Timeline For A Lateral Associate Move And The Offer & Acceptance Process (Part II)

Ed. note: This is Part II of a three-part series on the timeline for a lateral associate move and the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. Abby Gordon is a Senior Director in the New York office where she focuses on placements of partners, counsel, and associate candidates for law firms and in-house. Her focus is primarily on the New York, Boston, and European markets. Abby holds a J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. in Government and Romance Languages, magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College. Prior to recruiting, Abby spent seven years as a corporate associate with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, focusing on capital markets transactions for Latin American clients in New York, and for the last five years for European clients in Paris, France. She regularly participates in professional and career panels and has published numerous articles offering career advice and tracking trends in the legal market (links to which are on her LinkedIn profile). She is a member of the New York, Massachusetts, and Maine state bars. Abby is fluent in French and Spanish, and enjoys dabbling in Portuguese and Italian.

Be sure to also read Part I (Interviews) of this series.

To best plan and execute a lateral associate move, it is important to understand the usual timeline for a move and how various factors can affect that timeline. In last week’s installment, I discussed the timing of the interview process. This week, I discuss the offer and acceptance process. Remember, the timeline below in italics is just an example of a more standard timeframe but every lateral move is different.

Offer & Acceptance

Weeks 5-6: Firm makes an offer

A firm may make an offer immediately after the final round of interviews, but it’s more common for partners to meet to decide if they will make an offer or not. On occasion, an offer is delayed because the firm is discussing the class year or salary at which they will make the offer. It’s also common to receive a call from a partner extending a verbal offer before receiving a written offer letter. Be prepared. Know how you are going to react before you get the offer call. It may be helpful to discuss or even rehearse with your recruiter your response when you are on the spot, to be sure you convey the right tone.

Week 7: You accept the offer

The written offer letter may state the date by which you must accept. Even if it does not, it’s standard to respond within 7-14 days. In no case should you let communications lapse between you and the firm during this time. Keep the firm updated (directly or via your recruiter) on your intended timing for giving them an answer and let them know if you have questions or would like to speak with additional people before making your decision. Do not mislead the firm, but do convey your enthusiasm about the offer.

The firm’s recruiting department should be able to arrange meetings with additional partners and/or associates if those meetings would be useful in making your final decision. These may be team members you did not meet through the interview process or this may just be a chance to meet these lawyers again where you may ask questions that may not have been fully appropriate during the interview process. It’s your chance to see the associate in a more informal setting. That said, always be professional. Keep in mind the firm can rescind your offer if you act inappropriately at any point in the acceptance process or give them reason to doubt that you are not enthusiastic about the new opportunity.

A note of caution: Read your offer letter carefully! You are a lawyer. You have no excuse not to read every word and be sure you understand it. Of course, this is another place where a recruiter can be of great value. We can tell you if there is anything non-standard and what might be negotiable and what probably is not. We can also advise on how to best approach the discrepancy. It may be best for the recruiter to speak directly with HR, to avoid awkwardness between you and your future employer.

One detail likely included in your offer letter: You may be asked to produce a good standing certificate from all jurisdictions where you claim to be admitted (or at least from the local jurisdiction) before you start work at the new firm. Be sure you are up to date on your CLEs and on your bar dues so that you won’t run into any trouble with this! Admitting to a firm that you are not actually in good standing is a sure way to get off on the wrong foot, if you even still have a job with the new employer. If you are admitted in New York, First Department, here is the form you’ll need to fill out to request the certificate.

How do you actually accept? Many offer letters require you to sign the letter and return it in order to accept the offer. While a recruiter can be very helpful as an intermediary at many stages in the process, there’s no reason not to deliver the good news of an offer acceptance personally. My advice may vary depending on the specifics of the situation, but generally you should:

1. Let your recruiter know you plan to accept.
2. Call the partner who called you with the oral offer, if applicable, and tell him or her you are enthusiastically accepting.
3. Follow up immediately, returning the signed offer letter to HR, if required.
4. Let your recruiter know you accepted so he or she can inform the firm’s Recruiting Coordinator. Or if you’ve established a friendly rapport with the Recruiting Coordinator already, you may choose to deliver the good new personally.

If you already have a vacation planned for around or soon after your likely start date, tell the firm at the offer acceptance stage. They will almost always be accommodating if they know upfront, even if you will not have technically accrued that vacation time yet. Do not wait to tell the firm once you start.

Background Checks & Conflicts

Week 8: Checks & Conflicts

After you accept your offer, the firm will conduct background and conflicts checks.

Conflicts Check

One of the most onerous, yet necessary, parts of the lateral process is the conflicts check. Each firm has a different process of checking conflicts and most firms’ processes are constantly evolving. The process can also be much more involved for partners and for litigators or patent attorneys. What do you need to know as the candidate? Keep very good records from Day 1 of all the matters you have worked on. I always encourage the most junior associates to maintain a deal sheet or representative matters sheet from the very start. (See my post on Compiling a Deal Sheet for guidance.) It’s a great way of taking stock of your professional development, helpful — if not essential — to provide this list with your résumé for lateral moves, and also essential for the conflicts check. Even if it’s a matter not worthy of including on your “public” rep matters sheet, keep a fully inclusive list for yourself. If you do not have a deal sheet, you will need to go back through your diaries and/or all the documents you have worked on in your firm’s database to recreate the list. This can take a long time, so start before you have an offer in hand! If you have any questions at all about what needs to be disclosed, it is better to err on the side of asking the conflicts team at the new firm how to proceed.

Note that conflicts are rarely an issue for non-litigators, but they can be problematic or at the very least cause some delays for litigators or patent attorneys. If you are working on potentially problematic matters, you can ask the firm to check for those conflicts at the start of the process, so as not to waste everyone’s time and get your hopes up unnecessarily if there is going to be a conflict. On occasion, a firm will ask a candidate if he or she has been adverse to specific clients before agreeing to a first round interview.

Background Check

While background checks used to be fairly simple and limited to criminal background checks, some firms’ checks are now more involved. They may also include a review of your online presence and/or a credit check. These background checks are usually outsourced to third parties, because the firms lack the necessary resources but also because most firms attempt to separate the “checkers” from the “hirers” so as to avoid any conscious or unconscious discrimination in the hiring process. What do you need to know as the candidate?

• Complete the forms completely and as soon as possible.
• If you have no criminal record, you’re likely in the clear. But if you have anything that is more recent or somehow slipped through during your bar admission and first hire, discuss with your recruiter upfront, before applying to new positions, to determine how best to proceed.
• Even if you have no criminal record, be sure to do a scan of your online presence before you start the hiring process. Even if it’s not an official part of the process, you have to assume that your interviewers will Google you. It’s OK to have a personality, but take down anything that could paint you as unprofessional or disrespectful. Be cautious about vocalizing strong political opinions in the online public domain. While a firm will never outright reject you because of your political opinions, firms will often reject candidates for no stated reason at all.

***

Stay tuned next week for Part III of this series: Giving Notice, Reference Checks & Setting Your Start Date

---

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.