Recruiter Gatherings - Why Even Bother?

The exercise of gathering together the local legal recruiting community to hear a firm hiring presentation has a somewhat paradoxical appeal. Paradoxical because the very desperation that motivates firms to call in the Lawcruiters (because we need to do something – anything - to get the recruiters attention!) is the same desperation they do not want Lawcruiters to see lest this create a pretext for the firm to devolve, in recruiter eyes, from “client” to “target”. The appeal, of course, lies in the belief that by gathering and lecturing the legal recruiters – law firm hiring managers and lateral hiring partners will feel reassured that they are not falling behind the recruiting efforts of their competitors. The problem is that pulling off these exercises successfully is fiendishly difficult because it requires firms to think beyond their own insecurities and think more about the needs and feelings of the legal recruiting community. This kind of empathy is hard enough to pull off in stable, trusting and longstanding marriages between well-adjusted adults which is probably why most firms, when not feeling particularly desperate and therefore having their wits about them, will keep these events few and far between. Which is actually a crying shame because – like in any stable relationship between well adjusted adults – the quality of the communication between lawfirms and Lawcruiters goes a very long way in determining the success of both sides in meeting their objectives – which are the very same, of course.