Nelson Mullins Atlanta office managing partner Michael Hollingsworth has seen the lateral hiring process from both sides. He joined Nelson Mullins as a lateral recruit to the firm’s mergers and acquisitions practice in 2006, and since then he has seen the firm expand from 380 lawyers to more than 500 across 17 offices. A robust lateral recruiting strategy accounts for much of this expanded roster, and Hollingsworth expects the firm to continue to go to the lateral market quite often. “We are very experienced in lateral recruiting, and we’ve learned a lot of lessons over the years,” Hollingsworth says.

Across the nation, just about every firm regards lateral recruiting as part of its strategy. A recent Altman Weil report found that more than 95 percent of firms expect to pursue laterals. Still, despite the fervent courtship, the romance doesn’t necessarily last. About half of all lateral hires end in a parting of the ways within five years. Besides upending lawyers’ professional lives, these partings also can be expensive for firms. By one estimate, a failed lateral recruit can cost the firm up to 400 percent of the lawyer’s compensation, counting the expense of finding a replacement.