Before You Make a Lateral Move: Know Your Numbers

If you are a partner considering a move, your portable book of business will be one of the most important metrics prospective firms evaluate. Unlike associate hiring, partner recruiting is not typically based on skill set alone. Firms generally seek accretive partners whose practices create meaningful synergies for both the firm and the partner. Achieving that win-win requires you to understand your practice and participate proactively in the process.

Before going to market, you should understand your book of business better than anyone else, including your current firm’s finance department. Make a realistic assessment of the client relationships and work you personally originated, the matters you handled but did not originate, and your targets for new or expanded business. Review the data your firm collects on your practice and understand what it reveals. These three steps will help you get started.

1.    Study your practice statistics for the past three years. Compile and review all available data on your originating and billing attorney statistics, as well as your working attorney statistics. Are your origination numbers increasing, flat, or decreasing, and why? Are your hours and billing and collection realization percentages strong? Which clients are most profitable? They may not be your largest clients.

2.    Quantify your current pipeline of active work. Is it on track to meet or exceed last year’s numbers?  Why or why not?  Identify specific opportunities within your current client roster and determine which aspects of a different firm platform could help you capitalize on them.

3.    Study your client work over the past three years. Divide your clients into three groups: those you personally originated and whose work you manage; those you personally originated but whose work is mostly performed and/or managed by others; and those you did not originate but for whom you perform most or all of the work. Then assign a realistic probability that each client will move with you to a new firm. The first group—your gold clients—should have a high probability, potentially close to 100%. The portability of the second group—your silver clients—will depend on how closely you have maintained those relationships. You may still be able to increase those probabilities by reaching out now and staying in regular contact. The third group—your bronze clients—is generally the least portable. Partners often overestimate their ability to move work in this category and underestimate their current firm’s ability to retain the client. Realistic portability percentages for this group are therefore typically the lowest in the client mix.

The goal is not to produce the highest possible estimate of your portable business, but the most credible one. A disciplined, data-driven assessment will help you evaluate opportunities more effectively, present your practice confidently to prospective firms, and identify the platform that offers the strongest potential for mutual growth.