity. Before making any moves around diversity, the best course of action may be to review where you stand in this area.

An increasing number of law firms have launched programmes for Year 11 and 12 school students. For example, Clifford Chance is hosting Open Days, one of which is targeted at year 12/13 students. Other programmes aimed at pre-university students can be found here and here . These programmes will likely have a disproportionate benefit for a diverse population.

How Pirical can help

Our BAME Benchmark lets you see in detail where your firm stands on diversity and inclusion initiatives, and where you can focus to alleviate the worst consequences during Covid-19.

Get in touch and we’ll show you what the BAME Benchmark can do for your firm.

Legal Recruitment - What we can learn from the 2008 crisis

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 08:21:00 GMT

This blog is part of a series exploring strategies through economic turmoil.

In the introduction to this series, Pirical CEO and Founder Jason Ku introduced three things that resilient companies focus on to weather a downturn:

Relentless focus on customers
Strategically manage costs and invest for the future
Get ready to ride the wave of recovery

This article looks at the second theme - strategically manage costs and invest for the future. More specifically, how law firms can manage their hiring amidst all the uncertainty.

It’s a conundrum: Freezing hiring and trainee intake and reducing retention of qualified trainees can help with cashflow to ensure firm survival in a crisis. However, if the crisis is short-lived, these measures can have huge opportunity costs, and result in a talent shortage several years later when things have picked up again.

Thankfully, as Ray Dalio says in “Principles” about economic downturns: “It has all happened before.”

Most recently, in 2008. And we can learn from that crisis.

What did firms do in 2008?

In 2017, we ran an analysis looking at the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis on the legal recruitment market. One of our findings was:

In 2008, many UK law firms reacted by reducing their trainee cohorts.

In the UK, the annual intake of trainee solicitors fell by 22.8% in the 4 years following Lehman Brothers’ collapse.

One of the particularities of the UK’s lawyer training programme, or “Training Contract”, is that recruitment occurs two or three years in advance. And so, while the positive financial impact of deferring or retracting Training Contracts in 2008-10 was immediate, the decision to resume hiring in 2011-13 only showed effect in 2014-16.

During the 2008 crisis, UK law firms also retained fewer newly qualified lawyers

In the top 90 UK law firms, retention rates of newly qualified lawyers fell by 8.8% over the next couple of years.

As a result, in 2017, we saw two gaps in the market:

A gap in lawyers with 3 years of experience (PQE 3), who had not been hired as trainees in 2008 and onward.
A gap in lawyers with 6 years of experience (PQE 6), who had been trainees in 2008-10 but had not been retained.

These two gaps are disproportionately painful because they are in that sweet spot of having considerable experience, without being very expensive yet.

It created a war for talent later on, where nearly all recruitment teams were hunting for a diminished pool of PQE 3 and 6 lawyers.

With an average hourly rate of £250 for PQE 3 and £320 for PQE 6 and a target of 1500 chargeable hours a year, this shortage of talent represents an overall lost lost business opportunity of £157m per year.

Once eliminated, these hours are not easy to recover because these roles were never created: students who had not been offered a Training Contract, and newly qualified lawyers who had not been retained might have gone to a different industry altogether.

What will happen today if the industry reacts the same way

If the industry today reacts the way it did in 2008, the top 100 UK law firms (2,200 Training Contracts) will each save £1.4m over 3 years. But there will be a shortage of

225 NQs,
293 PQE 1,
356 PQE 2,
375 PQE 3, and
145 PQE 6

across the top 100 UK law firms by 2025. This represents a total opportunity cost of £500m.

Is there an alternative way of handling the 2020 crisis? While only time will tell if today’s actions prove correct, here’s a way to think about it.

What are the scenarios, depending on the future economic outlook?

There are 4 ways things might play out:

Scenario 1: Firms maintain their trainee intake and NQ retention because the crisis is expected to be short or mild, but future demand turns out to be low (i.e. the crisis is deep or long). —> Firms will have to lay off staff, which is never a pleasant thing to have to do.
Scenario 2: Firms maintain their trainee hiring, and future demand indeed is high. —> Firms will be in a good position to satisfy the demand, and revenues will soar.
Scenario 3: Firms reduce their trainee intake and NQ retention because they expect future demand to be low. And this then plays out - future demand is indeed low. —> Firms will have the necessary headcount to satisfy the demand, and revenues will be low due to reduced demand. No or only a few layoffs will be needed.
Scenario 4: Firms reduce trainee hiring, but future demand turns out to be high. —> Firms won’t be in a good position to satisfy the demand, which might result in lost opportunities. Firms will scramble to recruit to try to meet demand, incurring high recruitment fees chasing after a significantly reduced talent pool.

In 2008, some firms may have acted to avoid scenario 1. Looking back, it seems that future demand from 2008 was high: the top 100 UK firms revenues increased by 28.7% from 2008 to 2013. Was it the right call to reduce trainee and NQ hiring?

Conclusion

Before committing to a route in 2020, it’s worth going back in time to reflect:

Which path did your firm choose back in 2008, in expectation of what kind of future? Which of the four scenarios listed above came to be in the end? How did that play out in the end and how did it affect your firm?

And most importantly - what kind of lesson can you draw from the experience a dozen years ago?

By signing up to our mailing list, you can get email notifications when we publish.

What are the UK’s biggest consumers of legal services looking for?

Thu, 23 Apr 2020 08:15:00 GMT

This blog is part of a series exploring strategies through economic turmoil.

In the introduction to this series, Pirical CEO and Founder Jason Ku introduced three things that resilient companies focus on to weather a downturn:

Relentless focus on customers
Strategically manage costs and invest for the future
Get ready to ride the wave of recovery

This article looks at the first theme - relentless focus on customers.

To help law firms to understand their biggest customers better at this difficult time, we ar e pleased to share for the first time insights from recent Pirical research.

We interviewed General Counsels from a cross-section of FTSE 350 companies

In the last year, Pirical has interviewed 18 General Counsels (GCs) from FTSE 350 companies to understand their priorities for the future of the legal profession.

The companies we spoke to included Network Rail, Capita, Royal Mail, and Lloyds Banking Group.

We estimate that between them, these GCs control about 5 to 10 percent of all expenditure by UK publicly-listed companies on legal services.

The interviews were commissioned by the O-Shaped Lawyer project, which is setting out to transform the training & development of UK Lawyers, including evolving the current, but outdated, training contract model. In doing so the long-term ambition is to make the legal profession better for those who currently work in it, better for those who buy services from it and better for the next generation of lawyers entering it.

We found that GCs are asking for three types of legal services, with a shift towards value creation opportunities.

GCs told us:

Today, law firms pick up most of their work by offering technically driven services: finding the best legal answer to an issue, as well as advising on the best course of action from a legal perspective
In terms of GCs’ present demand for legal services, finding the best legal answer to a question is actually a relatively small amount of the work they have available - possibly only as much as 10 or 15 percent.
Furthermore, the proportion of work that requires finding the best legal answer to a question is unlikely to increase in the future.

GCs have a clear direction of travel in mind:

In future the most successful law firms will capitalise on an underserved area of activity, for which GCs say they have a large and growing appetite. This is around proactive value creation through legal initiatives.
GCs are ready to spend big with firms who understand their business and can come to them with new ideas for how to create value, through legal initiatives.

Introducing the value-creation lawyer

With the help of GCs and Addleshaw Goddard, Pirical has identified a range of attributes that define value-creation lawyers, in terms of their mindsets, knowledge, and skills.

Our research suggests delivering value-creation legal services requires a blend of:

Mindsets . Attitudes and beliefs on what it is to be a value-creation lawyer,
Knowledge . Domains of understanding required to be a value-creation lawyer, and
Ski lls . Abilities a value-creation lawyer is capable of.

When it comes to Mindsets , the next generation of lawyers will redefine what it means to be a lawyer.

GCs will expect their lawyers to behave and communicate more like commercial consultants or business partners, rather than pure legal experts:

The next generation of lawyers will require broader knowledge of the business world and deeper understanding of their clients’ specific business:

In terms of skills required to be a value creation lawyer, we have identified three groups of skills arising from the research:

Adaptability skills
Relationship-building skills
Value creation skills

GCs see a gap between supply and demand

Our research, including defining the value-creation lawyer, does not highlight a completely new challenge for law firms.

Legal training such as the UK Legal Practice Course (LPC) and Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) is already at pains to develop lawyers’ commerciality, as are many firms’ own professional development programmes.

However, the findings of the research, coupled with the fact it was commissioned in part by a group of GCs, show there’s still a gap between customer demand and market supply.

The O-Shaped Lawyer Project is an attempt to move the sector forward

The O-Shaped Lawyer project was set up with a mission to improve the legal ecosystem through a number of activities including:

Listening and sharing - listening to what people want and sharing that across the ecosystem. For example, by commissioning research.
Engaging - with universities, law schools and legal professionals to encourage and support them to innovate. For example, by engaging with consultations on course curriculums and training opportunities.
Collaborating - working together as one legal ecosystem to make it better for everyone. For example, by designing and leading experiments.
Connecting - bringing the profession, customers and education system closer together. For example, by hosting networking and events.

The research outlined above has so far been eagerly received by GCs and law firms alike. Already both Centrica and EasyJet have included adherence to the principles of the value creation lawyer in their most recent Request for Proposals, and firms including Addleshaw Goddard have made public their intention to get involved, kicking off pilot project only last week.

How can we help law firms focus on customer needs?

If you ask law firms today, many feel they already meet their clients’ expectations well, while balancing their own commercial pressures. For example, one practice-based lawyer said to us: “a lot of in-house lawyers forget we won’t just say ‘Yes’ to every question. For a start, in-house lawyers don’t have the same insurance restrictions as us. We have heavy-duty policies that reflect the nature of our work and our coverage is contingent on us giving accurate and responsible advice.”

Moving the sector forwards will not be trivial. It will require higher levels of understanding. It will require investment and compromise by all parties.

At a practical level, we believe it will require frequent, honest conversations - both at the team and individual level - as well as continuous experimentation between law firms and customers.

To this end, this year the O-Shaped Lawyer project is launching a series of pilots using the Pirical Team Barometer . The pilot tests how team development initiatives (branded ‘O-nitiatives’) focused around the 12 skills can strengthen the relationships between law firms and their customers, and improve outcomes for everyone.

Want to take part? Dan Kayne, General Counsel (Regions) Network Rail, will be running this pilot. You can contact him through info@oshapedlawyer.com to learn more.

Introducing: Team Barometer - Successfully Work from Home

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 08:30:00 GMT

For over 4 years at Pirical HQ, we have been taking the pulse of our now 25-strong team every Friday.

Anonymously collecting the team’s attitudes on Direction, Communication, Health, Values and more has been vital to making the team feel heard. On a weekly basis, it has allowed us to get together as a team, discuss the results, and come up with initiatives to improve how we work as a team.

An opportunity to learn

The pulse has become even more important now that all of us found ourselves suddenly working from home and usual communication methods were lost - almost overnight.

Team Barometer has meant every member of our team feels heard and supported despite being at home. Crucially, it’s not one-directional. While each team member can raise their voice, it also gives everyone the insight on how everyone else is doing and how they can better support others.

Given how fundamental Team Barometer has been for us over the last month, and hearing about the struggles of some of our clients as they switch to virtual working, we have decided to make the tool available to all teams around the world for free.

How to take the team’s pulse

So how does it work? Team Barometer automatically sends a questionnaire focused on Working from Home to every team member each week over email. Team members fill in their responses anonymously, taking less than 1 minute. The team then gathers for your weekly Video Conference the following day to see the results (compared to previous weeks) and discuss openly the issues that have come up in that week.

How it has impacted us

For us, Team Barometer has been instrumental in helping us build our business and particularly so during these uncertain times. With the tool, we can quickly understand specifically where we are struggling, which means we can make changes within hours, not days or weeks. For example,

Feedback is an important part of our culture, and hence something we measure in our barometer. We’ve seen feedback scores drop consistently over a few weeks. We decided to do a team feedback training session with some role plays. In teams of 3 (one person giving the feedback, one person receiving, and one observer), everyone was given a specific situation where they had to give / receive / observe feedback applying techniques from the training. The week after, feedback scores went through the roof!
Communication : same story, communication had been dropping, we decided to nominate an "investigator" to better understand the specific communication issues within the team. This allowed us to isolate 3 recurring topics, one of them being that different teams use our instant messaging app differently. For example, our tech team communicates widely through the app to share information, ask questions, and assign tasks. Our sales team, however, attending a lot of meetings, only check instant messages a few times a day, and when they do, the volume of messages can be quite overwhelming. This makes it difficult to know which ones to look at first. Emails and calls work better for the sales team. Once this issue was identified, the resolution was simple — for high-priority issues, our tech team now emails or calls the sales team.
Innovation : It’s not always identifying bad news - Team Barometer also identifies what’s going well. In the first few weeks since working from home, Innovation scores have been very high, with many people saying “This week, I actively developed a new skill, concept, or product that will directly improve our company. ��‍��”. This development can be laid at the feet of having more time. No more commuting and less “life admin” because of the ability to work in … let’s say slightly more casual attire than seen in even the most progressive startup offices. A modified version of this will definitely form a part of the Pirical New Normal.

Most importantly, what we love about Team Barometer, is that it keeps team morale high. We have a section at the end that asks “What are you grateful for this week?”. Some responses include:

“Love the energy that we all have despite WFH”
“Sunny days ☀️”
“Company values session!”
“Impressive data work by Ricky and Audrey!! ��”
“My new coffee station still rocks ☕️”

Success Already

A few law firms who are using Team Barometer are already seeing benefits. We are very happy to hear about the impact the tool is already driving and that it is becoming part of each team's rhythm.

As we have heard recently, in one team, one of the responses indicated that someone had been really struggling while working from home, to the point where their health was deteriorating. Nobody in the team had realised. In the following week, the team manager held a meeting to discuss things they can do differently.

In another example, one team expressed low scores in Communication, with 2 people indicating “This week, I understood what's going on but some things weren't communicated properly” and another indicating “This week, I felt lost or out of the loop with what's happening with the project”. Immediately during their team meeting, they agreed to several actions to improve team communications.

When can we start?

Today!

Contact Jenny Burton at jenny@pirical.com and launch Team Barometer with your team in a matter of minutes. Team Barometer can be adapted to suit your team and style.

How resilient companies respond to a crisis

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 08:34:00 GMT

Jason Ku, CEO and Founder, Pirical

Crises are normal in business and navigating them is expected of business leaders. While each crisis is unique, there are similarities that we can learn from.

Last week, I shared my experiences with my team to assure the company that economic downturns can be navigated, but also that the future will bring more opportunities than the past.

The (sanitised) email is reproduced below.

Dream Team,

A big thank you to each of you for persevering in this strange new world.

I read a quote that I wanted to share:

"For some organisations, near-term survival is the only agenda item. Others are peering through the fog of uncertainty, thinking about how to position themselves once the crisis has passed and things return to normal. The question is, ‘What will normal look like?’ While no one can say how long the crisis will last, what we find on the other side will not look like the normal of recent years.”

These words were written 11 years ago during the Global Financial Crisis by Ian Davis, the then Managing Partner of McKinsey.

I have been fortunate to have lived through 2 economic crises in my professional career. I wanted to share some reflections.

2001: Internet bubble followed by Sept. 11th

At 9am on Sept. 11th, 2001, I sat alone in a meeting room at Bloomberg's midtown office in NYC. It was 2 weeks after finishing my training programme and I was excited to start my career. I was waiting for our team meeting to begin, but nobody showed up. As I walked back to my desk, I saw people glued to the TV footage of the towers in flames.

Manhattan had shut down and all bridges and tunnels closed. I was fortunate to live a few blocks away from the office. Many colleagues who lived outside of Manhattan were stranded. I invited colleagues to spend the night at my place where we cooked dried pasta and watched the news.

Over the next few months and years, I witnessed how a first-rate company handled the immediate crisis of a terror attack and the recession that followed.

Here are three observations:

1) Relentless focus on customers

In the immediate days after 9/11, Bloomberg opened up its offices to customers who have lost theirs. Our training rooms were turned into hotdesks for the hardest-hit customers.

As the immediate effects of the terror attacks started to wane and the recession came into full force, sales teams reached out to customers to understand what the changing times meant for them and how the company could best serve them. Some initiatives were 'business things', others were 'human things' because it was the right thing to do.

2) Strategically manage costs and invest for the future

Bloomberg strategically cut costs (including cancelling the annual Christmas party) and invested it wisely. It launched company-wide initiatives to repay technical debt and improve infrastructure. I personally spent my early career refactoring code, fixing bugs, and giving the product long-overdue cosmetic updates. I was excited to help strengthen the product that allowed the company to bounce back faster when the economy recovered.

3) Get ready to ride the wave of recovery

Despite the pessimistic sentiments in the early 2000s, the economy recovered and came roaring back. Competitors who were less strategic or failed to act were crippled. I witnessed this from the London office, having transferred in early 2003 as part of Bloomberg's investment to acquire tech talent in Europe. We went through a period of seriously impressive growth.

2008 Global Financial Crisis

Fast forward a few years, and we hit the 2008 Great Recession. I was lucky to have secured a job at McKinsey during the summer of 2007, just escaping the hiring freeze to come. However, this meant I began my new career shortly before what would become the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Here are three observations on how the firm handled it:

1) Relentless focus on customers

The consultants called their clients to understand what they’re going through. The firm shifted its work to focus on what customers needed. They did thought leadership pieces to help customers think about their challenges and adapted the types of projects they did.

2) Strategically manage costs and invest for the future

The partners demonstrated leadership by forgoing their bonuses and the firm cut inefficiencies to create a leaner firm. Through creativity, insight, and rigorous prioritisation, the firm cut costs with minimal disruption and notice.

3) Get ready to ride the wave of recovery

The recession lasted 2-3 years before things started returning to normal. The global economy went through one of the longest periods of economic growth in modern history. And at McKinsey, we were busier than ever during this period

Now it's Pirical's turn

We are in tough times. Some say the economic impact will be worse than the GFC of 2008. One customer said things are on pause, but she's confident that things will come back. She said "You guys deliver incredible quality - we don't yet know what we'll need, but there is always a shortage of quality work."

Our strategy to navigate the current crisis includes the playbooks of those who have led the way before.

Relentless focus on customers

continue to deliver high quality work to our customers
call customers to understand their changing needs
offer them some of our internal tools for free (e.g., our Team Barometer adapted for Working-from-Home)
create thought leadership on the topics that matters most to our customers

Strategically manage costs and invest for the future

explore creative ways to manage our costs with minimal disruption
launch our rebrand
invest as much as possible to prepare for the bounceback

The consensus is that it will be a turbulent few months followed by a slow recovery as the world gets comfortable with the new normal. But just like crises past, this too will pass. Stay healthy and stay resilient.

(end of team email)

What next?

I have spent a lot of time in the last few weeks speaking with our customers around the world, understanding the position they’re in and what challenges they are facing.

While everyone’s situation is different, I have been advising that the necessary responses are likely to include:

Relentless focus on customers
Strategically manage costs and invest for the future
Get ready to ride the wave of recovery

Over the next few weeks, we will be publishing a series of insights - a mixture of our own experiences and our analyses on the market - including:

Loving your team in the new world and managing a high-performing remote workforce
Listening to the UK’s biggest consumers of legal services
The potential impact of an economic crisis on diversity and inclusion
Assessing the potential of distributed workforce models

By signing up to our mailing list, you can get email notifications when we publish.

It is important to use empirical evidence to make decisions and refrain from knee-jerk reactions. I think we can show that there are some obvious mistakes to avoid, as well as some opportunities ripe for investment.

I know we can all come out from this crisis stronger than before and more ready to take on the ‘new normal’ we will discover together.

Bye Bye Aspirant Analytics, Hello Pirical - Our New Identity!

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 08:53:00 GMT

It’s time to open a new chapter.

Much has happened in the five years since Aspirant Analytics came into existence.

We have grown from a team of 3 co-founders to a team of 25
We have moved to Shoreditch and become a proper London tech start-up (with one big exception to the start-up identity: no external funding!)
Many of our services have turned into industry-leading products, while others have faded away as we have learned about, and focused on, what our market needs

In January 2020, we decided to capture and crystallise this change with a new name and a refreshed visual identity.

Today, we are proud to share both:

We are Pirical. We're on a mission to drive better people data decisions. But we're not robots. We deliver powerful data insights with a human touch.

Here is the story of this transformation: what inspired and moved us, what we want to stand for, and what we want to let go.

Why Aspirant Analytics, anyway?

So for years we have been Aspirant Analytics. But what’s behind that name?

The honest answer: It was the least controversial option.

You may have heard stories of founders wrecking their brains in late-night sessions to find a good company name. Countless bad-to-mediocre ideas get bandied about, until one of the founders takes a lone walk in the forest and suddenly gets struck by a bolt of lightning inspiration.

It was similar for us, except that the lightning bolt never came (maybe because there are no forests in central London). So we settled on one of those ideas that are sort-of okay but didn’t really fill anyone with excitement.

That said, at the time, it was the right decision. An unexciting name hasn’t prevented us from growing rapidly, and not obsessing about it allowed us to focus on what matters most: adding value to our clients.

It’s time for a makeover

As we have hit an important revenue milestone and grown our team to 25, it seemed like the right opportunity to start a new chapter.

Most importantly, it needed to be a name and visual identity that our team would love, and that would accurately represent our company ethos and mission.

Why Pirical?

The name Pirical instantly connects to the concept of Empirical, which is at the core of our value proposition: to let the data speak, to base decisions on objective information, instead of defaulting to blind faith or groundless assumptions.

Also, because of this semantic connection, there is no doubt about how the word should be pronounced. After years of subtly correcting our clients and partners from [AS-p-rant] to [as-PIE-rant], we are looking forward to a new era of phonetic unambiguity!

Finally, the .com was available. Despite the proliferation of exotic top level domains (“.ninja” anyone?), we thought that the .com is going to come in handy.

Our brand idea

Our technology is proprietary, cutting edge and, in some cases, unique. But we’re more than a tech company. Our clients choose us because we give them business value, not more tools.

We use the latest innovations to help our clients decide where to focus attention, how to stand apart from the competition, and how to maximise their impact. All of these are delivered with a smile and a human touch.

In short, we aim to…

Powerful data insights with a human touch

Our new company tagline powerful data insights with a human touch reflects our ambition to help the HR and Recruiting community with People Data Analytics.

While we are data driven and empirical, we want to emphasise the human element in what we and our clients do. Dealing with people is a chaotic endeavour, in the best sense of the word - often inspiring, occasionally frustrating, sometimes unpredictable, never boring.

And while we have the ambition to tame the unpredictability of managing people with scientific accuracy and impartial analysis, our logo acknowledges that there will always be the need for human qualities — kindness, empathy and patience, to name just a few. Things that no algorithm can do.

(...this also means that, thankfully, the machines will never completely take over.)

The Pirical logo reflects this contrast between the scientific and the human: The black type in a sober font, the square dots on the i, the precision with which the c “plugs” into the a — all that stands for the analytical portion of what we do.

But next to this incarnation of accuracy and rigour is an imperfectly drawn green dot. A playful complement symbolising the human touch and the lively chaos of the human condition .

Bold colours

Our company colours have also changed. And quite dramatically so. Whereas Aspirant Analytics was dominated by a subdued colour palette…

… our new colour scheme is simpler and bolder - white, black and green, symbolising the world, the scientific method and the human element. Green for Go Ahead with Confidence. It doesn’t get simpler than that.

And while at Aspirant we tended to hew closely to our primary colours even in charts and graphics, at Pirical we will explore the full range of the rainbow with a warm secondary colour scheme that will help identify key bits of information and sign-post the way through insights.

Adding the touch

In line with our new tagline “Scientific With A Human Touch”, we’re introducing a recurring illustration element.

The Touch - A green swipe that adds playfulness to the brand and can be used in a multitude of contexts.

The Touch shows how human ingenuity uncovers what lies beneath the surface of everyday phenomena....

… and it perfectly encapsulates our approach of combining the scientific method with a human touch to find answers to complex problems.

New Imagery

And finally, we have formulated new guidelines for photography we want to adhere to.

Since we are a decidedly urban brand, we have decided to largely stop using nature photography. Nature is awesome, but we’ll keep it for the weekends. There’s work to be done.

Also, we’re an East London brand! While in the Aspirant Analytics days, we used photo models that mirrored our clients’ imagery — modern, but formal and somewhat corporate — we realised that our Shoreditch roots were nothing to hide.

We are proud of having grown and thrived near the Silicon Roundabout. So bring on the industrial chic, exposed brick walls, and people diversity.

But there’s an important nod to our clients: We’re choosing photography where the models are well-dressed and slightly more formal than the average East End co-working space.

After all, HR leaders in law firms and recruitment professionals will probably not be impressed with bare feet in the office, torn jeans and graffiti walls. As one of our clients who we interviewed for the rebranding told us: “Whatever you do, avoid the flip-flops and beanbag stereotypes.” Wise words, indeed.

Home-grown

Now, at this point you may wonder which agency did this for us. It’s a pretty comprehensive rebranding, after all.

But remember that we are a start-up and have never taken investor money. Bootstrapping is our first language here at Pirical.

And so it may not be THAT big a surprise for you to learn that ... it’s home-grown. No agency. Just some passionate people who love the mission of the company putting their heads together.

Our People Data Analyst Rob Griffiths (who has a real knack for visual brand identity) put together a tremendous briefing document, and handed it to a talented designer, Derek Man , who put the final identity together. We then worked closely with Elliot Parker to get the website looking ready to go.

We’re incredibly proud of the result.

What’s more, the enthusiasm with which the rest of the team have embraced the new name, brand and visual identity, tells us that we’re on the right track.

Sometimes, it is useful to keep things in-house.

* * *

We are beyond excited to share our new identity with you. Do you like it? I’d love to hear your feedback. Contact me at jenny@pirical.com

And if there’s a people problem we can help you with, we’re here to serve you — by applying data science with a human touch.

The Gender Blindness of our Trainee Allocation Algorithm

Thu, 27 Feb 2020 09:31:00 GMT

Recently, a client told us something interesting: One of the trainees her firm employs pointed out to her that all women were being allocated to a specific practice area, despite none of them having requested it.

The trainee was asking whether there was gender bias in our algorithm, given that this seemed to be impacting women specifically.

It’s important to question automation

It’s great that people are openly questioning possible biases in automation. As Artificial Intelligence eats the world, we need this kind of citizens’ vigilance to ensure that the rules we set up in good faith don’t have unexpected systemic biases built in as second or third order consequences.

So it’s excellent she raised this point. Let’s test this thoroughly.

We start from the assumption that our trainee algorithm is not gender biased.

How can we make this assumption?

Firstly, we don’t have trainees’ gender as part of our data set. Secondly, we ran some analysis to check for inherent biases.

But let’s take things one by one.

What’s in the recipe

The algorithm of Ruth , our trainee allocation tool, uses data from the firm and from the trainee. The firm provides the availability of seats, while the trainee shares their preferences on which seats they desire. The algorithm does not have access to any personal information on the trainee.

This data then gets matched with the number of available traineeships at a given firm. And this is where the Ruth algorithm comes in.

Just like the brainpower you’d have to exert to allocate seats at a wedding where difficult family relationships and venerated relatives’ preferences need to be taken into account, Ruth crunches the data and delivers an optimal result given the constraints it has to work with.

So why this skewed outcome?

How is it possible that, in the instance mentioned at the outset, all female trainees had been allocated to one particular practice area, although none of them had requested it?

The answer lies in the power of randomness. It turns out that randomness does not mean equal distribution of outcomes.

For an illustration of this phenomenon we can turn to the shuffle mode of our music player of choice.

How randomness appears non-random

If you were to spin the Roulette wheel exactly 37 times, the ball wouldn’t land exactly once on its 37 numbers. (In fact, this specific outcome has a likelihood of 0.000000000000131%).

Similarly, if you shuffle songs on a Spotify playlist, you will not get a nice and even distribution of the songs. You think you’ll get Song 13, then Song 384, then song 122, and so on. When in reality, you could easily get a string of Song 13, then Song 14 and then Song 15 — which would make you pull out your phone and irritably check what’s happening with that damned Shuffle mode!

The designers of music apps know about this clustering phenomenon and that people are annoyed by it. That’s why most Shuffle modes are now designed to not be completely random. Instead, they have been slightly manipulated in a way so that the next song is always nicely far away from the previous one.

What this means for trainee allocation

When we designed our trainee allocation algorithm Ruth, we didn’t build in this randomness “manipulator” in order to smooth out these types of outcome clusters.

Put more vividly, we didn’t care if, on our Classic Rock playlist, the Shuffle mode played 4 Led Zeppelin songs in a row.

And this is what the trainee in this case experienced: She stumbled on one of those clusters, one of those instances where the shuffle mode played Songs 13, 14, 15 and 16 in a row. A rare occurrence indeed, but one that is just as likely that there’d be 5 men and 3 women, or 1 man and 7 women, or any other gender mix in that particular department.

But could there be inherent bias?

Lastly, we need to address the topic of inherent, or systemic, bias.

We often hear that women and men make different choices as a group. Could the skewed result in this case stem from women having made different choices as a group?

Negative. We looked at the data, specifically examining how men and women selected their choices and found no significant differences.

Conclusion

Things are often not what they seem. And, as Daniel Kahneman’s seminal book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” teaches us, it is very tempting to make a snap judgment (“System 1 thinking”) and attribute an uneven outcome to some form of error or bias in the algorithm.

It’s important to think about these issues and continuously challenge ourselves to ensure machines behave in the way we expect.

We hope that with the above, we have presented good arguments to counter the impression of error and bias.

The How-To Guide For Boolean Searches

Thu, 13 Feb 2020 08:17:00 GMT

Many people are familiar with the term Boolean, but very few could define what it means.

And to be fair, “Boolean” appears in many mathematical concepts (Boolean algebra, circuit, network, processor…), only few of which are relevant for those in the talent profession.

Where it really matters, though, is in database searches. Boolean operators are essential building blocks in sophisticated query logic, making searches more precise and relevant.

Here’s a short primer about the concept and how it applies in Pirical’ legal search engine Pirical Legal Professionals .

What’s in a name?

George Boole was a 19th century self-taught mathematician who created the foundations for modern computing.

It’s largely due to him that we have the concept of 0s and 1s. Every complex piece of information can be boiled down to a string of zeros and ones. Viewed through that lense, even the entire universe becomes, theoretically, manageable. We just don’t yet have the computing power to manage it all.

It was also Boole who developed what we today call “Boolean operators”: NOT, OR, and AND.

How NOT, OR, and AND make your life easy

NOT is hot

Any good search engine has Boolean operators integrated in their query logic. If you want to search for turkey and have the country, not the bird in mind, you simply google “turkey -bird”, (the minus being Google’s short form of NOT) and your results will be all about maps, holiday destinations and the latest Erdogan news.

By using the NOT operator in Google, you have limited your search to those results that do not contain any mention of the word bird.

(Moreover, Google is smart enough to exclude even those results which don’t contain the term “bird” but clearly are about the bird, e.g. a cooking recipe that doesn’t mention “bird”.)

The Golden OR

OR serves to broaden your search. If you were to search for results about the decade of flower power, you’d search “60s OR 1960s OR Sixties”.

AND’s the stANDard

AND, on the other hand, serves to narrow your search. If you wanted to search for the average retirement age in the UK, you’d search “UK AND retirement AND age”.

AND has been made obsolete by most search tools including Google, who have long understood that a string of multiple words most often implicitly assumes an AND logic (to stay with the previous example, you simply type “UK retirement age”.)

It’s important to know that while every good search engine and other database query system has some form of Boolean logic, not all are the same and it’s worth familiarising yourself with the Boolean operators a given database query system uses.

Which brings us to Pirical Legal Professionals.

Pirical Legal Professionals’ Boolean operators.

Pirical Legal Professionals is our search engine for legal talent. 350,000 lawyers in 130 countries working at over 1,000 firms are in our database, each with reams of data attached to them.

That kind of data volume requires plenty of sophistication in the algorithms it uses. Clients significantly benefit if they upgrade their searches with Boolean operators.

Our Boolean logic is as follows:

General rules

Boolean search will only work in the keyword field.

Also, Booleans in Pirical Legal Professionals require uppercase spelling. This is the only area where the case matters - otherwise, it is irrelevant whether you write m&a or M&A.

NOT searches

To exclude a particular term, type that term with an uppercase NOT immediately before it. E.g. corporate NOT M&A.

OR searches

To see results that include one or more terms in a list, separate the terms with an uppercase OR. E.g. insurance OR injury.

AND searches

AND is optional. For example, you can type finance AND projects, or you can just omit that operator.

PHRASE searches

To see only results that include a specific phrase you will need to use quotation marks. For example, you can type in “private client” which will only search for that exact phrase.

Multiple condition searches

Of course, you can combine booleans. You can do so by using parentheses.

To find Tax lawyers who do not work with private clients and don’t cover benefits, you search “Tax NOT (“private client” OR benefits)”.

Wildcard searches

A very useful operator (dare we say “life hack”) is the asterisk *, known as a wildcard. The asterisk represents one or several letters. For example, to find people who have words starting with “fin” in their profiles (“finance”, “financing”, “financial” etc.), simply type fin* in the keyword field.

Bringing it all together

Some lawyers may have “private clients”, and some “private client” in their profile. So you could optimise the query mentioned under the Multiple Condition Searches headline above (and using all Boolean operators at your disposal) by typing “Tax NOT (private client* OR benefits)”.

Ta-dah!

How to reduce the Gender Pay Gap - Decision Tree for more Equality

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 06:47:00 GMT

Few things are as vexing and intractable for the equality-minded HR leader as the Gender Pay Gap. We are three years into the pay gap reporting, and yet women and men still earn very differently, despite near universal awareness of the issue.

However, before seeking a cure for the malady, we must make the correct diagnosis. Every law firm is different, and while in one firm the problem could be attrition due to poor work/life balance, another could have some form of systemic bias within performance reviews.

So the first step in solving the problem, is pinpointing exactly where that problem lies.

But how do you improve this divide within a law firm? After working with many legal HR leaders over the years, we at Pirical have identified six specific actions in three main categories that law firms can take to narrow that stubborn pay gap.

Equal pay for equal work

The first two measures concern the topic of equal treatment within the same job type and job level. Naturally, there should be no pay difference here, as long as experience level and job title are the same.

1) No Equal Pay issues affecting women.

This is an exercise every law firm has done and we are only mentioning it for completeness’ sake. Map pay levels across every job title and experience and calculate the average at every sub-segment by gender. There should be 0% difference.

2) No Performance differences between men and women.

Not every law firm, however, has done this analysis: Ensuring that there are no gender-specific performance differences between men and women across the board.

Differences are, of course, acceptable in small firms and individual teams due to the lack of statistical significance in an average calculated across a small population.

But you should be highly suspicious if across hundreds of lawyers, one gender has consistently higher performance scores (and thus gets promoted faster and receives bigger bonuses). This is very unlikely to be based on merit and more likely to have some systemic bias at its core.

Balance in seniority across departments

The second area concerns seniority, as this is the main driver of compensation differences between men and women.

While at this point in history, the share of female partners doesn’t cross 30% in almost any law firm, the split is much more balanced in lower seniority levels. Running an analysis across the following three areas can help you understand if there is work left to do in how you manage attrition, hire laterally and promote.

3) Attrition

Is attrition at the root of the Gender Pay Gap problem in your firm? Benchmarking against industry averages provides a first level of diagnosis.

But even if it is in line with wider trends, there are still different measures you can take to go above industry averages. The most successful measures to implement are all mainly in the area of Work Life Balance , for example, ensuring that you provide young mothers flexibility, including the option to work from home.

4) Hiring

When hiring, there is no reason your gender split should depart significantly from the industry average across each seniority level .

If it is significantly different, you might want to investigate whether your hiring practices have a level of systemic bias towards men, e.g.

5) Promotions

Closely connected to the issue of performance is the idea that there should not be a significant difference in promotions between men and women.

We keep seeing over and over that men get promoted faster than women. As usual, benchmarking yourself against industry averages should provide a first look at where you stand.

But also, you need to identify whether there is bias occurring in performance evaluation and promotion cycles (e.g. through not sufficiently formalised assessment processes where personal favouritism leads to men benefiting more than women).

Ensure gender balances are off-set across departments

Granted, this is a less-than-satisfying workaround, but one that will accelerate the closing of the Gender Pay Gap: Balancing leaders across the company.

Put bluntly, you will have a hard time filling that technology lead with a female candidate. At least, try to balance out the male in the role with a senior female in a more traditionally female position (e.g. the HR department).

Conclusion

For the most part, we have been referring to industry averages here, and they do provide useful benchmarks for your firm.

However, these figures are not easy to come by. At Pirical, we help our clients collect this data, and run specific analyses to pinpoint what actions they can take to make the biggest impact for their firm.

Here’s the UK Legal Market in Numbers (Infographic!)

Thu, 12 Dec 2019 09:25:00 GMT

It’s easy to lose track of the scale and makeup of the Legal Market in the United Kingdom, with recruiters and other vendors using contradictory numbers.

So we thought of busting a few myths.

Today, we are excited to finally visualise the real data behind the legal market in the UK and how many lawyers work in what type of company.

The numbers (as of November 2019):

There are 146,418 practising solicitors in the UK.

22% of them are in-house counsel, the rest work in 10,402 law firms.

40% of lawyers in England and Wales work in London.

There are 5 firms that employ over 1,000 lawyers each, with 5,901 lawyers among them.

62 firms employ between 250 and 1,000 lawyers, with a total population of 29,470.

8,051 law firms and small and mid-sized (2-250 lawyers), employing a total of 108,756 lawyers. And there are 2,284 sole practitioners.

4,304 lawyers work in a Magic Circle firm

2,716 lawyers work in a Silver Circle Firm

19% of all lawyers work in a Lawyer 50 ranked firm, and 26% of lawyers work in a Lawyer 100 firm.

Pirical Legal Professionals, our legal search engine, has 100% of lawyers at Magic Circle and Silver Circle firms, as well as 100% of lawyers who work at UK Lawyer top 200 firms.

Pirical Legal Professionals is able to filter lawyers by firm, seniority, location, rankings, and more — all within moments. Our clients use the platform for Recruitment, Market Maps and Location Research.

And we have only recently introduced a brand new feature in Pirical Legal Professionals that allows you to see stats about the market as they search through Pirical Legal Professionals, and export these charts into a PDF.

So whenever you need a 30,000 ft view on a particular market or geographical segment, we’ve got you covered!

Schedule a free consultation here to learn if Pirical Legal Professionals is a fit for your business.

Get in touch

Sources:

Pirical Legal Professionals

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/apr/04/solicitors-number-england-wales-ethnicity

Maximise retention in law firms with these Work Life Balance initiatives

Thu, 07 Nov 2019 09:28:00 GMT

We had the opportunity to talk to Sam Walters , director of the London legal division at Robert Walters , a large international recruitment firm.

In our conversation, we cover,

and much more.

A massive shift has happened in the last 10 years in how law firms approach the topic of Work Life Balance (WLB).

Traditionally, a lawyer in a big law firm would work 80 hours a week under late night deadlines, he or she would have busy weekends and very demanding clients. And while there are still many profitable firms that operate in these terms, a growing number have started to pay more attention to WLB and begun to challenge the old stereotype of the overstressed and overworked lawyer with one where one's professional and personal life are in balance.

According to Sam, this is due to a “huge societal shift and attitude change” towards better work life practice among professionals. Based on research conducted by Pirical, 30% of cases of a lawyer leaving their employer could have been resolved with WLB measures. “This topic now permeates a lot of the conversations I have with clients,'' Sam says. Some firms still have, as he calls it “a toxic culture of presenteeism” which causes many good lawyers to leave.

What does the research say?

At Pirical, we’ve conducted a study with a very large client which we take the liberty to extrapolate to the legal market at large. The findings were:

All of this is especially true for the middle-tenured employees, as flexible work has little to no impact for junior staff.

There are several WLB-related measures law firms can implement.

The most successful WLB initiatives Sam has seen

Sam cites Skyscanner as being a company with the most interesting (and successful) WLB initiative he has seen in recent years: They employ people from 35 nationalities and enable their staff to work from their home country for 2.5 weeks per year.

Other examples include law firms ditching classic working schedules to create core business hours of 10-4pm, during which physical presence in the office is required, but around it lawyers are flexible how they deliver an 8 hour day.

And then, of course, there are now plenty of firms offering working from home one day per week.

Sam cites Herbert Smith Freehills as the firm with the best reputation on WLB policies: “They have a harmonious approach whether you’re in Melbourne or London or Hong Kong. They have a fixed Work From Home policy that is consistent across all practice areas and a fantastic shared parental leave policy”.

Working From Home has its pros and cons

One major benefit of allowing lawyers to work from home is that the pool of talent from which to draw from is much larger, often leading to hiring better qualified candidates. In addition, there are productivity gains, such as fewer interruptions and less commuting time. It’s better to have an employee spend two hours working at home than two hours on the train underground with no access to WiFi. There are also savings to be had in office space. If there are fewer employees needed in the office, then the office can be smaller, which saves money on rent.

But working from home also comes with its own downsides. For example, it can be hard to monitor performance, and it can be costly to provide workers with the right technology or equipment to work from home.

We at Pirical have researched what the sweet spot of working from home is and found that somewhere between one and two days a week can boost performance overall. The downsides start prevailing if it’s more than 3 days a week: Time in the office is then mainly used to catch up on things one missed out on - hardly a good use of anyone’s time.

A flexible culture can make a big difference

Even for those that are permitted to work from home, there are still many lawyers who prefer being in the office, both for the opportunities it allows for networking with their fellow workers as well as the general professional environment it creates. “For some, being in the office means being successful at work,” Sam says.

Although many companies have Work Life Balance policies that are the same throughout the entire company, it is also possible that these policies can differ between different departments or teams. As an example, if the corporate team and accounting team have to communicate regularly and find it easier to do so while in the office, then for these departments, there may be a policy where they must be in the office to work. However, even within the same firm, there may be other teams that are permitted to work from home sometimes.

“If you look at all the “Great Place to Work” surveys that take part, the easiest thing a company can do is to ask their staff to know what’s important, what they actually want,” Sam recommends.

It’s important to keep adapting your policies and to keep them optional. The more freedom you give to people and the more you treat them like adults, the better. People will return that kind of grown up attitude and will treat work more as a partnership, which will ultimately lead to better results.

You can get Sam Walters contact info on his LinkedIn profile and find out more about Robert Walters at robertwalters.co.uk/legal.html

How Linklaters reduced graduates’ application time by 80% through automated candidate screening

Thu, 24 Oct 2019 08:54:00 GMT

What do you do when you have a nagging feeling that your recruitment process doesn’t deliver you the best results?

Felix Hebblethwaite, Global Head of Recruitment at Linklaters, knew that the firm’s graduate recruitment process had to change. We had the opportunity to talk to him about the process — from identifying the problem, collecting and analysing the data and identifying the optimal solution.

The result: A 50% increase of applications, 80% less time required for the candidates, and automating screening.

Listen to the full audio here:

0:00 - 2:20 Felix’s background and introduction to Linklaters’ recruiting process

2:20 - 4:40 Initial candidate screening and how long it used to take

4:40 - 7:05 What made Felix rethink the process

7:05 - 8:20 Step 1: Gathering data with Pirical

8:20 - 12:50 Quick wins from the data gathering process

12:50 - 14:10 How the data provided an excuse to start from zero

14:10 - 19:25 A new online assessment approach for candidate screening

19:25 - 20:35 How to measure empathy and resilience online

20:35 - 24:30 The new welcome process results in growth of applications

24:30 - 27:00 Linklaters now and their future projects

27:00 - 28:15 KPIs for whether the new process is better

28:15 - end Wrap up

An Inefficient Recruitment Process

When Felix first started in his current role as Linklaters' Global Head of Resources and Recruitment in 2015, he inherited an approach to recruitment that was inefficient and slow. As part of the application process, candidates were required to detail their work experience and motivation in essay style responses, which would take them between 4 and 5 hours to complete.

“Also, since the topics were quite broad and other law firms used the same screening process,” Felix says, “you have to ask how much copying and pasting was going on.”

This approach was also cumbersome for those at Linklaters who had to screen the applications. An individual application would take 20-25 minutes to review, and given the volume, there was no time to give rejected applicants proper feedback.

After observing this process in action, it became clear to Felix that there was much to change and improve. Unfortunately, Linklaters didn’t have the capacity to ingest and analyse the reams of paper and electronic data that had accumulated over the years. It was at this time when Felix teamed up with Pirical.

Quick wins

After collecting and analysing all Linklaters’ data, we were able to identify a few trends that allowed Felix to reap two quick wins:

Long-term changes

More structural changes took around 2 years.

In the first year, Linklaters focused on defining what was important for the firm in terms of new recruits, and changed the assessment framework, using it as a guide for a new process. Rather than testing for writing skills early on — one of the reasons for the essays in the previous process — Linklaters now places, during the initial screening, a higher emphasis on personal characteristics such as empathy and resilience, using questions of the “what would you do if…” type.

“We are looking for a true insight into how people are going to operate in a firm like ours,” Felix says, “so the questions are all scenario-based on real-life situations from actual Linklaters’ deals.”

The second year was dedicated to implementing the new screening process.

Now, the first screening consists of the scenario-based multiple-choice test which can be completed in 60-90 minutes, a 60-80% time save for the applicant. The tool then immediately calculates a score based on the responses and tells the candidate if they have advanced to the next stage. Of course, this means that Linklaters recruiters do not need to spend time reviewing an application.

Another added benefit of the online process is that the feedback cycle is shortened. Linklaters are now able to look in real time how candidates are performing, then question that performance and make quick changes when needed.

And while writing and reasoning are, of course, paramount for any aspiring lawyer, Felix and his team have now shifted screening for it towards later in the process: During an assessment day, candidates write long-form text in the office, which not only reveals their writing skills, but also ensures that they cannot get help from someone else or copy and paste from previous work.

A more welcoming process should increase socioeconomic diversity

Since launching the new application process in late August 2019, the number of graduate applications at Linklaters has grown by 50% compared to the same period in 2018.

While it’s too early to say anything about the success of the new recruitment process, one possible benefit is starting to become apparent.

The new, much shorter, process should be more attractive for candidates who have not yet committed to a career as a lawyer as the time investment is lower than before - and lower than with most other law firms.

“If you come from a socioeconomic background where you don’t know anyone working in a law firm, your level of confidence about succeeding in the application process is also going to be lower. But hopefully our new approach will be more welcoming.” Felix says.

Could your firm also benefit from a thorough, data-based review of your graduate recruitment process? Contact us HERE to discuss your situation.

Get in touch

HE and life experiences of LGBT+ people

Mon, 21 Oct 2019 16:04:00 GMT

We share key findings from a report that takes a deep look into the life and experiences of LGBT+ people.

This article originally appeared in the The Student Employer .

Clifford Chance , Deutsche Bank, University of York and National Student Pride commissioned Trendence UK and Pirical to help them better understand the life and education experiences of LGBT+ people.

Out & proud: A Deeper Look into the Life and Experiences of LGBT+ People includes the key findings below, which are intended to act as a wake-up call for universities and employers alike, in creating environments that are inclusive to young people irrespective of their backgrounds:

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Two things you can do to boost gender diversity at partner level

Wed, 25 Sep 2019 22:44:00 GMT

Fox Rodney Search is a legal search firm focusing on partner, associate and in-house moves.

Siobhán Lewington , managing director of Fox Rodney’s London office, talked to us about two key insights the firm has made from years of experience placing partners. Both of these learnings are immediately actionable for law firms who want to boost their diversity numbers.

Fox Rodney are well-known, among other things, for publishing the London Partner Moves Report , a yearly look at lateral partner moves between law firms.

As far as gender differences in lateral moves are concerned, the numbers from last year’s report are a source of joy for diversity advocates: Female lawyers are very active in lateral moves across the London legal market:

Besides tracking the overall London market, Fox Rodney also keep a keen eye on the partner moves they themselves facilitated over the years.

Analysing the data from these moves, Siobhán and her team noticed two interesting patterns emerge that point towards differences between how the genders respond to different recruitment tactics.

Listen to the entire interview here:

1. Women respond better to targeted approaches

The percentage of female partners that were placed as a result of a retained search (i.e. a search with regards to a specific opportunity) was considerably higher among women than among men.

Put differently, female partners respond better when they are being approached about a concrete open position. It seems that they are less likely to do so at their own behest, or as a result of accidentally learning about a vacancy.

“Sometimes male partners approach us proactively. They look at their career and decide that they want to explore if there is a better platform for them,” says Siobhán. “That happens less often with female partners, in my experience. They need to be sought out and approached about a specific opportunity.”

That could be, Siobhán speculates, because women are generally happier with where they are and don’t see a need to move, and because they tend to have a greater sense of loyalty to their firms. “Female partners talk about loyalty more frequently, in my experience. They do so especially when they have taken on additional responsibilities, such as being promoted to the executive committee, or heading up graduate recruitment.”

The upshot for law firms is that they need to be proactive about diversity hiring, no matter if they are doing their own recruiting or using a headhunter. “If you want to improve your diversity scores, you need to approach female partners directly, with a concrete opportunity.'' says Siobhán.

Another learning for law firms is a lesson in retention: The more you can cultivate a sense of loyalty among your staff (e.g. via additional responsibilities they have taken on voluntarily as good firm citizens), the more likely you will be able to hold on to your female partners.

2. Female partners respond better to team moves

Team moves, the hiring of a group of lawyers, are becoming more and more popular in legal recruiting.

When analysing the data of group placements Fox Rodney made over the last few years, Siobhán noticed that there was always at least one female partner in the group. Often, there was more than one.

In an industry where only ~20% of partners are female (among larger law firms ), and an average team size of under 5 per group hire, this is unexpected, and can only be explained by a particular appeal group hires must have for female partners.

The main reason could be that group hires are less risky. The partner moves with their colleagues and junior team, after all — and so a great deal of familiarity and social infrastructure is maintained. Often, clients will follow, too. Siobhán speculates that this lower risk is appealing to women who, as many studies confirm , are, on average, not only more risk-averse than men, but also tend to receive less support when they do take risks.

Again, the upshot for law firms wanting to boost their diversity stats is: Approach female partners with the suggestion that a team hire is an option. Of course, a team hire will involve far greater effort and cost, as well as raise important questions around the partner’s fiduciary duties towards her firm. But if it is an option, a team hire has good chances for improving a gender imbalance at partner level.

Aim for at least 30% female partners on your shortlist

Finally, Siobhán recommends law firms to slightly over-represent women on their shortlists of candidates. “We aim for a 30% ratio on our shortlists,” says Siobhán. “Ideally we’d have 50%, but there simply wouldn’t be a large enough talent pool for that.”

What about all-female shortlists, as some recruiters are wont to do? Siobhán is against that, “just as I would be against all-male shortlists”. The legality of such an extreme measure is also a question.

Pushing for a greater gender balance on the shortlist can help nudge things in the right direction, especially when it encourages the recruiting law firm to be more creative and flexible in their requirements.

Conclusion and outlook

Despite Brexit, law firms’ growth — especially US firms in the UK — is accelerating, with Fox Rodney being busier than ever, as Siobhán says.

And while the influx of US firms in the London market is providing many opportunities that female partners are capitalising on, a lot remains to be done in an environment where 50% of fee-earners, but only 20-25% of partners (in the largest law firms) are female.

If gender balance is on your agenda, putting Fox Rodney’s insights into action should be as well.

Fox Rodney publish the Lateral Partner Moves Report on a yearly basis, you can contact Siobhán at slewington@foxrodney.com .

Three ways law firms can optimise hiring business services staff

Thu, 05 Sep 2019 12:27:00 GMT

We had the opportunity to talk to Deborah Gray, one of the Founding Directors of Totum Partners , a search firm who specialise in recruiting business services roles within the legal sector.

In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover, among other things,

0:00 - 1:40 Introduction, what are Totum Partners’ services

1:40 - 6:20 The changes in the legal sector in the past few years

6:20 - 8:10 Technology: What do clients expect and how do law firms respond?

8:10 - 9:30 Example of how a law firm started selling a software product

9:30 - 13:15 What law firms can do better when hiring business services employees

13:15 - 14:05 At what size should law firms start hiring business services roles?

14:05 - 15:45 The Totum Partners / Pirical Salary Survey - pilot and full rollout

15:45 - 17:30 Key takeaways from the pilot version of the salary survey

17:30 - 18:30 10/12/17 September workshops in London about the Salary Survey

18:30 - end Wrapup

Professionalising the hiring of business services roles

It may be a surprise to many, but in large law firms business services employees can make up close to 50% of a law firms employee population. In a piece of recent research into recruitment in the legal sector, in 2018 more business services roles were recruited into the sector than lawyers.

This share has been growing over the last few years and has seen a great wave of professionalisation. This is as a direct consequence of increased competition in the market, and increased demands from clients which have forced firms to be run more efficiently and effectively.

Totum Partners was established in 2012 to focus solely on recruiting business services roles into the legal sector, such as HR, IT and Technology, Business Development and Marketing, Project Management, Risk and Compliance and Finance.

This trend includes the leadership team of the company: In the past, one of the partners simply stepped into the leading role and took over the agenda of a CEO. Today, C-level positions are staffed by professionals with decades of relevant experience.

Business services leaders now have a seat at the table with the majority of leadership roles on the Board.

Deborah says that no company is too small for hiring dedicated business services staff: “We have recruited for offices with 20 people and £2-3 million turnover”.

Which best practices for hiring business services roles should law firms adopt?

1. Cross-pollinate

Traditionally, law firms chose to recruit business services employees from within the legal sector. But because law firms are becoming much more commercial and business-like, the benefit that people from other sectors can bring is huge. “Last year 50% of the candidates we placed in our retained searches come from other sectors,” says Deborah. “These firms understand that having someone from outside the sector can offer them a distinct competitive advantage, which in this market is vital.”

But surely some roles require law firm background? “Yes, you could argue that for Risk and Compliance roles, and some Finance roles there is a real benefit in having previous law firm experience.” says Deborah. “But other than that, getting people from outside law can be very beneficial.”

Granted, it’s not easy to integrate these people into the daily operations of a law firm: “Yes, they may not understand all of the legalese or the unique workings of a partnership'' says Deborah. “But with the right kind of induction process, these people can be hugely successful.”

2. Hire for future needs

Another recruiting pitfall is when someone in a business service function leaves, some law firms “will hire exactly what they had before,” Deborah contends. “Roles evolve and what you have had so far may not be the best fit for the future.” So hire for what a role will need in the future, not what you have had so far.

3. Balance disruptors and doers

Finally, law firms shouldn’t hire too many “disruptors”. Eager to embrace the changes facing the legal market, some law firms tend to over-hire on those with the big ideas and neglect to ensure they have enough “doers” to implement.

A key ingredient for successful hiring is having reliable salary benchmarks. And that’s where a collaboration with Pirical comes in.

A new kind of salary survey

Until 2017, Totum Partners have been running an annual salary survey. One of the problems they faced, however, was the fact that the salary figures were self-reported. “There were other things we wanted to improve, too. Firstly, firms had to provide their data by populating spreadsheets, which was long winded and onerous. Also, the report produced was in hard copy which did not allow firms to manipulate the data,” says Deborah.

Teaming up with Pirical, Totum Partners is now launching a new kind of salary survey where the data comes directly out of the company’s systems. Another benefit is that the analysis of the data and the “So Whats” extracted come from Pirical who do People Analytics all day, every day.

The two companies have run a pilot with six large UK-based law firms and already with this small sample found interesting insights, such as:

After the successful pilot, the two companies are rolling out this survey to the rest of the legal community. In this context, they are holding three workshops in September 2019 - on the 10th, 12th and 17th in Central London. There will also be an online webinar about it.

Anyone interested is welcome to join - more info here .

The first event is sold out, but you can email Deborah at deborah.gray@totumpartners.com to see if extra spots can be opened.

How legal recruiters can be more valuable to clients - by challenging them

Thu, 08 Aug 2019 10:35:00 GMT

In this week’s instalment of the Pirical Podcast, we talk to Edward Parker , Director at Fides Search , a Legal, Regulatory and Compliance Hires Consultancy and Recruitment Firm.

Fides’s point of differentiation is that they work globally and that they look to execute more than just a client’s search request. Instead, they always take a step back and boil a search request down to first principles, asking what the client really wants to accomplish.

Contents:

0:00 - 1:20 Introduction, Background to Fides Search

1:20 - 2:40 New Approaches to sourcing: Data & Intelligence

2:40 - 4:30 Example of applying data to a search

4:30 - 6:00 Going beyond the brief of a search - crunch the data beforehand

6:00 - 7:40 Other agencies copying the Fides approach - imitation being the sincerest form of flattery

7:40 - 9:10 Data has made a big difference, but not single-handedly delivered the result.

9:10 - 12:35 Example: How data has helped with key insights about long-term lawyer success; Challenging clients with a fixed binary view.

12:35 - 16:00 Teasing out from clients what they really want through intelligent questioning

16:00 - 19:00 Good questioning can save the client money by not hiring partners

19:00 - 20:50 On politely pushing back to clients and keeping open, honest relationships

20:50 - 22:45 Working with Pirical

22:45 - end On recruiters being data-fluent, wrap-up, more about Fides Search

Pushing back to move forward

Often, a client’s wish list for an ideal candidate is very large, and some trade-offs will be inevitable. In our interview, starting at 10:45, Edward mentions the case of a challenging senior hire in a specialist area. Most clients look at the candidate’s billing history, usually at the last three years.

However, Edward and his team learned from the data at their disposal, that in highly specialised areas, it’s not important what a person’s historic billing rates have been. It’s more important what do they know, what they’ve specialised in and what’s their reputation. As a result, Fides Search have successfully placed great candidates from in-house positions (without a billing track record).

This kind of gentle pushback on the client’s priorities is in high demand. A trusted partner in people search needs to be on par with the client. They cannot be expected to agree with everything the client says but instead need to help course-correct a client and suggest a different path. As Edward says: “Sometimes if a client has a very fixed view and we believe it’s not executable, part of our job is to use the data and experience we have to try to open them up to other ideas and different ways to realise the outcome.”

Data has been crucial in this type of course-correction work for Fides Search. Understanding the existing competitor landscape, for example, helps manage a client’s expectations as to what kind of hires they will be able to get. Some clients who don’t have the name recognition of the largest law firms need to be aware of their employer brand and what is possible to make happen with it. This conversation can be difficult to be had, but using data can make it easier.

Questioning with data can also save the client money

For example, when a client is set on getting a new hire at partner level, a good search consultant can suggest to find another way: If the firm has a 3-5 year time horizon with that hire, why not hire at a pre-partner level (which will cost significantly less) and develop that hire to partner level.

That, of course, will be to the detriment of your own revenue. But of course, any search firm worth its salt will disregard this fact, fully knowing that a short-term hit like that will be more than offset in the long run. “We pride ourselves with getting the best possible outcome for our clients”, says Edward, adding diplomatically: “It’s not a given that that’s how our industry works.”

We hope you enjoy listening to the entire interview.

Fast data vs Slow data - an Interview with Clifford Chance

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 10:00:00 GMT

Sarah Langton is Global Head of Recruitment at Clifford Chance. We had the chance to sit down with her to discuss a fascinating topic: Two different types of data when it comes to recruiting: Fast data and slow data.

Read (or listen) why this distinction matters.

Fast data (FD) is marketing data: Click-through rates on job adverts, social media engagement, application to interview rate, cost per hire etc. It’s readily available and many recruiters regard it as the be-all and end-all of talent acquisition data.

80% of data recruiters have falls in this bucket.

Slow data (SD) is much trickier to gather and analyse: It tells you, after 1-2 (sometimes even more) years if the people you hired with campaign X or initiative Y have performed well and what that tells you about campaign X or initiative Y. You start improving your process as data about attrition and retention rolls in. This data mostly relates to and will help you with process improvement.

Why is it called Slow Data? Because it takes a long time to collect and to derive meaningful insights from. It can be tricky to separate causation from correlation in multivariate data sets: Was it the source of candidates that led to better retention or the new onboarding process we developed? You need a long period of time to collect and analyse it.

Fast data alone doesn’t measure the quality of your recruitment process.

It measures your ability to attract candidates. That’s a crucial distinction. Because the recruitment process is much broader than that: it’s about how the candidates you attract turn out to be adding value to the firm.

This is not to disparage fast data.

It is important to complement SD with FD. Often, FD is the only data available and it can serve as a useful gauge for how you are doing. We often don’t have the luxury of being able to wait for the emergence of slow data to collect feedback.

“Which Slow Data has proven the most useful to you at Clifford Chance?”

The actual performance data of the person we’ve hired, but over a long period of time, not just the first few quarters. And then we look at that against the recruitment process. Extract what are the commonalities and traits of the successful employees, and use that in your recruitment process. Of course, everything on an aggregated and anonymised basis.

That’s the holy grail of proving that your recruitment process is right. It’s not just about your offer-to-acceptance ratio and whether the person is still around 12 months later. But it’s about how successful someone will be when they’re with us for 3 years.

“What would you do if you were dropped into a new company that only uses Fast Data? How would you start improving their processes to develop Slow Data capabilities?”

“When we talk about ‘Big Data’ - which data bucket does that fall into?”

Definitely into the Slow Data bucket. Big Data is from multiple sources and it takes a long time to figure out patterns and derive meaning. Fast data, in turn, is much more about one single thing from one source that tells you one reliable metric, but without the wider context.

“What roles does GDPR play in all this?”

You always need to work with a data privacy specialist, that’s clear. There’s a lot of sensitive data you’re handling here. One thing to always keep in mind is to extract the lessons (again: on an aggregate, anonymised level) in time before the data has to be discarded. So it forces you into a regular process because you know the data will only be around for so long.

“What are the main lessons learned for Clifford Chance?”

It’s the insight that fast data isn’t the whole picture. We don’t want to be falling into the trap of only drawing on the majority of data available (which is the fast type) and conclude, for example: “Oh, we got so many applications from this or that recruiting initiative, we must be really good at recruiting.”

One of the benefits of being aware of slow data is that you become somewhat immune to the fascination that fast data may hold. You realise it’s not the whole story.

“How can people learn more?”

I’m always happy to connect with anyone in my field who wants to share their experiences with recruitment and data. Simply add me on LinkedIn or email me at Sarah.langton@cliffordchance.com and let’s talk.

What to do when data analytics is not an option

Thu, 27 Jun 2019 08:36:00 GMT

Imagine you have finished a long day of interviews and have two remaining candidates for one legal trainee position.

What do you do? If you haven’t already done analysis, it won’t be possible to fire up some analytical tools to guide you. You’ll need to make a decision then and there.

The tension between gut and data

We at Pirical love data. In our ideal world, all decisions are made on sound rational foundations.

But we have to be realistic:

Still, there is a good middle ground between making completely gut-based decisions and the ideal scenario of data-driven action.

The happy medium

Here are two things you can do to mitigate the negative consequences of gut-based decision-making.

1. Become aware of your biases

When famous mathematician Douglas Hofstadter works on a difficult problem, he always starts with a “hunch” and seeks to prove or disprove it.

This hypothesis-driven problem solving, as it is called in management consulting firms, is generally a useful approach, even if you don’t have data to prove or disprove them. Discussions with your team then become the substitute.

As you are working towards a solution, become aware of your biases, and be alert if you find them repeatedly skewing in the same direction.

For example, when trying to resolve conflicts between employees, notice if and when you find yourself defaulting to taking the side of a particular group (e.g. women, minorities, senior staff) instead of being purely driven by the facts of each case. This could be a sign of undue bias and, thus, likely poor decision-making.

Another example of uni-directional bias is our analysis of interviewing effectiveness . The company in question favoured job candidates who did well in a group interview (instead of assigning other interview formats the same weight). This bias towards group interviews was skewing their recruitment results because it had the potential to exclude analytically brilliant, but less charismatic or gregarious candidates.

The best way to prevent these types of bias is to always look at the underlying data first.

When no data is available, the second best approach is to discuss with others and let them challenge your biases. As Ray Dalio writes in Principles , people are wired very differently, and everyone sees the world from a different angle. Allowing others to stress-test your biases can be a good substitute for weighing the data.

Which brings us to the second point.

2. Cultivate radical openness

It’s a common scenario: Junior employees are queasy about challenging their superiors when it comes to making an important decision, even when they are strongly convinced that they are right.

If your firm doesn’t actively champion dissenting opinions, you increase the risk of poor gut-based decision making. If there is a risk of negative consequences for openly disagreeing with a more senior person, people will practice anticipatory obedience and bury their dissent.

A culture of radical openness where the leader is genuinely excited at the prospect of being convinced with good arguments is the best substitute for being proven wrong with data. Healthy debate - whatever the outcome, is always a good thing.

Conclusion

These are the ways how you can counteract lack of data:

And if you do want to place your decision-making on a data-driven foundation after all, we at Pirical would love to work with you.

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How to boost Inclusion of BAME lawyers - add this one ingredient

Thu, 30 May 2019 08:40:00 GMT

The share of lawyers of Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnicity (BAME) in the legal profession has been steadily growing over the past few years, reaching numbers that surpass national averages within the UK workforce.

The latest figures by the SRA, collected in August 2017, show that 21% of lawyers are BAME, almost double the national average of 11% (= share of BAME across the entire UK workforce). This is largely driven by Asian lawyers (14%). Black and Mixed Ethnicity lawyers represent 3% and 4%, respectively.

Specific policies and their impact on BAME inclusion

These numbers represent the ‘Diversity’ part of ‘Diversity and Inclusion’. While it is helpful to know how diverse your workforce is (% of staff that is BAME), it is equally important to know how your diverse workforce is thriving. Are there policies or practices that hinder the development of BAME lawyers’ careers?

Over the last few years, we at Pirical have been working with law firms who have asked us to look deeper into their HR practices to identify which topics help or hinder the advancement of BAME professionals. We will share one interesting finding.

The impact of Resource Management on Inclusion

The more time a lawyer spends serving clients on matters, the better. No one is served by sitting “on the bench” - i.e. being between assignments.

We analysed the average number of matters each ethnic group worked on per year and found that BAME associates worked on 25-33% fewer matters per year than their Non-BAME counterparts. There could be an innocent explanation for this: we know that diversity rates are not the same across practice areas, and perhaps BAME associates may be more concentrated in practice areas where fee-earners worked on fewer matters, but each was longer. If this were true, then we would expect their utilisation rates and total billed hours to be equal. Unfortunately, when we controlled for this, the results held — utilisation was indeed lower for BAME associates.

However, the picture changed for BAME associates when Resource Management was introduced. Many firms have been hiring Resource Managers to help allocate associates to client matters. Since Resource Managers are rolled out progressively, there will inevitably be parts of the firm that have Resource Managers, and other parts that do not. If Resource Management has an effect on inclusion, then we would expect the number of matters BAME associates worked on per year to increase with the introduction of Resource Management.

Sure enough, this is what the numbers say — for BAME associates in practice areas with Resource Managers, the number of client matters they worked on was 24% higher compared to BAME associates in practice areas without Resource Managers.

We don’t have a strong hypothesis on why Resource Management reduces the problem. It could be that partners who staff their own teams allows bias to take a stronger foothold, and can be reduced if you introduce an intermediary who has a more detached relationship with the people they are about to staff. It could be that Resource Managers have a mandate for Inclusion, and is making a difference.

Be it as it may, introducing Resource Management is correlated with higher utilisation of BAME associates.

Do you want to run the numbers on BAME Diversity and Inclusion in your law firm? Contact us for a free, zero-obligation initial consultation.

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What is People Analytics? Four reasons why you should care

Thu, 16 May 2019 08:54:00 GMT

A pharma salesman pays you a visit and proposes you a new pill: In his arbitrary opinion, it immediately eliminates headaches and keeps headaches away for a longer time than any other drug on the market.

Would you buy and take this pill? Of course not. You haven’t seen the history of clinical trials that proves efficacy nor do you know anything about its potential side effects. Most people would say you’d be crazy to swallow this pill.

But what is obvious in a science-heavy domain like medicine is not self-evident in workforce management. Many people still rely on incomplete data and gut feelings when deciding on where to invest their time and energy.

The science that helps us make better business decisions with people data and apply “clinical trials” to our hypotheses is called People Analytics.

People Analytics refers to the discipline of analysing “people data” to improve business performance (not to be confused with HR Analytics, which is analytics to improve HR processes). In a professional services company (or any company driven by human talent), People Analytics encompasses a majority of the data sets. Done right, People Analytics both gives insights on how to improve business performance and instils confidence to act on ambitious initiatives.

Specifically how does People Analytics work?

It all starts with the business question - for example, how can we improve our recruitment efforts to ensure we have the right people coming into the organisation? How can we improve both our diversity and inclusion in a way that improves performance?

Then the detective work starts. We break the question down into sub-questions (for a good example read our article on Reporting vs Analytics ) and go through an iterative process of hypothesis testing.

Why should you care?

Here are four reasons why all business leaders should care about People Analytics.

1) In a world of anecdotes, it gives you facts.

2) In a world of assumptions, it gives you evidence.

3) In a world of ambiguity, it gives you clarity.

4) The HR Director, armed with the right insights, has the power to change everything.

In a world of anecdotes, it gives you facts

This element lies at the heart of People Analytics: It removes hearsay from decision-making.

Take the elite school problem: Do graduates from elite schools make for better employees? One way to start would be to see if an elite school on a CV leads to better on-the-job performance. The way to do this would be to use Linear Regression, a method from Statistics.

Another angle to look at would be the performance of lawyers who graduated from average or below-average schools, but outperformed their peers.

And so on – Analytics enables you to explore a topic from different angles, mixing publicly available data with your own, and applying methods from mathematics and statistics, and arrive at a statement like: “Graduating from an elite school does in itself not predict above-average performance as a lawyer, but being among the best students in the bottom 20% of schools in deprived regions does”. (which is actually the finding from this particular analysis we did, which you can read about here .)

Without People Analytics, this discussion remains in the realm of opinion and often it’s the charisma and eloquence of the debater that wins the day. With People Analytics, it’s the merit of the argument and the underlying data that guide you towards the right decision. As it should be.

In a world of assumptions, it gives you evidence

As far as talent is concerned, gut-based decision making (“I have a good feeling about that person.”) and conventional wisdoms (“trainees take a long time to pay off”*) are more prevalent than in other areas of business.

There’s a good reason for that: People are complex creatures, and unlike a new sales technique which shows its results immediately, measures taken in talent management are often ambiguous and take a long time to pan out. And with complexity, claims of experience and tradition (“this is how we’ve always done things around here and it’s worked”) often trump incomplete data.

And justifiably so. There is nothing wrong with allowing experience to make mental shortcuts in a complicated world. But when data IS available and it contradicts the gut, it would be foolish to not use it.

A perfect example of this is how we helped this company to improve their hiring process . Interviewers loved the group interview format, until our analysis showed that it was one of the worst formats to predict future performance.

Good People Analytics, paired with open-mindedness to change one’s beliefs in the face of new evidence is rocket fuel for a law firm’s performance as far as talent management is concerned.

* they do not

In a world of ambiguity, it gives you clarity

Bold decisions are often faced with trepidation, leading to the default of no action. People Analytics gives you the confidence to take bold decisions.

For example, in our " Gender in Partnership” analysis , we looked at the root causes for lack of gender diversity on the track towards becoming a partner. We have parsed the data by law firms’ departments and showed in which scenario it’s a case of not enough female lawyers being hired or not enough existing female lawyers being promoted.

This allowed us to say more confidently: In this team, improve the pipeline, in that team, work on promotions. In aggregate, we then were able to project what gender ratios would look like if all the small measures were acted upon:

The HR Director, armed with the right insights, has the power to change everything

The number of times we have helped an HR Director prepare materials for a board meeting, only to have their agenda bumped, is both frustrating and puzzling. Professional services firms depend on the calibre of its people more than, say, capital-heavy or IP-rich businesses. Theoretically, in professional services companies, HR Directors should be the first, not the last, person to speak.

Roles aside, board agendas focus on business performance (as they should), and traditional HR agendas are usually filled with reports like attrition per office and changes to headcount. These types of numbers lack both rigorous analytics and ties to business performance. It’s no surprise topics like declining profitability or revenue growth models take precedence.

However, HR topics should be front and centre when tied to business performance. Imagine rocking up to your next board meeting with an opening statement of “Three bold people initiatives we want to kick-off have the potential to increase company profitability by £Xm over the next 3 years. Let me now tell you how we can make this happen and what support we will need.” When one of your fellow board members astutely stress-tests your proposal with ‘what if…’, you confidently say, “I’m glad you asked - on the next page, I’ll show you what could happen if…’ This is ‘analysis that stands up to scrutiny.’

In which cases can you use People Analytics

The following scenarios should have you reaching for the People Analytics toolset (or call people who have it at their disposal):

What types of People Analytics tools do we provide?

We at Pirical live and breathe People Analytics. Since winning the Innovate UK grant in 2015, we’ve been building JKUB - the best data machine that creates insights that inspires and delivers change.

We provide tools and services in People Analytics to help law firms make smarter decisions in hiring, attracting and retaining talent.

Pirical Insight is our intelligent algorithmic platform which synthesises internal and publicly available data. Once it has sorted through a company’s data, it saves the HR professional days of report production time by compiling attrition rates, headcount cost and other important metrics with a single click.

It then complements this with public data and allows the user to visualise countless possible combination and aggregation levels, answering most action-oriented questions:

Pirical Legal Professionals is our search engine for global legal talent and firms. With 300,000 lawyers in over 1,000 firms, it is a treasure trove for recruiters, strategists and diversity teams. Its most powerful feature is the ability to overlay easily available data (such as someone’s LinkedIn profile and their connections) with information that is difficult to parse — metadata about jointly published articles, news articles about a case and which lawyers worked on it, etc.

Want to find IP lawyers in Hong Kong who also speak French? Or do you want to know who a particular lawyer worked with in the past? Pirical Legal Professionals is your one-stop shop for these questions.

Ruth , formerly known as Revael Trainees, helps you place trainees in a fair and objective way. What used to take three weeks can now be done in a matter of minutes. Trainee coordinators can input the firm’s requirements and combine them with trainees’ strengths and preferences. The result is a fair and unbiased placement suggestion that optimises for all factors (but can always be manually adjusted to work with edge cases).

Contact us here for a free consultation on how People Analytics could help your business.

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Reporting and Analytics – What is the difference and why does it matter?

Thu, 02 May 2019 09:18:00 GMT

Admittedly, it’s not the most gripping topic – but the difference between Reporting and Analytics is actually really interesting and offers a glimpse into two very different modes of thinking.

Many people use the terms Reporting and Analytics interchangeably — showing numbers and discussing them. But not all numbers relating to a business activity are created equal. Let’s look at an example.

Say an analyst at your law firm tells you that 15% of your trainee applications come from University X, up from 13% the prior year. That may be interesting to know, but what are you supposed to do with this information? Should you ramp up hiring at University X? Or is 15% too much and should you therefore invest employer marketing spend elsewhere? Is 15% good or bad?

The above belongs into the category of Reporting – organising data into summaries for the purpose of monitoring progress. Reporting is an indispensable tool for tracking towards a goal.

Analytics, on the other hand, goes beyond ‘tracking what happened’, to answer ‘why it happened and what you should do’. Done right, Analytics gives you the confidence to take action.

Start with the ‘so-what’, then ask ‘why’

Reporting may come with commentary, but it doesn’t come with anything prescriptive. By default, it simply shows facts and figures without an agenda, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Taking the example from above: Applications from University X is 15%, up from 13% a year ago. To turn this Report into an Analysis, the analytical mind would ask: Why should I care, or ‘So what’? Here is the analytical mind at work:

The so-what

I might care that the percentage of applicants from University X has increased if lawyers who graduated from University X have a higher lifetime profitability at the firm, compared to lawyers who attended other universities.

To answer this question, we conducted an analysis on lifetime profitability, cut by the university attended. We found the answer is yes, alums from University X have higher lifetime profitability. Does this mean we should increase our recruitment from University X? Not so fast - correlation does not mean causation. Let’s interrogate this more.

Ask why #1

Why would lawyers who graduated from University X have higher lifetime profitability? We know that profitability is driven by Revenues minus Costs, and if we add up annual profits over the number of years employed, we get lifetime profitability. If we break this down, we want to know if lawyers who graduated from University X generate higher annual revenues, are lower cost to employ, or stay at the firm longer?

Three analyses, each cut by the university the lawyers attended, gave the answer. Those who attended University X generate higher annual revenues (they weren’t less expensive to employ nor did they have different attrition levels from their counterparts). This may be interesting, but our analysis still won’t stand up to scrutiny as we haven’t found the link between University X and revenues, so let’s keep digging.

Ask why #2

Why do lawyers who graduated from University X have higher annual revenues? We know that annual revenues is the number of hours billed multiplied by an hourly rate, minus the amount written off.

Our analyses here looked at these three factors and found that lawyers who attended University X had less written off (i.e., fewer write-offs due to fewer hours that were not billable).

Ask why #3

Why would lawyers who attended University X have fewer unbillable hours? Perhaps they are more technical and it’s their degree subject that matters?

It turns out, lawyers who studied certain degrees were more profitable, due to fewer write-offs, and University X had a higher concentration of applications who studied these degrees. The final conclusion was that it doesn’t matter that applicants from University X increased - what really matters is applicants who studied degree Y increased - either from University X or elsewhere.

The upshot

Given the above analytical thinking, should we care that applications from University X are up 15%? Probably not. What really matters is which degree applicants studied. The better strategic action is to increase the number of students who studied degree Y, either at University X or elsewhere. This level of analytical interrogation should give us confidence in the action we are about to take.

Intentionally seeking out data that answers these questions is like a detective treasure hunt where one clue leads to another, with a grand resolution awaiting in the end – which makes Analytics fun! It also challenges the analyst to be creative in what data can be used to prove a given hypothesis. Put differently: Often the answer is not hiding in plain sight. Instead, it needs to be uncovered through rigorous logic and creative usage of data, but the result is powerful.

Most exercises in Analytics gets triggered by a business problem that needs to be solved, but sometimes it’s an anecdote that needs to be proven. For example, you may overhear a colleague say “Bob is great! He’s from University X - students from University X must be great!” This is your calling to put on your analytical detective hat and start asking questions.

Conclusion

Analytics serves to answer questions about what to do. It seeks to uncover the truth to allow us to make better decisions.

Reporting has its place – nothing of the above means to imply that Reporting is not a worthwhile pursuit. But often, the best place for Reporting is to be the trigger for an inquiry, and not just a platter of assorted factoids to be snacked upon.

Does your firm need an Analytics mindset?

Besides using sophisticated tools from mathematics, statistics and data science, Analytics is also a mindset of being curious about evidence and a quest to look deep into the data.

Contact us here for a free consultation on how People Analytics could help your business.

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People Analytics demystified — Part 4: Mean vs Median

Thu, 28 Mar 2019 10:22:00 GMT

This is the fourth in a series of posts requested by some of our clients on demystifying concepts in analytics. It is intended to introduce analytical concepts to those without a mathematical or statistical background, in a way that is both intuitive and immediately useful.

We hope it will lead to people asking more questions about analytics and pausing to consider implications of analysis they see in their day-to-day work.

If you want to get the entire series over the next few weeks comfortably in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter .

Let’s jump right in. This week’s concept is Mean vs Median.

Introduction

Bill Gates walks into a bar.

No, this is not the start of a joke. So Bill Gates walks into a bar. The average net worth of the 6 other people in the bar just increased to £10.9bn each.

Does this give you a good picture of the distribution of wealth in that bar? Of course not.

At the core of this story lies the problem with using averages (aka the Statistical Mean) to describe a population — and we use the term population to describe any group of people, from an entire country to the employees of a particular law firm. Very often, as in this story, using the Mean is not a good way to describe a situation. To the contrary, using it can be outright misleading.

Defining Mean vs Median

The Mean is what we understand, in common parlance, as the average. The Median is the number in the middle of an ordered set.

Let’s look at all the people in that bar we mentioned, and let’s list their net worth.

We arrive at the Mean by adding up everyone’s net worth (£76,000,957,000) and dividing it between the group members (7). That way we arrive at an average of £10,857,279,571. So far, so obvious.

Let’s now look at the concept of the Median. We arrive at the Median by lining up everyone ordered by their net worth and picking the person in the middle (if there is an even number of people, the Median is calculated by taking the average of the 2 middle people).

Does £75k give us a better picture of the people in the bar? We know that half the people have a net worth greater than £75k, and half the people have a net worth less than £75k. It is a better representation of how much everyone in the bar owns.

A similar concept we at Pirical use often are Quartiles. While the Median divides a population into two equal halves, Quartiles divide it into four quarters.

Working in HR, when to use which?

The Mean is generally easier to calculate because you don’t have to reshuffle your data. But sometimes it’s worth rethinking why you use which metric.

When to use the Mean:

1) When there is a low occurrence (or probability) of extreme outliers. In that case, Mean and Median will be very close to each other anyway, so it doesn’t really matter which one you use.

2) Also, the larger the sample size, the safer it becomes to use the Mean.

3) Finally, the Mean gives you a fuller picture of your population. For example, let’s say you want to look at the on-the-job performance of trainees by the university they came from, and let’s say these are the numbers:

We can see that University B has lower averages than University A if you exclude the two trainees who scored 5 out of 5.

But if you include the two outliers, University B’s average is considerably higher. And if on-the job performance scores are predictive of how much new business these trainees will win one day (which would have to be proven), it would be a better choice to focus recruiting efforts on University B with its apparent 20% share of geniuses.

So in this case, using the Mean makes more sense than the Median.

When to use the Median:

We use the Median when there are outliers that skew the picture.

Example 1:

Let’s say you run employee satisfaction surveys in each department. In one department, you have an average of 5.25 (out of 10), and you know that generally people who score 4 or above, will stay with you. So you are comforted - while not great, that department seems safe.

But then half of the people in that department resign. How is that possible? You look at the individual scores which are: 1,3,3,3,3,9,10,10. The Mean is 5.25, but the Median is 3. It turns out you had quite a polarised population in this team. If you had looked at the Median, you’d have spotted it and could have acted faster.

Example 2:

Another good example is considering salaries in a department, when trying to figure out compensation.

If, for example, the department head has a salary of £250,000, and the four team members earn £50,000 each, and you decide to make an offer to a new employee, what should you use - Mean or Median? Mean is £90,000; Median is £50,000. Obviously, the Median is the best choice

Example 3:

A truism in economic journalism is “the rich are getting richer”. Is this true? If it is, Mean income should be growing faster than Median income. Has it risen faster?

While the data shows that mean income has indeed grown faster than the median (so the rich are indeed getting richer), this growth advantage is not outrageous: While the mean has increased by 130%, the median has grown by 120%. Bottom line: Practically everyone is considerably better off than they were 40 years ago.

Conclusion

In summary, it’s mostly about the outliers: If you want to include them, use the Mean. If you want to downplay them, use the Median.

Whether you feel good about your wealth when Bill Gates walks into your local is completely up to you.

People Analytics demystified — Part 3: P-value

Thu, 21 Mar 2019 09:16:00 GMT

This is the third in a series of posts requested by some of our clients on demystifying concepts in analytics. It is intended to introduce analytical concepts to those without a mathematical or statistical background, in a way that is both intuitive and immediately useful.

We hope it will lead to people asking more questions about analytics and pausing to consider implications of analysis they see in their day-to-day work.

If you want to get the entire series over the next few weeks comfortably in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter .

Let’s jump right in. This week’s concept is p-value.

P-value

Here’s an interesting question: Say you have a team of two lawyers working with you. Brenda is an Oxford graduate, the other, Alfred, attended an average university. Brenda’s on-the-job performance score is 4.2 (out of 5.0), Alfred’s is 3.3.

Does this information allow you to conclude that Oxford graduates are better lawyers than their peers from humbler institutions? No. The sample size is far too small to make such an assertion.

However, if you have a team of 2,000 lawyers working with you, half of whom went to Oxford, the other half went to average universities, and their average performance scores are 4.2 and 3.3 respectively, it feels more likely that Oxford graduates may in fact perform better than graduates from average universities.

The question is: If I see a difference between two averages, can I assume the two groups are different?

The answer can be found in the calculation of the p-value.

What is the p-value?

P-value stands for probability value. It indicates how likely it is that a result occurred by chance alone. P-values are between 0 and 1, and the smaller the better. A p-value of 0.05 is usually considered good.

In our first example above, Brenda is outperforming Alfred. But with only 2 data points, it’s possible that Brenda is the strongest performing Oxford graduate and Alfred the lowest performer from his university. Hence, we cannot make the more general conclusion that Oxford graduates have better on-the-job performance ratings.

Our second example will likely be more conclusive: with 1,000 graduates from each group, it’s far less likely that we just happened to pick 1,000 of the best Oxford graduates AND we happened to pick 1,000 of the worst graduates from other universities.

In statistical terms, we call this difference ‘statistically significant’, meaning the outcome is unlikely to have occurred by chance alone.

Why 0.05?

0.05 means there’s only a 5% chance the outcome is by chance - it’s an arbitrary cutoff that statisticians have agreed upon. It’s the most commonly used value that indicates statistical significance, and in many areas p-values at or below 0.05 are deemed sufficient. However, in many fields such as precision engineering, p-values are required to be far smaller.

We at Pirical are often happy with a p-value of 0.1 and below. The reason is that for most analyses we do, our sample is actually the full population (aka all employees), and the total number is not very large.

So 0.1 might not be statistically perfect situation, but it should be significant enough to not be ignored

What influences p-value?

Sample size

As we indicated above, the larger your sample size, the more confident you’ll get. This is why it’s hard to make a judgment based on 2 graduates, but easy when you have 2,000.

Distribution of results

The tighter the result clusters, the more confident you will be. If 90% of Oxford graduates are within an on-the-job performance score range of 4.0 and 4.2, and 90% of non-Oxbridge candidates are between 3.1 and 3.3, the results will be clearer and p-values will be low. And the more outliers there are, the larger the p-value will become.

Extremity of outliers

Not only does the number of outliers matter, but also how far out they lie. P-values in our above example (= the probability that Oxford graduates do NOT, on average, have higher on-the-job performance ratings) would increase if, out of the 1,000 non-Cambridge graduates, 100 had 5.0, i.e. perfect on-the-job performance scores.

How is this relevant for your work?

Say you want to find out which universities to focus your recruitment efforts on. You look at the entire population of junior lawyers in your law firm, and place their university next to their on-the-job performance score and calculate on-the-job performance.

Fully acknowledging that there will be multiple variables at play here and that university will not be the only predictor, you will get a result that indicates that some universities are better than others.

Should you accept this result and focus on those universities whose graduates have a higher average on-the-job performance score? Is it a fair conclusion that those universities with the higher average on-the-job performance score are better recruiting grounds for you?

The answer is simple: Only if the p-value is lower than 0.05.

How is R-Squared different from p-value?

In last week’s blog post we covered Regression and R-Squared. So it’s a legitimate question to ask what the difference is between R-Squared and p-value?

This can be a tricky one to grasp. R-Square d shows the strength of a correlation. If it is high (closer to 1), the more likely the two factors are correlated. For example, if you ran a correlation on exercise and levels of health, you would find that people who exercise tend to be healthier.

However, you could only make this conclusion with a large enough dataset. And that’s where p-values come in. If you only had 2 healthy people who exercise, and 2 unhealthy people who don’t exercise, the R-Squared may be high, but the p-values will be low because the dataset is too small.

And that’s why it’s useful to know both figures before making a decision.

Conclusion

So next time you’re tempted to make a decision on focusing recruiting on one particular university, or to roll out an HR programme after what you consider was a successful pilot, make sure you check the p-value of the existing data set and if it is higher than 0.05, you may want to reconsider.

Next week, we will look at the topic of mean vs median and when to use which.

People Analytics demystified — Part 2: Regression Analysis and R-Squared

Wed, 13 Mar 2019 22:37:00 GMT

This is the second in a series of posts requested by some of our clients on demystifying concepts in analytics. It is intended to introduce analytical concepts to those without a mathematical or statistical background, in a way that is both intuitive and immediately useful.

We hope it will lead to people asking more questions about analytics and pausing to consider implications of analysis they see in their day-to-day work.

If you want to get the entire series over the next few weeks comfortably in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter .

Let’s jump right in. This week’s concept is Regression Analysis and R-Squared.

Regression Analysis and R-Squared

Imagine you get a visit from a vendor of psychometric tests, trying to sell you their new PsyTest2019 for selecting candidates for your training contract. Doing well on the test, she says, predicts great on-the-job performance as a lawyer.

You like what the vendor is saying and decide to purchase the test. For a year, you ask your candidates to take it. All 20 trainees you end up hiring that year have taken the test, and so you start collecting their on-the-job performance ratings.

The PsyTest2019 is graded on a 0-100 scale and on-the-job performance on a 1-5 scale, with higher numbers equalling higher performance. This is your data in raw form and plotted* on a graph. (see footnote 1 if you want to know the steps in MS Excel)

Each dot on the scatter plot represents a person. On the horizontal axis, you can see their test result; on the vertical axis, their on-the-job performance ratings. For example, Jacob scored 98 points on the test and his on-the-job performance rating is 3.2.

What we are looking to find out is whether an individual’s test result predicts their on-the-job performance.

How Regression Analysis can help identify predictability

We will run the regression by adding** a so-called trendline to our graph. Here, we will not discuss the details of how to mathematically calculate regression. (For an in-depth understanding of regression, watch these three videos in a row).

This trendline is very flat, which tells us one important piece of information: Wherever we go on the horizontal axis, the predicted value of on-the-job performance (the trendline’s value on the vertical axis) is always roughly 3.7. No matter if you scored a 40 or a 95 on the test, the data suggests you will always end up with an on-the-job performance rating of 3.7.

That’s not very helpful. It doesn’t allow us to conclude that someone who scored highly on PsyTest2019 will be a better lawyer than someone who scored lowly. In other words, there is no correlation between test results and on-the-job performance. If everyone’s predicted value is the same, we might as well not subject our candidates to the testing in the first place.

Mathematically, we express this level of correlation (in this case: the lack thereof) with R-Squared (R2) , a value between 0.0 and 1.0. The closer the R-Squared is to 1, the stronger the correlation. (Again, you can watch these these three videos to learn how to calculate R-Squared.)

Our R-Squared of 0.0007 is very close to 0, and such a low value means that our two variables (test scores and on-the-job performance) are not correlated.

A case of high correlation

Needless to say, you’re not very happy with the results of PsyTest2019. Running the test has not helped you identify the best candidates.

The vendor of the psychometric test comes knocking again and asks you how you have been doing. You frostily point to the data. The vendor swallows hard with a sheepish look, but then says that they have been developing a new improved model, the PsyTest2020 , and that she’d be happy if you tried it out for free. This time around, there will be correlation, she promises.

Since it’s free, you decide to try out PsyTest2020 .

Another year passes, and this is your data:

And again, we show our data on a scatter plot with a trendline and R-Squared.

An R-Squared of 0.1466 means that 14.66% of a trainee’s on-the-job performance can be explained by how they scored on the test.

In contrast to the previous test, you can see how, depending on where you go on the horizontal axis, the value on the trendline (= predicted on-the-job performance) changes. For example, the predicted on-the-job performance value at test score 50 is roughly 3.3. At test score 90, it’s 4.0. That’s a significant difference.

So clearly, PsyTest2020 is better than its predecessor. But is it worth paying for in the future?

Put differently: Is an R-Squared of 0.1466 good enough? After all, the ideal is R-Squared = 1.0, and 0.1466 sounds like it’s very far away from that figure.

Interpreting R-Squared

The answer is: Yes, it is good enough.

Humans are complex creatures, and R-Squares of 0.15 and above are very hard to find in People Analytics (and Social Sciences in general). We at Pirical run regressions on People Analytics data all the time, and it’s rare we see an R-Squared higher than 0.15.

Correlation does not imply causation

Important to understand is that a high R-Squared doesn’t mean that one variable causes the other. In the case discussed above, this is clear enough — no one would assume that a good result on the psychometric test causes great on-the-job performance. It simply means that people who do well on the test are likely to be good lawyers, rather than someone who got a copy of the test and studied hard for it.

However, there are cases where people erroneously imply causation. A few interesting examples are listed here .

Conclusion

We have covered the science of linear regression and calculating R-Squared to understand the predictive value of one variable on another.

This can be very useful when analysing data sets of A-levels results and school types and whether they impact later on-the-job performance. In fact, our article about privilege, school quality and relative performance vs peers used the same kind of Regression Analysis Modelling described above.

We hope this will help you decide which interview methods are worth introducing and keeping, and which employee engagement initiatives work and which ones don’t.

Next week, we will cover the important concept of p-values which help you understand when a small data set has enough predictive value.

Footnotes — Excel instructions:

(1) How to build a scatter plot in MS Excel 2007: Highlight the two columns containing the data, excluding the column with the names. Click Insert in the top menu, and click the scatter plot icon in the Charts sub-menu:

(2) How to add a Trendline to a scatter plot:

Left-click on the graph and in the top menu click Design —> Add Chart Element —> Trendline —> Linear.

(3) How to add R-Squared to the graph:

We can add R2 into the graph by right-clicking on the Trendline, selecting Format Trendline and then ticking the “Display R-squared value on chart” box.

People Analytics demystified — Part 1: 12-month Trailing Averages

Thu, 07 Mar 2019 22:31:00 GMT

This is the first in a series of posts requested by clients on demystifying concepts in people analytics. It is intended to introduce analytical concepts to those without a mathematical or statistical background, in a way that is both intuitive and immediately useful. We hope it will lead to people asking more questions about analytics and pausing to consider implications of analyses they see in their day-to-day work.

If you want to get the entire series over the next few weeks comfortably in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter .

This week’s concept is 12-month Trailing Averages. Let’s jump right in.

12-month Trailing Averages

Say, you want to know if your company’s headcount has been growing over time. What’s the best way to present this figure?

You can look at the number of employees you have at the end of each month. Figure 1 is an example.

Figure 1: Monthly headcount

If you look at the number on Jan. 2019 (1,498), it is significantly higher than it was in Dec. 2018 (1,306). In fact, we can make the observation that Jan. of every year shows a higher number than the preceding Dec. This is likely due to the seasonality effect - people leave their work towards the end of the year, take some time for themselves over the holiday season, then begin a new job in the new year.

Given this pattern, it would be misleading to use monthly headcount figures to conclude if your company has been growing. If you reported the number in Jan., it would seem your company is growing; however, if you reported the Dec. number, it would seem your company is shrinking.

Since the seasonality effect is an annual one, one alternative is to report the average annual figure over 2018. This would take into account figures for a full season. While this would remove the seasonality effect, reporting annual averages would also mean you won’t get an update for a full 12 months.

What else could we do?

One answer is to use 12-month trailing averages.

Why are they called “trailing”? Picture a plane’s condensation trails — it trails the plane’s journey.

In keeping with this mental image, a “12-month trailing average” is the average of the previous 12 months. For example, Dec. 2018 is the average of Jan. 2018 to Dec. 2018. Jan. 2019 is the average of Feb. 2018 to Jan. 2019, etc.

Figure 2: How to calculate a 12-month trailing average

The 12-month trailing average figure for any given month takes into account a full year of data, removing the effect of seasonality, while still giving you monthly figures to act on any observed patterns. This is what a 12-month trailing monthly average of our data would look like:

Figure 3: Yearly trailing averages, calculated each month

The company is consistently growing in headcount.

Conclusion

When you want to show monthly stats for a figure that is affected by seasonality, use 12-month trailing averages.

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Reducing trainee attrition will boost your bottom line — and here’s how to do it

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 07:33:00 GMT

Dealing with trainee allocation is a three week exercise in frustration for everyone involved. One of our clients has aptly described it as “three weeks during which I age by three years”.

It is indeed impossible to make everyone happy: Trainees’ preferences for seats clashes with the lack of available positions, popular practices are in high demand, and word about difficult partners to work with make the rounds at lightning speed, reducing the demand for specific practices.

At the end of the allocation process, many trainees are left disappointed because they didn’t get their first or even second choice. And for a while, the HR team bear the brunt of trainees’ resentment — which is understandable: It’s their career, after all.

The temporary stress is unpleasant enough. But what’s worse is that not getting your 1st or 2nd seat preference leads to dissatisfaction with your training contract. Dissatisfied trainees are more likely to leave, which creates cost for the firm to find a replacement.

Figure 1: % of NQs who leave the firm within 2 years, given qualification outcome

As per Figure 1, this profit is now twice as likely to vanish if the trainee didn’t get what they wanted, not to speak of the investment required to hire an adequate replacement.

There must be a better way.

Tech comes to the rescue

Have you ever tried to organise a seating arrangement at a wedding? There’s rules to consider: You want to mix up the young and old (but not too much), couples should stay together, you want to help the wallflowers by seating them next to the extroverts... oh, and John cannot sit anywhere near Helen.

As you’re wrecking your brain during this exercise, you realise how much it would help to have a simple computer programme into which you feed these rules. The tool would then just spit out an optimal seating allocation. You’d review it, swap out a few mismatches you hadn’t thought about, and voila, you’re done and can go check on the flower arrangements.

Well, not sure about a tool for weddings, but we at Pirical have created a solution for the painful task of trainee allocation. It’s called Ruth .

It starts with the trainees themselves. The app shows trainees which seats are available, practice area information and restrictions, as well as the firm and SRA requirements. The trainees can then express their preferences in an intuitive and granular way.

Once all preferences are in, the data gets pooled. Then the real magic starts.

Ruth takes into account

And here’s the kicker: This process takes 15 minutes to run for what normally takes HR 3-5 weeks to do.

The human element doesn’t suffer - to the contrary

None of this means that a faceless sorting mechanism now does all the work, sidelining empathy and good judgment. To the contrary, it empowers the human element. Our technology is meant to be used as a foundation for good allocation, not as a replacement of it.

The algorithm does the heavy lifting by making a suggestion. A human then reviews this suggestion makes adjustments — be that adding a rule that you may want to add to the mix and re-run the allocation, or identify individual matches that may not work out well for everyone concerned.

Using Ruth, you enable the HR team to focus on what they do best - ensuring that all trainees feel well taken care of and focused on their work.

The results are, dare we say, impressive

Our data tells us that with manual allocation, only 30-50% of trainees get their first choice, and 22% get allocated to a non-preference.

Using Ruth, these numbers change dramatically:

Figure 2: Outcomes of seat allocation

The share of trainees who get their first pick jumps by 44% (20.9% percentage points) and the number of trainees who have to make do with a non-preference gets halved.

Besides improved retention, an important benefit is the fairness the tool provides. A machine doesn’t hold biases. So if a trainee ends up with their second or third choice, they understand there are legitimate reasons behind this decision.

“It’s easy to use and objectively fair”, one trainee told us. Another said “It feels like you have more control over your Training Contract and that there is a lower risk of mistakes in seat allocations.”

Ruth has proven itself in both Magic and Silver Circle firms, as well as regional and international law firms, no matter the number of offices, and irrespective of whether the firm offered client and international secondments.

Summary and invitation

The benefits are fourfold:

How about you give Ruth a try and see how it can improve your trainee allocation headaches? Let’s return that ageing process back to normal.

Contact us here and schedule a call to discuss whether Ruth is the right solution for your Trainee Allocation Challenges.

How Can Law Firms Close The Gender Gap At Partnership Level?

Thu, 21 Feb 2019 18:48:00 GMT

Pirical’ Gender in the Partnership Analysis clears the path towards the 30%.

The time has come when law firms may lose business because they don’t have enough women and minorities at the senior level.

As Yahoo Finance reports, 170 GCs and Chief Legal Officers in companies such as Etsy, Heineken USA, and Mozilla have published an open letter to law firms, threatening to withdraw their business from companies who don’t show results with regards to diversity. It won’t take long before this trend reaches the UK.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that if you are in charge of talent or diversity at a law firm, one of the things keeping you up at night is the issue of equal opportunity for men and women. You want to make sure your company enables anyone, irrespective of their gender or minority background, to thrive at your firm and add value to your clients.

Yet, despite decades of good intentions, 30% female representation at the partnership level is still a remote pipe dream for all but a handful of law firms.

And so most firms want to at least ensure they are on the right path and stack up well against their competitors. But can they know how they stack up? Static snapshots of data, such as percentages of female partners in law firms, are not too difficult to come by, especially if you use our Legal Search Engine Pirical Legal Professionals .

However, questions such as

are usually trickier to pin down.

We at Pirical have made it our mission to provide evidence and clarity in a world of assumptions and ambiguity.

And so we created the Gender in the Partnership Analysis — a beautiful piece of data analytics that not only uncovers details about a firm’s state of gender diversity, but also shows which levers have the potential to effect the greatest change.

Using your in-house data including hiring, promotion, and attrition stats, overlaid with our publicly sourced data, we are able to put together a customised analysis that answers your toughest questions. Let’s take a look at a few highlights in the analysis we recently ran for one of our clients. Below is an excerpt from a recent client project we have anonymised.

The current state

First, we look at a firm’s starting point. In this example, 16.4% of the firm’s partnership are women, which has been increasing consistently over the past 4 years.

Figure 1: % women in the partnership over time

To understand how the firm got to its current state, we break down the changes into three components:

Attrition

Many people we speak to believe that the percentage of women in their partnership is low because women have higher attrition levels compared to men. Some cite anecdotal reasons such as better work-life balance, discrimination issues, or family choices. But what does the data say?

Figure 2: Attrition levels of men and women across different roles

Contrary to commonly held beliefs, women (at this firm) are not leaving at a higher rate than men. Hence, attrition rates do not explain why this firm has low levels of women in their partnership.

Laterally hired partners

One of the most popular (and sometimes slightly dreaded) pieces of analysis is the question “how do we stack up against competitors?”. Here, we not only rank our client in terms of their current level of female representation, but also their competitors. We then look at the rate they hire at and how it stacks up against their competition.

Figure 3: % of women partners hired and % of women partners across competitors

A hiring rate into partnership that’s higher than the existing ratio of female partners means that the firm is on a good path towards reducing the imbalance within the firm’s partnership. The firm in this example is quite consistently hiring more women partners than there are in the firm — which means recruitment is contributing to increasing the percentage.

In addition, when we compare this law firm’s hiring rate with its competitors, we conclude that they are hiring at market rates. Continuing to hiring at this rate will further improve their statistics.

Promotions

Then we take a look at a firm’s current hiring and promotion practices, e.g. at what rates are men being promoted more than women.

Figure 4: Promotion rates and senior associate population

Not only do we see women are promoted at half the rate of men, we also find that the Senior Associate population is skewed in favour of men. In other words, this firm is being hit twice - promotion rates of women is half that of men, and there is a smaller proportion of women to promote from.

These insights usually garner the biggest interest among law firms because they make a vaguely defined problem more specific and actionable. Clearly defining the issue is the first step towards a solution.

Forecasting the impact

We now know that promotion rates and senior associate pipeline are the two main issues for this firm, but before we devise a strategy, we need to know what impact they could achieve if these issues were resolved. This will help concentrate and prioritise the efforts.

Specifically, what would happen if this firm were able to promote women at the same rate as men? What would happen if they were able to promote women at the same rate AND balance out their senior associates?

Figure 5: Projections if promotion rates were equalised and senior associate population was equalised.

Results?

A benefit of using the Gender in the Partnership Analysis year-on-year is that you can measure your progress versus the ambition you have set the year before. A full 12 months later, we revisited this firm to see how they’ve done. Overall, they saw a net increase of women in their partnership by 2% - nearly the same increase over the 4 years prior combined!

How did they do it?

The combination of dynamic data points allows us to issue recommendations by practice area and at company level — specific actions for each area in the firm.

The example below shows that Practice 15 has plenty of women in the Senior Associate position, so their problem is not their hiring pipeline of junior and mid-level staff. However, they have been promoting more men from Senior Associate to Partner level. They should look into whether there are any structural biases that place women at a disadvantage in the promotion process, or that discourage them for applying for promotions in the first place.

Figure 6:

The results: Insight and an action plan

The client who received this particular analysis called it “extremely helpful”, discussed it at board level, and pointed out that it allows them to focus on the areas where most work is needed. They underscored this statement by recently promoting a female senior associate into a partnership position.

What would you action if you had this data for your firm?

The Gender in the Partnership Analysis is available to all law firms who are committed to gender diversity.

Once we have all NDAs in place, it takes 1-2 days to let our algorithms loose on your databases. 1-2 weeks later, we will be able to present to you your own customised analysis, including specific action items for you to work on.

Contact us here and schedule a call to discuss whether the Gender in Partnership Analysis is the right solution for you.

Are Trainee Lawyers A Burden? A Business Perspective

Thu, 14 Feb 2019 06:07:00 GMT

This article originally appeared in The Lawyer .

Law firms need trainees like a society needs children. Yet in an era of increased lateral movement of associates and partners, the importance of a firm’s homegrown talent is often underestimated. Successfully recruiting and retaining trainees is a key factor in a firm’s success, not only in financial terms, but also when it comes to building a home-grown cohort of new company leaders.

There is a certain hesitation in the market when it comes to trainees. It’s widely believed that trainee retention rates are critical and a measure of success, and also, that trainees are a long-term investment - that they only pay off in the long term. It’s also a common gripe that coordinating trainee placement is a big logistical challenge.

Upon investigation, however, a lot of these myths do not hold water. A data analysis by Pirical , a UK Legal Technology company, reviewed 4 to 7 years of trainee performance data across multiple law firms, and found that trainees are not the drain on firm resources they are commonly perceived to be, and that there are smarter ways to incorporate trainees into the business.

What the data tells us

Pirical selected 3 firms from their analysis to demonstrate the disparity between belief and reality regarding trainees. During the training process, these law firms did performance evaluations for trainees, which were then split into quartiles and highlighted those that did not stay post-qualification.

Figure 1: Trainees ranked by their performance, overlaid with attrition

Myth 1: Low trainee retention rates are bad

There is a widespread belief that losing trainees is bad for the business. It depends though, on which trainees are leaving.

As you can see in Figure 1, each firm lost only a relatively small percentage of their top performing trainees. Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the spectrum, all firms lost between 33% and 40% of their bottom quartile trainees on qualification.

This means a significant number of relatively poor performers selected themselves out of the talent pool, while very few of the best performers were the ones who dropped out. These results belie the often-voiced concern that trainee attrition is bad.

As an aside, an interesting picture emerges when you look at retention rates beyond the trainee stage. Overall retention rates achieved on qualification were broadly similar across the 3 firms, however retention rates from NQ through to PQE 2 showed much more disparity (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Retention of Trainees

Myth 2: Trainees, especially those who are not retained, cost the firm a lot of money

Many legal professionals voice their displeasure that the investment made in trainees is wasted when they decide to leave post-qualification.

However, the data shows that while trainees indeed require significant investment, this investment starts paying off much faster than is commonly assumed. Pirical’ number-crunchers have shown that, on average, trainees become profitable around Seat 2 - in other words, one year into their traineeship. This is seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Average profits of Trainees who were not retained

How to read this graph: Each dot represents the cumulative return-on-investment on a firm’s trainee at any given moment. For example, each trainee at Firm 2 who was not retained once they had reached Seat 1, had cost the firm a net cost of ~£50,000. Once they had reached Seat 2, however, they had made the firm a net profit of ~£25,000.

Furthermore, this analysis only includes trainees who were not retained at qualification. Keeping in mind that unretained trainees tend to come from the lower performance quartile, the average profitability of trainees is higher yet.

Far from a drain, as long as a firm has sufficient work, hiring more trainees may be a solution to higher profitability.

Myth 3: Allocating trainees to their seats is an unsolvable logistical nightmare, causing trainees to leave

Balancing trainees’ seat wishes with a firm’s staffing needs, as well as the regulatory requirements on top, is cause of much frustration and premature hair-greying in the legal sector.

However, this is an area where new Algorithmic technology can dramatically ease the burden. Running everyone’s requirements through an optimisation algorithm can quickly suggest possible solutions. These can then be reviewed and adjusted to account for personal circumstances and other nuances, reaching a far tidier result than the man-hour-heavy process it would otherwise require. Using Ruth , firms can achieve up to 44% more trainees receiving their 1st preference for seats compared to manual allocations, resulting in happier trainees.

Conclusion

The news that trainees are indeed more profitable than firms often realise, and that their drop-out rates post qualification are only high in the bottom performance quartile, should be a source of good cheer for all law firms who undergo the often thankless task of raising the next generation of legal talent. It just goes to show - when making decisions based on conventional wisdom, is always worth pausing and analysing the data at hand.

If you would like to get started with this analysis in your firm, get in touch — it’s what we do best.

Top UK law firms are short 323 female partners (and that gap mightn’t close any time soon)

Fri, 01 Feb 2019 10:04:00 GMT

A 30/70 split of women to men in partnership positions by 2020 has long been held as a laudable goal for the UK legal industry — but unless things change, it’s unlikely to happen anytime soon.

That’s one of the big findings from an independent projection analysis we at Pirical ran recently. Using Pirical Legal Professionals (the world’s most innovative search engine and dynamic knowledge-base of global legal talent and firms), Pirical modelled the gender split across partners in the UK and New York, pulling together data from news articles, firm websites, trade representative bodies, and more.

The results point to a shortage of female partners across the industry.

The gender split in general

A 2013 Department of Business Innovation & Skills survey outlined the case for diversity in most UK industries, noting potential boosts to productivity, profit, employee specialisation and lower leave rates. Subsequent studies have looked at diversity laggers. In 2017, a report by McKinsey singled out the legal industry in particular.

The legal industry gets a bad rap when it comes to diversity, but we wanted to separate fact from fiction and dive into the numbers.

To start, we looked at the current split between 45,782 fee-earners across law firms in the UK, and found a fair split between men (50.6%) and women (49.4%). However, this balance tips the higher up the ranks you go - of 15,569 partners in private practice UK firms, 71.0% are men, while only 29.0% are women.

Figure 1: Gender split across associates and partners in the UK

Diving deeper, the team looked at how many women were admitted to the roll over the past 50 years, and found that women have made up the majority of new admissions since 1994.

The big jump came in the early to mid 1970s when the women who grew up in the progressive Sixties finished university. The climb has been precipitous - from 10% in 1970 to 50% in 1994. Since then, growth has slowed down to reach a stable 60% around 2008 where it has remained since. ( One of our clients quipped that the spike in the naughties might have something to do with the release of Legally Blonde.)

Figure 2: Proportion of women among new admissions to the roll

The team were curious as to why, despite the 60/40 split of women to men on the roll, more female partners have not risen to the top.

The difference between firms is vast

The UK average only tells part of the story of the female partner gap. When you look at individual firms, clear leaders and laggards emerge.

Of the leaders, Irwin Mitchell and Shoosmiths are the only 2 top firms to have passed the 30/70 goal, with 43.1% and 34.5% female partners respectively. Meanwhile, the laggiest have just 13.9% and 14.3% female partners.

Figure 3: Proportion of women partners in the UK

“We take diversity very seriously. While we’re not there yet, we’ve made significant progress toward our goals over the last few years”, a global Head of Diversity told us.

Among the top 37 firms in the UK, the number of female partners needed to achieve an industry average of 30% is 323.

“Some firms need an additional 29 female partners. For others, it’s only 3 or 5,” says Jason. “At least now each firm has a number to aim for, if a 30/70 split is the goal.”

Figure 4: Women partners needed in the UK to achieve 30% of female in the UK partnership

It’s a similar story in the United States. As a point of international comparison, we ran the numbers for New York and found that the average proportion of female to male partners in the top US firms sits at 21.1%.

Figure 5: Gender split across associates and partners in New York

For context, New York enjoyed a historical ‘head start’ in terms of women admitted to the roll. Over the years 1950-68, women in New York made up to 10-15% of new admissions (in the UK, it was close to nil). But as those numbers grew in the UK, growth in the Empire State was slower — only in 2004, a full decade later than in the UK, women’s admission rates in New York crossed the parity line.

To reach a 30/70 female to male partner split in New York, an additional 265 female partners are needed among the state’s top 20 firms.

Figure 6: Proportion of women partners in the New York partnership

The UK cliff is a myth - decline is gradual

So what does the decline in participation look like?

Counter to the common belief that women drop off in huge numbers during their third and fourth years post-qualification (PQE 3-4), called the “cliff”, the decline in the UK is actually gradual and sets in at PQE 7.

Women in the UK are engaged right through PQE 3 and 4, making up the majority of the legal workforce at a high of 59% in PQE 6.

Figure 7: Percentage of women who are associates by PQE year

Something else happens around this time. During the course of PQE 5 to PQE 6, a 4% divergence opens up between the proportion of partners to non-partners among women and men — many more men get promoted to partner in their fifth and sixth year post-qualification than women. This is the origin of the female partner gap.

Figure 8: Percentage of fee-earners who are “Associates” or “Senior Associates” by PQE

The male head start only grows from there, to its widest at 27% in PQE 14, resulting in a very heavy skew toward men in the middle of most firms - which seems to perpetuate the effect over time as more men select more men up.

Firms who want to intervene should aim their activities at PQE 5, one year before the divergence starts opening up.

In New York, it’s the same — but different. A similar divergence appears at PQE 6, with 3% more men than women being promoted to partner positions in that year of experience. At PQE 12, that divergence has grown to 19%.

That said, there is a clear ‘cliff’ seen in the legal careers of NY women which isn’t seen in the UK. Between PQE 6 to 10, the proportion of women to men in the NY legal workforce drops from 48% to 32%.

Closing the gap is slowly becoming a commercial must rather than a bonus for the employer brand: As Yahoo Finance reports, 170 GCs and Chief Legal Officers in companies such as Etsy, Heineken USA, and Mozilla have published an open letter to law firms, threatening to withdraw their business from companies who don’t show results with regards to diversity. It won’t take long before this trend reaches the UK.

Understand the data before tackling the problem

Mathematically speaking, 30/70 by 2020 is impossible unless firms start creating more women partners across the industry. Using Pirical Legal Professionals , we mapped some scenarios to understand the impact of certain drivers. It would take an unrealistic doubling of partner promotion rates (to 50%) for the industry to stand a chance of achieving 30% within any reasonable time.

Law firms can use our insights tools to better understand their individual situation. At the beginning of an effective cure usually stands a correct diagnosis, which Pirical can provide.

For example, one firm requested a deep-dive analysis into three levers: attrition, lateral hires, and promotions in order to understand the sensitivity between them and to craft their diversity strategy based on these insights. They said, “Pirical’s data is invaluable — now we’ve been able to define the most effective diversity strategy for our firm.”

And if understanding the subtle dynamics of the gender gap in your firm is an important priority for you, contact us for an initial consultation.

Do privileged children who attended the best schools become better performing employees?

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 12:15:00 GMT

Does a better performance at A-levels predict a better performance as a lawyer?

If they had to bet, most people would say yes to that proposition.

Well, most people would be wrong, as our data shows. Outperforming your peers at A-levels does not predict better performance as a lawyer. Who would have thought?

However, there is one exception where this presumption IS correct indeed. In one type of school there is a strong correlation between relative A-level performance and later performance as a lawyer.

Which one is it?

Contextual Recruitment

In 2014, Alan Milburn called on Britain’s institutions to make it a country where “success relies on aptitude and ability more than background or birth.” Since then, we in the recruitment space have paid attention to Contextual Recruitment, which relies on the idea that a candidate’s achievements should be measured in the context in which they attained them.

For example, getting two As and a B at A-levels and having gone to a good school, that’s a good result, on the face of it. But if you’re the first person in your family to ever apply for university, or have a refugee background, this result changes from good to very impressive .

Or two people in different schools, one in a top school, the other in a mediocre one, both with the same grades at A-levels? Contextual Recruitment says that the second person is likely to be the better pick.

However, while academic institutions and a few select organisations have long been supporters of Contextual Recruitment, it is far from mainstream. Where Contextual Recruitment is used, the delay between hiring and measuring on-the-job performance means results will not be known for some time.

Nonetheless, it is possible to retroactively estimate how much impact Contextual Recruitment can have. We do this by examining the application, recruitment, and performance data of a City law firm, with a focus on an applicant’s A-Level results.

Assessing the impact of privilege

Let’s start by asking a simple question: ‘Do lawyers who attended a high-performing school become high-performing lawyers once hired?’ In Figure 1, we show the relationship between the performance of the secondary school attended and the lawyer’s own performance on the job.

Figure 1: Correlation between school performance and on-the-job performance

For both UK Fee Paying Schools and UK State Schools, there is no correlation. In other words, knowing where a lawyer attended school does not help predict their performance on the job .

There is one caveat here — this data set is constructed of lawyers who were hired , hence carry with it a selection bias. However, one of the premises for Contextual Recruitment should still hold — namely that those who achieved better A-Level results compared with their student peers should be higher performing lawyers.

Adding the contextual component

On the whole, lawyers who attended low performing schools performed just as well as their peers who attended high performing schools. Is there additional context that matters? To answer this, let’s look at each lawyer’s individual performance relative to their school’s performance, and regress that against their job performance.

Figure 2: Correlation between relative school performance and on-the-job performance

Figure 2 suggests there’s no correlation - knowing that a lawyer performed better than her school peers in A-Levels doesn’t help predict her performance on-the-job. However, there are 2 issues:

To push this analysis to the next level, let’s regroup the data set by quintiles of UK schools, where the grouping is based on the average A-level results of pupils. Figure 3 shows a useful outcome starting to emerge.

Figure 3: Correlation between relative school performance and on-the-job performance, group by school performance

An R-squared of .328 for the bottom 20% of schools suggests that for candidates who attended a low-performing school, the more they outperformed their school peers, the better they performed as a lawyer.

Not only that, but if we want to predict who will be a strong performing lawyer, we can calculate the point where the trend crosses the ‘Average Performance’ line — precisely at 228 points above their school average. In other words, applicants who attended a UK School in the bottom 20 percentile and achieved A-Level results of at least 228 points above their school average are ‘high-potentials’ who are predicted to outperform as lawyers at this law firm.

The implication on recruitment

While the data set is sparse, it is possible to surmise its significance. Using historical data, we identified roughly 200 applicants that fit this ‘high-potential’ category. Of these, a higher proportion were screened out compared to applicants who attended UK Fee-Paying schools. In other words, a large cohort of high-potential applicants were never given an opportunity to interview .

So what happened to them? Using data available in the public domain, we verified that only a handful were eventually hired by other City law firms (which is information you can now easily find using Pirical Legal Professionals , our Search Engine for Legal Talent). This overall low rate is likely the result of a larger-scale systemic issue, which Contextual Recruitment can help address over time.

The takeaway is clear: Exceptional A-level results from someone who attended a low-performing school should excite any legal recruiter worth their salt: You may have a real gem on your hands.

The power in the data

These kinds of insights became available by digging into one law firm’s data. The law firm in question was kind enough to allow us to publish them here. Countless fascinating insights are hidden in large datasets every law firm holds.

If you would like to get started with this analysis in your firm, get in touch — it’s what we do best.

Is your recruitment process letting you down? How to use data to optimise your recruitment.

Sat, 01 Dec 2018 01:36:00 GMT

Having the best people is vital to any company. However, hiring the best staff is difficult — you can’t know if your hiring decisions are right until several months (sometimes years) after the hire has been made.

Is your recruitment process letting you down by causing you to make the wrong hiring decisions? How can you design your recruitment to maximise the likelihood that you make the right decisions?

The answer, as often, lies hidden in the data.

Is a data-driven approach to recruitment possible?

Deciding which applicant has the highest potential for future career success is not an easy task.

Today, many hiring decisions are based on haphazard gut feelings. More structured approaches are often nothing more than ticking a few boxes. In contrast, Marketing, Finance, and Insurance practices have long relied on data analytics to help inform their decisions.

So what would such a data-driven approach look like in recruitment?

To answer this question, let’s explore the recruitment practice of a UK-based company hiring MBA graduates. Their recruitment consists of 2 rounds of interviews.

Round 1 is conducted on campus and consists of a 30-minute behavioural interview followed by a 30-minute case interview. Successful candidates are then invited to the UK for a Round 2 Assessment Day which consists of a behavioural interview, a case interview, a group exercise, and a presentation. All six interviews across the two rounds carry the same weight.

At the end of the Round 2 Assessment Day, interviewers come together to recap their interviews and jointly decide which candidates get offers and which get turned down.

Figure 1: Recruitment process of an example company

Understanding what is currently happening - intentionally and unintentionally

Let us start by understanding how recruitment decisions are made. The question we want to answer is “How likely will a candidate get an offer, given the outcomes of her interviews?” We do this by calculating the likelihood of getting an offer, given strong interview results, and the likelihood of not getting an offer, given weak interview results. For simplicity, in Figure 2 we show the results of this analysis by ranking the predictive strengths.

Figure 2: Relative predictive strength of each interview

Here, we see that the group interview is the strongest predictor of getting an offer. In other words, candidates who did well in their group interview tend to get an offer, while those who did not do well tend to be turned down.

This insight is powerful because we can know the likely outcome of the Assessment Day BEFORE the interviewers come together to jointly make the decision. Additionally, since the recruitment process did not intentionally overweigh the group interview, the interviewers must have been instinctively placing greater emphasis, and hence basing their decisions, on it.

But are their instincts correct?

What should be happening

If we want to optimise the likelihood of hiring decisions leading to great employees, then our prediction analysis should focus on candidates who become successful employees, rather than those who simply get an offer.

In this example, “successful hires” meant those employees who are performing at or above expectations 24 months after their initial start date. With some performance data, we can re-run this analysis to predict performance. Figure 3 shows the results.

Figure 3: Predictive strength of each interview on candidates likely to perform

Two interesting observations:

The favourite ‘Group Interview’

When discussing the results of this analysis, one interviewer told us, “We don’t purposely over-weigh the group exercise, but I do admit it’s my favourite interview. It’s the only time I get to see candidates side-by-side, working together.”

This may be the interviewer’s favourite interview, but it is not the most effective in predicting success.

Notably, depending on how the group interview is designed, it can favour extraversion or introversion, so it’s worth being aware where your individual biases lie.

Same interviews, different results

What about the two behavioural and case interviews? One difference between Round 1 and Round 2 interviews is the interviewers themselves. Round 1 interviews were conducted by a dedicated recruitment team who interview all candidates year on year. Round 2 interviews by contrast were conducted by interviewers who were available on the day. “Last minute cancellations are not uncommon leaving recruitment coordinators scrambling to find replacements”, said the department head. This lack of consistency affects the quality of the interviews, and hence, affects the accuracy of hiring decisions.

Designing a more effective recruitment model

Armed with these facts, this company set out to redesign its recruitment model. Here are three of the changes they made:

Analytics are vital, not a luxury

This example illustrates how data analytics can surface flaws that have been hindering a company’s performance for years. It uncovers hidden biases and provides confidence for change.

The analysis described here was relatively simple, requiring only techniques familiar to every math and statistics student. But the value to the business is tremendous — the Head of the department said “A handful of high performers make or break my business — having more is our competitive edge.”

Using data to inform business decisions has long been prevalent in many functions. These functions regard data as sacred, going to great lengths to collect and analyse it.

The recruitment function should be no different.

The Takeaway

Irrational biases can lurk anywhere in your people processes.

1. Pick an area where you’re not satisfied with the results or identify commonly held beliefs that you feel are detrimental. This could be recruitment, promotions, retention, referrals, performance, employee satisfaction surveys - no HR or Recruitment topic is safe.

2. Precisely map the decision-making process that leads to those results.

3. Work with a statistician to translate facts into data and run regressions to uncover which process step is faulty. If you don’t have enough people-power in-house to perform this kind of analysis, we at Pirical can help.

If you would like to get started with this analysis in your firm, get in touch — it’s what we do best.

Do your interviewers get it right? Quantify real interview success

Thu, 01 Nov 2018 01:36:00 GMT

This article originally appeared in Graduate Recruiter Magazine, published by the Association of Graduate Recruiters .

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of tools used to help assess candidates, including personality tests, cognitive tests, and gamification. Notwithstanding the insights these tools may yield, interviews are still at the core of recruitment, and especially of the final decision. However, little has been done to assess how effective people are at conducting interviews, and whether they are able to correctly make the critical hiring decisions.

We all know the pains of having the wrong person on our team, but it’s equally damaging to send top talent to your competitors when good candidates are incorrectly turned down.

No interviewer goes into their interviews planning to make poor decisions; however, there is an abundance of evidence showing that many mistakes are being made. If we can measure the effectiveness of interviewers and understand what is driving their decisions, we can take action to improve their success rates.

Let us first explore how interviewer effectiveness can be measured, then what we can learn from the results, and finally we will discuss how you can perform this analysis for your organisation.

Defining interviewer effectiveness

It is hard to define what effective interviewing is.

Let us take Charlie, a manager at a professional services firm, who is conducting interviews for his company’s graduate recruitment. Charlie has multiple objectives when he is interviewing, such as:

Firstly, we must define what ‘become high performers’ means. We have found that different industries, companies, and even roles within the same company, define this differently.

Charlie’s company defines graduate recruitment success as “ candidates hired, who are meeting or exceeding performance expectations two years after being hired ”. I should mention that reaching an agreement on this definition does require some healthy debate. Some say success is achieved when new hires pass their probation period. Others argue for performance at six months, while some have made a case for a much longer time period. Whatever the definition, we can run similar analyses.

With this definition, we can create the following success table. Charlie has made the right decision when:

Following the same logic, we can also construct a table that shows when Charlie has made the wrong hiring decision. With these tables, we can create an “Interviewer Success Index” for Charlie that tracks how often he is making the right decisions.

The following chart shows the ranking of different interviewers in a professional services firm. Interviewer 1 has always made the correct hiring decision across all of his/her 23 interviews.

There are a few striking observations from this figure:

Interesting…but ‘so what’?

Perhaps the most striking observation is that there are interviewers who are consistent - both consistently right and consistently wrong. The question that needs answering is “What do the best performing interviewers know that the rest of us do not?”

In this particular example, the answer is — not much. Through some distribution and bias analysis, (the details of which I will spare you), we were able to identify three types of interviewing styles:

This example is not unique. We consistently see these patterns across industries and companies.

So how effective is each type of interview style?

Type 2, those who retro-fit their evaluation forms, are the bottom performers. Not surprisingly, those who contradict themselves (Type 3) have a success rate broadly in line with flipping a coin, and interviewers that follow the company’s process (Type 1) are its top performing interviewers . This last point, coupled with some further analysis, can show how effective the recruitment process is.

We do, on occasion, find a few clairvoyants - interviewers who do not follow the company’s processes, but achieve extraordinary results. As any scientist would do, we track them down, buy them a coffee, and study their techniques very closely.

So what is the outcome of this analysis? Charlie’s company implemented a few changes:

How can you replicate this analysis for your organisation?

To replicate this analysis for your organisation, you will need:

With this data, you can then construct both the ‘hiring successes’ and ‘hiring failure’ tables as described above. The Success Index can then be calculated by dividing the number of successes by the total number of interviews conducted.

If you would like to get started with this analysis in your firm, get in touch — it’s what we do best.

Pirical Insights

Law Firm Mergers & Market Growth: Key Insights from Our Latest Webinar

2025: Record-Breaking Deal Value

2026: A New Record Year in the Making

AI Investment and the Merger Wave: Coincidence or Correlation?

1. Scale and economics

2. Proprietary data advantage

A Framework for Understanding Legal Market Consolidation

1. Transatlantic Bridge

2. National Footprint Expansion

3. Practice Group Reinforcement

4. Portfolio Rebalancing

The Reshuffling of the Global 200

Organic Growth Is Still Possible, But Harder

A Word of Caution: Mergers Come With Risk

Explore the Data Yourself

Watch the full webinar

Private Equity Ranking: Who's Building, Who's Bleeding, and Why BigLaw May Be PE's Next Acquisition Target

Decoding the PE Client Universe

The Matter Intelligence: Who Is Actually Doing the Work

The Talent Wars: Three Years of Movement

Absolute Growth: Who Built the Most Capacity

Practice-Level Trends: Where the Lawyers Actually Are

Geographic Shifts: Where PE Legal Work Is Moving

The Software Repricing: A Reckoning Flowing Through PE Into BigLaw

The Ownership Question: Is BigLaw PE's Next Target?

Methodology

Note on methodology

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Which AM Law 101-200 Firms Have The Strongest Organic Growth?

Which AM Law 101-200 Firms Have Had the Most Organic Partner Headcount Growth?

Note on methodology

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Secrets of Associate Productivity 2: Do Higher Salaries Increase Productivity? What’s the Right Combination of ‘Carrot’ and ‘Stick’?

Case study: Firm X is a Mid-Market National Firm in the UK

Firm X’s Associates Are 20% Or £10m Per Year Less Productive Than Peer Firms’, Despite Having Similar Chargeable Hours Targets.

What can Firm X learn from the market to increase productivity?

�� If Firm X increases their salary, will they get more?

�� If Firm X increases their bonuses, will they get more?

�� Besides carrots, should Firm X use sticks to increase productivity?

Bonuses and performance management were both actionable opportunities identified by Pirical for Firm X. Together they will help close the £10m revenue gap between Firm X and peers and help Firm X better compete in today’s legal market.

Analysis powered by Pirical on Demand (POD)

Pirical's award-winning technology unifies legal data to power the business of law

Which AM Law 100 Firms Have The Best Lateral Partner Retention?

Note on methodology

Ranked: Which AM Law 100 Firms Have the Highest Lateral Partner Retention Rates?

Lateral Partner hires and how many then left the firm within the first 3 years

Global, AM Law 100, Firms with >5 lateral Partner hires, hires made between Jan 2020 - Dec 2022

Partner Retention Rates Are Lowest in Texas, Where the Lateral Market is Particularly Competitive

Cybersecurity Lateral Partner Retention Falls Below the 79% Practice Average

Firms With Lateral Partner Retention Rates Greater Than 90% Source a Lot of Talent From The AM Law 50

Note on methodology

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Pirical Rankings: Which AM Law 101-200 Firms Have The Best Lateral Partner Retention?

Note on methodology

Ranked: Which AM Law 101-200 Firms Have the Highest Lateral Partner Retention Rates?

Lateral Partner hires and how many then left the firm within the first 3 years

Global, AM Law 101-200, Firms with >5 lateral Partner hires, hires made between Jan 2020 - Dec 2022

Atlanta is the Only City to Boast Above Average Retention

Intellectual Property Has Seen Particularly Low Lateral Partner Retention

Note on methodology

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Which AM Law 101-150 Firms Hire The Most Partners From The Top 50?

The Volume of Lateral Moves From AM Law 1-50 to 101-150 Firms has Increased by +45% Over the Last 3 Years

Ranked: Which AM Law 101-150 Firms Have Hired the Most Partners From Firms Ranked 1-50 ?

Global, AM Law 101-150, All Lateral Partner Hires From AM Law 1-50, January 2023 - January 2026

Benesch and Honigman Have Made the Most Lateral Partner Hires From Top 50 Firms

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Gregg Eisenberg

Lauren Tapper

Which AM Law 1-50 Firms do the 101-150 Firms Target the Most for Lateral Hires?

Most of the Lateral Hires Made by 101-150 Firms Have Been Litigation Partners ﻿

Note on methodology

Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

Private Equity's Law Firm Arms Race

By the Numbers

5,024

+52%

24

–13%

Most of the Lateral Hires Made by 101-150 Firms Have Been Litigation Partners

The Volume of Lateral Partner Hires With Data Center Experience Jumped by +65% in 2025