Warm Winter For Chicago Market?

As Chicago clings to the last vestiges of summer, its lateral market mirrors its favorable conditions.

Michael Allen

Michael Allen

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. Michael Allen is Managing Principal at Lateral Link, focusing exclusively on partner placements with Am Law 200 clients and placements for in-house attorneys.

As Chicago clings to the last vestiges of summer, its lateral market mirrors its favorable conditions. The Chicago lateral market is poised to be the most candidate-driven market in the U.S., due to increased demand and decreased lateral movement in the Windy City.

Within the U.S., Chicago currently ranks third in total associate demand — the number of open positions. The two front-runners are New York and Washington D.C., with 377 and 169 openings — respectively — compared to Chicago’s 117.

Most of this demand is concentrated within Corporate practices. However, despite the last few years of lagging demand, IP is experiencing a resurgence in Chicago. It accounts for over 21 percent of total demand in Chicago. Litigation demand is trailing its historical numbers, while Labor & Employment is in demand.

The depressed Litigation market may be explained by the surfeit of litigator laterals over the last year. Partner litigation attorneys accounted for over 37 percent of all partner laterals in Chicago last year. Litigation associates accounted for the second most number of moves with 24 percent, slightly behind Corporate’s 27 percent. Corporate partner moves were comparatively meager, accounting for only 14 percent of total partner moves.

Chicago lateral movement trailed its demand compared to other cities. Chicago’s lateral movement falls to fourth place in overall movement behind Los Angeles. The market conditions in Chicago tend to engender this effect. In New York, with its 20,000 attorneys working in Biglaw, firms search for and qualify candidates very differently than they do in Chicago; whether as a result of the different scale of the qualified candidate pool, the Midwestern character of the City, or other reasons, Chicago oftentimes operates in a more informal and discrete manner.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest players in the Chicago lateral market over the last year have been the elite Chicago firms. Kirkland & Ellis, Seyfarth Shaw, Mayer Brown, Jenner, and Baker & McKenzie round out the top five. As longtime firm leader Peter Kallis prepares to leave his post, it will be interesting to see what ramifications this succession has on the Chicago-based firm.

Using an ARIMA model (Autoregressive Moving Average) we forecasted the Chicago lateral market over the next year. The current model predicts a somewhat static lateral market. Because lateral movement has been steady in Chicago over the last few years, the model does not anticipate much growth. However, I believe the “MoneyLaw” salary raises will be enough to kickstart the market in the beginning of 2017. The associate clients have expressed a reluctance to move until finding out how the current round of raises will impact bonuses. However, once firms announce, we should see a frenzy of movement to firms with the highest overall compensation package.

The reality is that, for all of its sophistication and global reach, Chicago’s legal market can be an opaque environment in which to navigate. Merely knowing about a potential opening is truly secondary to understanding how best to approach a particular firm — and that is before getting into the issues of qualifying the opportunity, understanding the short- and long-term value proposition, and otherwise.

As an experienced legal recruiting firm with deep connections in the Chicago market, we are happy to answer your questions about the market, discuss your long-term goals, or help you research your next potential lateral move.


Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices world-wide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click ::here:: to find out more about us.