Retention Starts With Hiring the Right People
When a valued lawyer leaves, the conversation often turns immediately to retention.
Was compensation competitive? Were there enough opportunities for advancement? Did leadership miss warning signs? Could the organization have done something differently to keep them?
Those are important questions. But sometimes the more important question needs to be asked much earlier:
Was this ever the right long-term fit?
In our previous article, we explored how organizations can build a culture that makes lawyers recruiter-proof. Strong leadership, meaningful career development, competitive compensation, mentorship, flexibility and trust all contribute to an environment where exceptional lawyers want to stay.
But even the strongest culture cannot solve every retention problem. Sometimes retention challenges begin with the hiring decision itself.
A Great Lawyer Is Not Automatically the Right Lawyer
When organizations recruit, it is natural to focus on credentials. Does the candidate have the right years of experience? The right practice background? The technical expertise? The client relationships? Have they worked at the right firms or organizations?
Those factors matter. But they only tell part of the story. A candidate can look exceptional on paper and still be poorly aligned with the opportunity.
Consider a lawyer who is highly ambitious and wants a clearly defined path to leadership. They may be an outstanding candidate, but if the organization cannot realistically provide that opportunity, frustration can eventually develop.
Another lawyer may prioritize flexibility and autonomy, while the employer expects significant in-office presence and operates within a highly structured environment. Neither the lawyer nor the employer is necessarily wrong. They may simply want different things.
If those differences are not explored during the hiring process, they can eventually become retention problems.
Hiring for the Role You Actually Have
One of the most important things an employer can do during recruitment is be clear about the opportunity it is actually offering. It can be tempting to sell candidates on everything that could potentially happen. Partnership may be possible. Leadership opportunities could emerge. Flexibility might increase. The role may eventually evolve.
But long-term fit depends on realistic expectations. If advancement is limited, candidates should understand that. If the organization has specific expectations around billable hours, business development or office attendance, those expectations should be discussed. If a role offers tremendous substantive experience but has a slower path to leadership, that should be part of the conversation too.
The objective should not simply be convincing an exceptional lawyer to accept the offer. It should be determining whether the opportunity will continue to make sense for that lawyer after the excitement of a new position has passed.
Understand Why the Candidate Is Moving
The reasons someone wants to leave their current position can tell you a great deal about what they will need from the next one. If a lawyer feels they have reached a ceiling in their current organization, will the new opportunity provide the room for growth and advancement they are looking for?
If they are leaving because of workload, will the new environment meaningfully improve it?
If they want more client contact, autonomy or leadership responsibility, can the organization genuinely provide those opportunities?
If flexibility has become important because of where they are in their life or career, are the employer’s expectations compatible with that?
These conversations require more than reviewing a résumé. They require understanding what is motivating the person sitting across the table and whether the organization can realistically meet those expectations.
That is also where experienced legal recruitment can add considerable value. A recruiter who understands both sides of the relationship can identify potential areas of alignment, and potential friction, before an offer is ever made.
Cultural Fit Should Not Mean Hiring People Who Are All the Same
“Culture fit” is frequently discussed in recruitment, but it can easily become too vague to be useful. Hiring for fit should not mean looking for people with identical personalities, backgrounds or ways of thinking. A more useful question is whether there is alignment around the things that will actually shape the employment relationship.
How does the organization communicate? How are decisions made? What does good leadership look like? How much independence will the lawyer have? How is performance measured? How does the firm approach mentorship, collaboration, flexibility and advancement?
Different perspectives can strengthen an organization. Fundamentally incompatible expectations are much harder to overcome.
The Best Retention Conversation May Happen Before Day One
Organizations understandably invest significant time and resources into retaining their strongest people. But retention should not begin when someone has been with the organization for three years, receives another offer or submits a resignation.
It should begin during recruitment. That means looking beyond whether someone can do the job and asking whether the opportunity supports the career they are trying to build.
It means being candid about what the organization can offer and equally curious about what the candidate wants. And occasionally, it means recognizing that an impressive candidate may not be the right hire.
Walking away from the wrong match can be difficult, particularly when exceptional legal talent is hard to find. But making a hire that looks great today and becomes an obvious mismatch 18 months later serves neither the lawyer nor the organization.
From Attraction to Retention
Recruitment and retention are often treated as separate talent challenges. They are much more closely connected.
The expectations established during recruitment become the reality employees evaluate once they join. The career opportunities discussed during interviews become the advancement opportunities they eventually expect to see. The culture described during the hiring process becomes the culture they experience every day.
When those things align, organizations have a much stronger foundation for retention. When they do not, no retention initiative can completely compensate for a fundamental mismatch. As we discussed in our previous article, organizations cannot stop recruiters from calling their lawyers. What they can do is create an environment people consistently choose to stay in. That process starts even earlier than culture and retention strategy.
It starts with hiring people who have a reason to build their future with you.
At Life After Law, we work with law firms and legal departments across Canada to look beyond the résumé and identify exceptional legal talent with the experience, ambitions and alignment to succeed for the long term. If your organization is thinking about its next hire, succession planning or broader talent strategy, we would be happy to start the conversation.
