Lateral hiring in 2019 is a complicated task. The MeToo movement has placed lateral hires under a microscope, and with a recession anticipated to strike in the next few years, the risk involved in the lateral decision-making process is as high as it’s been. But despite it all, the lateral market remains a key source of growth used by nearly every member of the Am Law 200.
As Nicholas Bruch, Michael A. Ellenhorn and Howard Rosenberg wrote in the Laterals Report in the February edition of The American Lawyer, an estimated $17.1 billion in business moved with lateral partners over the past five years. Faced with so much risk and uncertainty, the authors contend, law firms’ lateral hiring process is due for an overhaul.
