It’s rare for law firms to hire their top-level leadership from outside the firm’s walls, and just as rare for small firms to bring on professionals to focus solely on the business. But for a small Lancaster, Pennsylvania shop, that is just what it did, looking to the ranks of the nation’s largest law firms to find its next CEO.

Brubaker Connaughton Goss & Lucarelli has made an unusual leadership change for a firm its size, bringing on a CEO from outside the firm, who is not a practicing lawyer, to focus on firm strategy.