Long-trusted colleagues, relatives, rising stars—who are the right individuals to step into leadership roles once you set down the reins? Identifying potential leaders and ensuring the transition goes smoothly for everyone involved are critical tasks for firm leaders. 

Law firm succession planning secures your firm’s legacy. It’s a priority and process to incorporate into each stage of firm growth—starting with recruiting the right attorneys to become future leaders.

Why Succession Planning Is Essential for Law Firms

Long-term, strategic planning is difficult to fit into a day full of deadlines, but the cost of ignoring it is considerable. Without an effective succession plan, firms may experience: 

• Loss of clients’ trust and business
• Disruption to current operations
• Staff departures
• Shift in company culture

Plus, for ongoing clients, succession planning can also be considered essential under ABA Model Rule 1.3: A lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client.¹

On the flip side, effectively implementing a law firm succession plan can lead to: 

• Client retention and acquisition
• Sustained firm growth
• Preservation of firm legacy

Another benefit is the opportunity to include operational changes as part of a leadership change. 

Consider a managing member approached by multiple firms to help replicate a revised compensation system that limits individual attorney origination credit. When included in the firm’s succession plan, it can increase compensation and recognition for attorneys below the partnership level, which leads to boosts in law firm collaboration and attorney retention. 

Identify Leadership Potential in Early Recruitment

Effective succession planning starts with recruiting and nurturing top talent who can contribute to the firm’s future leadership. Use the hiring process to vet and identify talent who will both fill current needs and grow into leaders. 

In particular, look for: 

• Communication skills 
• Ownership drive 
• Business acumen
• Mentoring talent and ability
• Emotional intelligence 

Once hired, keep leadership development and progress in mind while establishing mentorships, assigning development programs, and during evaluations. 

Recruitment Strategies for Building a Strong Leadership Pipeline

The starting line for leadership development is a strong recruitment strategy. Identifying and landing top talent represents an investment in the future as well as a solution to current needs. 

Consider: 

• Including initial resume screening with demographics stripped to reduce bias
• Utilizing skilled legal headhunters with expansive networks
• Exploring current firm makeup and how diversity can yield specific benefits
• Attending law school career events for early identification of excellence

Recruitment strategies at this level will rely even more on networking and identifying “right-time, right-place” opportunities. 

Finding the right candidates is crucial, but you also need to attract them with: 

• Robust law firm mentorship, recognition, and career growth opportunities
• Evidence of a strong firm culture
• Development opportunities

Overcoming Challenges in Succession Planning

It’s not just who, but how. When it comes time to hand over roles to new leaders, plan for a smooth, anticipated transition that doesn’t interrupt firm activity, cause dissent, or come as a shock to the team. 

Common challenges and solutions include: 

• Lack of long-term focus – If you don’t have a roadmap for the firm’s future, how can you choose who will guide the way? A succession strategy is one part of a firm’s comprehensive growth plan. Consider how incoming leaders’ skills and successes provide support for clearly identified firm goals, targets, and values. 

• Internal resistance – A change in leadership can feel destabilizing for colleagues and employees, particularly if they think they’ll have to start from scratch to prove themselves. To help overcome fear, resentment, productivity drops, and misinformation, strive for transparency and provide opportunities for questions, concerns, and input where and when feasible. 

• Reluctant departures – It’s not uncommon to see delays when retirement looms. It’s difficult to leave an impactful, high-profile position that secures your daily routine, social network, and self-identity. Make the retirement process just that—a process, rather than a moment in time, with check-ins, active planning sessions, and a multi-stage hand-off of responsibilities. 

• Client instability – Anticipate client discomfort with leadership transitions by planning communications that introduce new leaders well in advance of departures. Consider personal visits to key clients by both incoming and outgoing leaders to reinforce a peaceful and intentional change that best serves their interests, facilitating gradual shifts in responsibility and relationship management. 

Your Partner in Succession Planning

Thoughtful succession planning is essential to ensure long-term success and continuity in law firms, and it’s not a last-minute project. Leaders can build it into their mentoring, firm goal-setting, and annual attorney review processes. 

The right time to start or further your succession strategy and ensure future success is now—and the right partner is E.P. Dine, the preeminent legal recruitment search partner. For over 40 years, we’ve supported firms and corporations nationwide in thousands of talent searches, filling legal positions at all seniority levels.

With our expertise, technology, and extensive recruiting network, we create tailored strategies and help firms identify and attract the next generation of star players. We look forward to connecting over how we can help your succession planning and talent needs.

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Sources: 

1. Thomson Reuters. Practice Innovations: Using succession planning to ensure your law firm’s sustainable future. https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/legal/practice-innovations-succession-planning/