As many law firms see indications of an economic recovery, they are beginning to fill vacant positions putting administrators into situations they have been out of for a while. One such situation is negotiating salary and benefits with candidates. 

There is the assumption on the part of many COOs and CHRs that candidates who are out of work or underemployed will be docile negotiators and take anything that is offered. Little could be farther from the truth.  In fact, unemployed professionals tend to be more aggressive and focused in negotiations because they have few competing demands for their attention. Working candidates are motivated to get to a "go or no-go" decision quickly out of concern for confidentiality and the impact of their seeking a position on their current employment relationship. The candidate is also playing with his or her own money. Therefore, their personal stake in negotiations is greater than the representative of the law firm.

But it is important for employers to remember that employment negotiations create a long-term working relationship. The impressions the employer and the candidate share are the lasting first impressions. But awareness of the importance of impressions can cause the employer's representation to be overly generous. The best advice for COOs is to stay out of the negotiations. If the firm is using a recruiter, have them convey offers and work with the candidate. This allows you to remain at arm's length and make rational decisions. The next best solution is to use the HR department to handle negotiations.

On the other side of the hiring equation are the more than 5,000 lawyers and staff laid-off by law firms over the past year. In a very difficult marketplace, finding a new job can be difficult. A recent survey by CareerBuilder found workers had some creative ways of making money until they found a new job:

            Participating in bandage product testing

            Working as a Tarot card reader

            Creating Star Wars costumes

            Researching stories for a gossip columnist

            Posing for an art class

            Taking class notes for college students

            Working as a movie extra

Participating in university research studies

Giving colleagues haircuts

Writing a freelance article about Big Foot

Winning money on a game show

Playing in a poker tournament

Testing cookbook recipes

Selling catfish dinners from the front porch

Juggling chainsaws in a talent contest

Stealing items from lost and found and selling them online

Amazingly, with all of the success of Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, only one large law firm seems to have found a use for social media. Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle has a Facebook recruiting page that lists the members of its summer class and has a downloadable recruiting brochure. 

With all the effort law firms put into finding ways to increase job satisfaction, the answer may be as simple as providing a secure job. When asked to rate the importance of various contributors to satisfaction respondents selected job satisfaction at the top. Other highly rated factors were "relationship with immediate supervisor," "opportunities to use skills and abilities" and "benefits and compensation." Comparatively, immediate and personal factors consistently outscored more long-term and less personal issues such as "a green workplace" or "commitment to social responsibility."

           

For many firms, the recession has effectively shutdown their recruiting programs. As the economy recovers and firms reactivate recruiting, some firms are looking at dramatically restructured programs. Recently we've seen some interesting comparisons to sports recruiting. KermaPartners, a legal consulting firm (kermapartners.com) has done a lot of research based on Moneyball, a book about the Oakland Athletics’ technique of identifying specific traits of top performers and attempting to copy them when hiring. 

Now an American Lawyer writer, Aric Press, has suggested that firms consider how they would recruit if Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots, were their recruiting director. He thinks Bill would do five things:

1. Make the firm decide who they are, what they want to be and what sort of talent they would need to get there (any partners who disagreed would be put on waivers).

2. Decide which of their needs could be filled by hiring new lawyers (college draft), which by hiring laterally (trades) and which by getting more out of their existing players.

3. Send scouts into the law schools to find talent. They would look at transcripts (game films), talk to professors and other students, attend moot court finals and test for empathy, psychological balance, resilience and emotional intelligence (40 yard dash and watching workouts). 

4. Invite recruits to a four day mini-camp where they would work on complex hypotheticals with other candidates (scrimmages).

5. Make offers with salaries differing based on comparative value. Look for the lawyer equivalent of Tom Brady, the non-law review editor, sixth-round choice who went on to become a three-time Super Bowl champ and a national heartthrob.