Timeline For A Lateral Associate Move And The Offer & Acceptance Process: Interviews (Part I)

Ed. note: This is Part I 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.

I have spoken with a number of associates over the years who aren’t sure what the timing and process for a lateral move look like. And why should you? If you are contemplating your first move, you may know that the process is very different from when you first chose a firm as a summer or first-year associate. But beyond that, it’s a bit of a mystery. I am outlining the process here, as it’s helpful to understand the timing and some of the intricacies of a lateral move in order to best strategize that move.

The Lateral Timeline & When to Apply

I am often asked if there is a “best time” to apply to new positions. The answer? Yes, there is. The best time to apply is when you see an opportunity that interests you. Certainly there are more openings in January, February, and March just after bonus season. But there are also more candidates applying at this time. You never know when a position with a specific group will come along again. Many firms are reluctant to consider résumés from even the most stellar candidates if there is no specific need to fill. So if you see an opportunity that tempts you, don’t delay. Jump on it.

As a general rule, a lateral move probably takes longer than you would expect. There are always exceptions, but for an associate looking to move within the same city, we rarely see less than 2-3 months between the day we send the résumé and the associate’s start date with the new firm. But don’t complain — partner, counsel, and in-house moves can take much longer.

I will outline below in italics the best-case timeline for how the process may play out, and note some common causes for delays as well as discuss some additional factors to consider.

Interviews

Week 1: Send materials to firms

Weeks 2-3: Screening interview

Firms may respond to a candidate’s submission immediately. It’s also quite common for firms to wait to receive a critical mass of submissions, and then select which candidates to interview. It’s not unheard of for a firm to inquire 6+ months after submission if the candidate is still on the market. With the typical successful move, the screening interview would take place a within a couple of weeks of the submission. Every firm does it differently, but typically a firm will ask for the candidate’s availability over the following two weeks. A screening interview is usually with one or two people, 30-60 minutes.

Weeks 3-4: Full round of interviews

If the screen goes well, a firm will ask the candidate back for a full round of interviews. Sometimes this is immediate or a week or so later. On occasion, a firm will conduct screening interviews for all candidates before moving on to full rounds.

Weeks 4-5: 3^rd/final round of interviews (if necessary)

Sometimes a firm will make an offer after the full or second round of interviews. But oftentimes, a third round is required, either because that is standard or because a key partner was unavailable to meet during the second round. For this same reason, a fourth round may even be necessary at times.

A number of factors can slow down the interview process. For example:

• You may need to travel for interviews.
• Holidays intervene (including most of July and August when interviews are always harder to schedule).
• The team you need to interview with may get too busy to interview.
• A key partner is out of the office.
• The firm may be unsure of their need to hire for that position, so speeding up the process is just not a priority.
• The firms may have a hiring freeze. Often the freeze can be overridden, but this takes time.
• As the candidate, you may choose to slow the process in order to see how the process plays out with other firms where you’re interviewing.

A few notes on interviewing in another city from where you currently live:

• Keep in mind, this is not the summer associate process. There are exceptions, but most firms do not pay for travel for first-round interviews. I would not advise asking them to do so. Firms assume that if you’re serious about a geographic move, you’re probably visiting that new city regularly anyway or at the very least that the cost of one plane ticket is not going to dissuade you from fulfilling your personal and professional goals.
• Ideally, you may try to organize phone or videoconference screening interviews from your home city. Alternatively, it’s often very helpful to plan submissions around a pre-planned trip. Saying you will be in that city anyway (with the implication that it’s on your own dime) can tip the balance in terms of scoring an interview. Firms will often skip the screening interview in this case, or be ready to schedule the full round of interviews in that same week if all goes well with the screening.

When you work with one sole recruiter, we can help immensely to juggle and optimize the timing of the process with various firms. We can advise when delaying or rescheduling an interview is likely harmless and when it could jeopardize your candidacy. Where you are advancing with other firms, we can often push the remaining firms to set up an interview or speed up the interview and offer process.

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Stay tuned in the coming weeks for Part II (Offer, Acceptance, Background Checks & Conflicts) and Part III (Giving Notice, Reference Checks & Setting Your Start Date) of this series.

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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.