Scott Love | Strategic Lateral Moves for Law Firm Partners

Elise Holtzman: Hi, everyone. It's Elise Holtzman here, a former practicing lawyer and the host of The Lawyer’s Edge Podcast. Welcome back for another episode.

Law firm partners often reach a point where they start asking big questions. "Am I reaching my full potential? Have I outgrown my firm? Is this the right place for me? If not, what's next?" Making a lateral move can feel risky, confusing, and even a little bit taboo, depending on your age and stage.

Today's guest has spent decades helping partners navigate those crossroads with clarity, confidence, and strategy. So I'm really looking forward to picking his brain and finding out what he has to tell us about lateral moves.

Before we dive in, today’s episode is brought to you by the Ignite Women’s Business Development Accelerator, a nine-month business development program created by women lawyers for women lawyers. Ignite is a carefully designed business development program containing content, coaching, and a community of like-minded women who are committed to becoming rainmakers and supporting the retention and advancement of other women in the profession. To learn more about Ignite, visit thelawyersedge.com/ignite.

I'm delighted to welcome my guest today, Scott Love, who is president of The Attorney Search Group, which helps law firm partners fulfill their potential by helping them transition to platforms that are best aligned to their own unique goals. He's been recruiting for 30 years and also hosts the top-ranked podcast, The Rainmaking Podcast. Scott, welcome to The Lawyer's Edge.

Scott Love: Thank you, Elise. I'm really excited to be here.

Elise Holtzman: I'm delighted to have you because lateral partner moves, it’s a big topic, and I haven’t had the pleasure of having someone on the show to talk about it until now. And I know you’re an expert, so I know that we're going to cover a lot of topics that people are going to be interested in.

Before we talk about lawyers moving, let's talk about how they can succeed where they are, right? Because you talk to law firm partners all the time, and you see what’s working for them and what isn’t working for them. So how do you think a law firm partner, where he or she is, can fulfill their own potential?

Scott Love: It takes focus. The number one focus area I think a partner should be looking at is, "What’s in my client’s best interests?" I think that’s where they are anyway in terms of the legal work that they do. But if they can help them be more attractive to getting more work from their existing clients and other prospective clients, then yeah, that’s going to grow their book. Absolutely right.

The way I phrase it that way is because I talk to anywhere between 500 to 1,000 new partners every year by making new friends. And I’m like a realtor. I’ll call someone, "Hey, I’m just having an open house. Here’s some punch and cookies. Tell me about your career goals. I might not sell a house to you, we’re just talking about opportunities."

So I get inside their head, and these are people, I’d say three things about them. Number one, they’re usually selfless. They’re usually focusing on that client need anyway, which means, number two, they’re naturally not going to be inclined to be self-promoting and doing the things, which is why people like you, Elise, are very helpful to them, to coach them on how do you grow a book and how do you "sell your practice or do business development."

But I’d say, number three, I think they don’t think strategically enough about their own growth. I don’t think that gets enough of a priority focus for them as it should. So that’s what you’ve seen where you’ll tell them, "Let’s look at this from a prospective client’s potential." So that’s the number one thing I’d say, if they just focused on their own attractiveness to clients, and if they have that lens, then they’ll be able to grow their practice.

Elise Holtzman: Because sometimes people focus more on the selling piece of it than what the people on the other side are thinking about. It’s not about selling. It’s about, "We are standing in service of our clients." So as you say, if we can focus on that and figure out what is it that they really need, that gives people the opportunity to develop those relationships that are going to stick for the long term and help them develop and grow a book of business.

Scott Love: Exactly right. I think that when they get to that point where, "Okay, I need to look at my own practice through my client’s perspective and a prospective client perspective," then that’s where they should be.

I remember I heard a speaker, I can’t remember who it was, we were at a conference. He said, "Write down these three questions. Number one, on a scale of one to 10, 10 meaning it’s highest, what is your own effectiveness at getting work and selling your services?

"Number two, compared to other people that you compete with, on a scale of one to 10, how good are you compared to your competitors?

"Number three," he said, "If I were to survey your existing clients and ask them how much do they trust you and want to give you work, what rank would they give you on a scale of one to 10?"

Then he said, "Cross out the answers to the first two questions because they don’t count. The only thing that counts is the perspective of your client." If they take that perspective, that’s going to be the focus, I think, they should have, of how they look and how they can grow their practice.

Elise Holtzman: In answering my question, you’re focusing on business development. So when we talk about a law firm partner fulfilling their potential, is that what you think the answer is, that they’ve got to be able to grow a book of business?

Scott Love: I do. And they can grow it in their own firm. Some of them, they’re handicapped because of certain impediments.

I found that when partners leave firms, there are usually two reasons for it. One reason is strategy, where the firm’s goals in this particular area don’t align with my own goals or because we don’t have this type of practice, I can’t get as much work, I need to leave. That’s one of them.

The other one is leadership issues. "I don’t trust my leaders." I’ve heard partners tell me, "I don’t trust the leadership of this firm to make effective decisions," or "I don’t trust my partners because I’m afraid if I bring my clients in, they’re going to steal my clients from me." I’ve actually heard that before.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah, that’s pretty bad.

Scott Love: Yeah. So I’d say if we put all the reasons why partners move, those are the two buckets that they’re in usually.

Elise Holtzman: So in terms of fulfilling one’s potential at the law firm where they are, it’s not just about them personally. It’s about the ecosystem that they’re living in, the firm environment.

Scott Love: Exactly right. I don’t think the primary motive should be, "I want to make more money." I think the motive should be, "I want to go to a firm that allows me to reach my full potential." Because when you have that, then the money will take care of itself.

So I think they have to look at, "What are the impediments that my firm has that are keeping me from reaching my full potential?"

Another question I ask every single partner that I talk to, Elise, before I tell you about my client’s opportunities, let me ask you this: are there any goals that you have that you can’t reach in your own firm?

And there are some people I say, "I don’t think you should move. I think you can reach those goals in your firm." Because moving is risky. Moving can take a lot of time.

It can be distracting. For some people, it's not the correct decision to move, even though they might want to move, but they've got opportunities that they need to harvest. Unless it's a leadership issue, that's a good reason to move. Even though I'm doing well, I'm making a lot of money, just for leadership reasons. If it's just about the money, I don't think that's a good enough reason. There has to be something more than that.

Elise Holtzman: What about the individuals themselves? I mean, obviously, there's this notion, as you've pointed out, that sometimes the environment isn't right and there's something in the leadership or the other partners or the culture that is getting in the way of the partner's success. What are some of the ways you see lawyers hold themselves back in terms of their own success, where it may not be the environment, but it's a blind spot or a limiting belief that an otherwise talented partner has?

Scott Love: Some of it is just not feeling like they—and I don't want to go too deep, I mean, I'm not a psychologist—I think some people just don't feel that they could be successful, what people might call impostor syndrome. We've heard that before. "I just don't know if I'm good enough." I think that's something that I've done. I'm not a coach. I don't really have those conversations with people, but from the data that I have empirically, I think that could be an issue also.

I also think hubris—ego—kind of gets in the way of people making effective decisions. They overestimate their own potential, their brand equity. They might overestimate their own brand equity. I've seen a lot of firms, too, where they think they're a bigger deal than they really are. They don't have an accurate estimation of where they sit and are situated in the pecking order of law firms.

So I think the same thing with the partner. I think they might not give themselves enough credit that they can build a book. I talk to people all the time, "Tell me about your book." "Oh, it's between $500,000 to $1.5 million." I'm like, "You should be doing six to ten million a year." I'll tell them that. I'll say, "I talk to people just like you all day long that aren't as smart as you are and don't have this warmth that you have, that are billing six to ten million a year. You need to be at that level."

And it's almost like a light comes on, and sometimes they're just stuck. They're in a comfortable spot. They might be getting a lot of work from somebody else. Maybe they just haven't even conceived of the idea: "Hmm, I should build my own book." They just hadn't thought of that.

Some people—kid you not—I’ve actually told them, "You need to build your own practice." It's like the most obvious thing to you and to everybody else listening to this. There's some people that just thought, "I don't want to be a salesman. I just want to be a lawyer and I want to do sophisticated legal work for sophisticated clients and serve them in a very significant way."

Absolutely. But the world needs to know that you do that, and you need to feel okay taking that message out there through the ways that you teach people, Elise, in ways that serve them and help them be seen as that bona fide, credentialed expert that has substantive niche expertise that can solve significant problems for companies and individuals.

So I think that might be it. They just don't see themselves as a rainmaker. They've never been given permission to do it because they might be in somebody else's shadow. You know, it's comfortable being number four. "I'm getting a lot of work." But then I've seen this: the group moves. They take number one and number two, and number four is left at the firm. Then 12 months later, "We're letting you go for performance reasons." I've seen that too.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah. Well, they wind up having no agency. They have no control over their own career. They're always riding someone else's coattails. And while it may not feel like that in the moment, because you're doing good work and you're supporting the clients that are being given to you, at the end of the day, it turns out that you are really a cog in a wheel.

That may be okay, right? If that's what you want. For some people, that is what they want. But we're talking about people here who want something else. They want some more control over their own career. They want to feel that they're working with the kinds of clients they want to work with. They are reaching their full potential.

So let's say we're talking to a partner who is thinking of moving. What are the recommendations that you have for them? What are some of the things that they need to do in terms of self-evaluation and self-awareness to start with?

Scott Love: That's great. So I would say, get a journal. Because as you go through this process, it's going to be an emotional experience for you. And it's okay making a decision that is not based on emotion. But you can get excited about that.

I had one partner say, "I just don't want to get too emotional on this." I said, "You can't help it, because in spite of you being a tier-one, Chambers-ranked attorney, you're still a human being and you have feelings." So you want to make a safe decision.

He said, "Yes, exactly right." I said, "Part of that is having a dialogue in your head with yourself as you go through the process." When you talk to a firm, what were the pros, what were the cons, what did you like, what did you not like?

Some people say, "I'm going to talk to seven firms in the course of two weeks." I'm like, "That's a lot. Have maybe two meetings a week. You don't want to have three in a day."

"I'm going to have three in a day," I'm like, "You're not going to remember what the first conversation was, what the last one was, or who said it."

Elise Holtzman: Scott, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but what's making me laugh about that is when you said that, it reminded me of looking at houses. I remember many years ago, my husband and I were looking at houses, and we didn't have a lot of time. We had a baby at home back in New York City. We were coming out to New Jersey, and we said to the agent, "Show us as many houses as you can in one day." So we went into like eight or nine houses that first day, and we got back home and all I was doing was like picturing the upstairs of one house with the downstairs of another house with the backyard of another house. We didn't have phones in our hand that could take photos or anything like that, it was so overwhelming and so confusing. You can't process that much information in a short period of time.

Scott Love: I know. The way I set it up, so for example, I'm having a Zoom call next week with a partner. We've reached out to him. He said, "Yes, I want to move." He's got valid motives, valid goals. He's got the criteria of what our clients want to see in someone.

So it's kind of like what that realtor would say to you, "Tell me about what you want. How important are schools, neighborhood, et cetera, et cetera." That's the same thing I do with candidates. It's not the Scott show. The mission of my company is to channel partner self-interest where it intersects with law firm strategy. That's my company mission.

So as I tell them, get a journal because it's going to be an emotional rollercoaster ride as we go through this, and you want to memorialize those meetings in your journal. And it'll give you a chance to talk through in your head, what did you like, what did you not like?

But then I also will ask them the criteria. What's the criteria of something that would be absolutely perfect? So what are the goals that you have? What's the criteria?

And then I'll even get deep with them. I'll say, "On a scale of one to 10, where are you in that range in terms of satisfaction level with your firm?" "I'm probably about a six." "What would make it a 10?"

Those are the things I look for when I bring suggestions. So I try to start with, "Here are seven options, and we're not going to go too deep. I'm going to spend 30 seconds on each option, and I want you to tell me no to four of them." Then that's how we do it.

No, no, no, "I need a London office." No, no, no, no. "Okay, these three, we're going to start with these three."

The way I present them, I tell my clients, "Just so you know, the candidate is looking at a small number of firms. I don't share any information from one firm to another."

"How much did the candidate get from the other offers?" "What did the other firms offer?" I'm like, "I can't tell you that. I appreciate you asking, but I have that wall."

So anyways, I like to give them options. So as they're looking at the options, they can go to their journal and write that down. That's a really big part of that too.

I also think another thing they should do is assess what is their book looking like in terms of clients. I've got data on my site. I'll get that link in a little bit, some resources they can go to, to start compiling that information before they start talking with firms because they need to think about what is the firm that is the best option for their clients.

Again, going back to the client focus. I had a world-class, top-tier partner, number five in the world in his practice area. I presented him to four firms. He looked at three others on his own. So he looked at seven firms, and he nailed them all down.

No to these five. The last two were my clients because I knew exactly what he wanted. Both of them gave him an offer that was about the same. He asked me, he said, "Scott, which one do you think I should go to?" I said, "I'm never answering that question."

Elise Holtzman: Smart man.

Scott Love: Yeah, I don't want to be blamed if I'm wrong. But I said, "Which firm is best for your clients?" Instantly: "Oh, that firm." "Why is that?" "Because of this, this, this, and this."

That's how I work. It's not my perspective, I mean, it's my perspective, but it's not my decision. But if you make those decisions through the framework of, "Which firm is best for my clients?" then you know when you go there, your portable book is most likely to follow. Hopefully, right? We never know.

So that's why we have to look for probabilities. I use game theory a lot in my business, Elise, because nothing's guaranteed. So which firm has the highest likelihood of your business porting over two to make it into a safe landing where everybody's happy, and which firm is going to be best for you to harvest new opportunities?

So that's what I think they need to do. And then also, like I mentioned before, get real clear on what you want to accomplish by moving. Because if what you want to accomplish by moving can be accomplished in your own firm, then you probably should consider staying there, unless there's a leadership issue, like I mentioned.

It's so interesting. It's funny, I get paid to tell people it's better somewhere else, and I'll tell them many times, "You shouldn't go, and you shouldn't go."

Elise Holtzman: Which is probably why people trust you. I mean, anybody can spot a salesman. If you're really devoted to your clients, there are times when, if I talk to somebody who is kicking the tires and thinking about working with us, and I don't think it's a good fit for them, I'll say, "Listen, I'm not sure this is a good fit. Let me see if I can get you to the right person."

So yeah, you might lose a couple of dollars, but you retain your integrity, and you know that you have a mission and you're working towards it. So that's good stuff to hear. So it strikes me that some of this is a blind item. It's like any interview process. You go, you interview—even an intro-level job—you go, you interview, you ask questions, they ask questions, and then you're supposed to go home and make a decision.

We're talking about private companies here, so we don't necessarily have access to the kind of data that we want to have. Everybody's on their best behavior in these sorts of situations, and so you're not necessarily seeing personalities come through or red flags or anything like that.

Are there certain questions that you recommend that your clients ask in interviews to make sure that they really can tease apart whether this is a good fit for them or not?

Scott Love: To clarify for clients, you mean the candidates moving, the partners moving?

Elise Holtzman: Yes, sorry, the partners moving.

Scott Love: That's great. I would tell them, in your mind, ask yourself, "How do I know with a high degree of certainty that this is the best option for me?"

So do your research on the firm, and you might not ever know—any firm—is it absolutely going to work or not? What you don't want to do is go to a firm where, two years later, "Oh, that's what it's like." You finally figured it out, and it's just not working.

How do you do that? Research. I think looking at reviews. I also think talking to people that you know in that firm, or people that left that firm, too.

One thing we do for every person we're working with—because I've got a full-time director of research—we will find people that our candidates know in the firms that they're going to be interviewing with before we make the submission.

So that way, if they want to do intel—"I'm thinking about having a recruiter submit my credentials there. How's it going? Tell me, how's it going for you?"—we'll give them that data before we make the submission to them.

So if there's anybody there you want to do some diligence with, talk to them. I think that's the best way to do it.

I think that—and you know the answer to this—people like to do business with those they know, like, and what? And trust. So we try to help our candidates earn trust with our clients even before the meeting by doing things like that.

Some of the best placements we've made are those where there's already trust between the candidate and the firm. For example, they were opposing counsel five years ago, but they had a very good working relationship.

"Yes, we want that person. Because even though we were the opposition, we respect that person. We like how he does business. We trust him. Even though we were opposing counsel, we want to work with that person. And now we can do it."

So I think those are the things people need to be thinking about, "Which firm is going to be in your client's best interest?" and, "How can I find the answer to that question out before I even start interviewing?"

Elise Holtzman: Let's talk about money. Obviously, money is a part of this. In order to be able to command the compensation that you want, you've got to have the solid book of business and presumably have the firm trust that you're going to be able to have that business be portable and come to them.

Then also, presumably, that you're going to be able to grow the business. So what are some of the things that the candidate should be doing or thinking about in terms of compensation while interviewing and perhaps while making a decision about which firm is going to be the best place for them?

Scott Love: Sure. I would say, number one, understand your own comp. Understand when are you getting paid? When is that final distribution? Are there any criteria that would keep you from getting that?

Such as, if you give notice before a certain time, is your firm going to hold that cap contribution or distribution back? So I would say, understand what you're getting paid and how it's getting paid and when. And read your partnership agreement.

I would start with that. Understand that before you start taking meetings. Because what you don't want to do is, "Oh, here's an offer from a firm. Oh, let me see how I'm getting paid."

"Oh geez. That's a good offer—I just can't take it because I've got to wait six months." That's a mistake I've made in the past, so that's why I tell people now.

Also, understanding what your goals are in moving. It is the correct decision to move sometimes when your initial base comp could be a third less than what your base comp is now.

When you know there’s going to be a payoff, and it might not be an economic payoff. There could be a psychological payoff, such as, "I'm going to be with people that I know and I trust them and I like them and that's worth something to me," or, "I'm going to go down in my initial comp. I'm going to charge a rate that's about 70% of what I'm charging my clients now."

So that's a strategic move, and I know it's going to make up for that economically in the next two to three years. So I think knowing what you get paid, when and how, read your partnership agreement, understand all that so you don’t have any hesitations. And then know what you're willing to live on until you get that payday.

I’ve also made placements where here’s a successful partner whose book isn’t as high as it used to be, and he needed to move to a firm where they could only offer him counsel. But, "We’re going to help you regain partnership," and within 18 months, partner. Boom. He did it. That was the correct decision for him to go down in comp a little bit, a big step down in title.

He went to a big firm as counsel from a pretty good-sized national firm as partner. That was the correct decision for him to do that. Other situations I’ve seen, equity partnership, "I’m willing to go to a firm as an income partner because I can get back to equity status in a healthier, happier way with that particular firm."

That is the correct decision for some people sometimes. So I think, know what your goals are. Again, it goes back to the perspective of your clients, what are your goals? And perhaps it does make sense to go to a firm where you're taking a step back in title or comp or other guarantees or other things because you know there's some sort of payoff.

And it might not be an economic payoff. But when you are with the right firm and you've got the right people, practices—all the other variables—it’s like three-dimensional chess, Elise, as you know. Then there will be a payoff in the future.

Elise Holtzman: I think I have the typical lawyer personality in that as you talk about these things, I start thinking about the risks. I can’t help myself.

It’s like, "Well, what if they say that I have the possibility to get back to being partner from counsel, or I have the possibility of making equity, or this is how they do the comp, and if I bring in all this business, they're going to increase my comp," or, "They say they're going to give me all of this kind of support that I don't have at my prior firm but what if it really is window dressing and it's not really happening?"

What are some of the risks that come up for lateral partners as they're thinking about moving, whether they’re obvious ones or ones that people don’t typically think about?

Scott Love: I would say—and I would answer your question this way—there’s always going to be risk in every business scenario. You moving from one firm to another, you have built a business. You are an entrepreneur.

And that business, we want it to move with you and go to a firm where you can build that and rebuild that. And understanding that yes, there are risks.

Ask yourself, "How can I mitigate the likelihood of those risks taking place?" This is what I call connection points and force multipliers. That’s what I try to do.

It used to be, Elise, back in the day, because I've been recruiting literally 30 years, since 1995, pre-internet. In a different niche, got into legal halfway through that time.

It used to be firms would say, "We love your partner with the $6 million book. By the way, what does he do again?" It used to be like that. Now, firms are much more strategic.

I think they've taken some hits on the chin and they've recovered, and they've adapted and they've gotten a little bit more precise in their hiring strategy. There are some amazing firms with big names that just don’t know what they’re doing in that regard.

So anyway, getting back to your question. I think with the partner moving, how do we mitigate that risk? Look for connection points, such as: we have a shared client. That means—assuming that the origination comp question works to everybody’s satisfaction—that’s less risky because we have a shared client.

So that’s what I look for. I look for connection points, that’s what I call them. But I also look for a force multiplier.

Such as: by adding this group, they will fulfill a strategic goal that we have had for three or four years, and we know that with this group, they will fulfill our strategic objective. Because we know we can get more work from this particular client or in this particular sector where we have done work before.

That’s a force multiplier. Or another force multiplier—like a connection point—have a shared client. A force multiplier is, "I do the type of work within this shared client that this new prospective firm has been trying to get for years, and they can’t because they don’t have anybody like me. Me going there, I can bring that business with me and fulfill that strategic goal that they just can’t get, except for me."

Those are things I look for. In my algorithm, when I talk to someone, it’s three-dimensional chess, all the variables.

Because I’ve met with 70 firms in person, because I keep a high profile on the legal industry, and I daydream about law firm strategy at night and I stay up late reading spreadsheets about law firm data, I’m able to kind of assess and say, "Don’t go to that firm, don’t go to that firm. This firm, yes, yes, yes."

It’s just based on my own empirical research on that. But I would say: look for connection points and force multipliers.

If you come in and fulfill a previously conceived strategy, that’s a force multiplier. I’ve done some deals, here’s someone with a big book. We don’t have an antitrust practice, and there’s no integration here. A couple of years later, the person that joined the firm with the big book was let go of the firm because they just couldn’t make it work.

Because they didn’t have an integration protocol. And that’s something else I’d say, ask the recruiter you’re working with, "Tell me about that firm’s integration protocols."

Is there any data that you can give them to show them that, "Once I’m there, I’m not going to be a silo"?

Getting somebody to join the firm, that’s phase one. Getting them to build in the firm, that’s phase two. And you want to make sure that the building phase is there in any firm you go to.

And I would—even if it were me—I would request a meeting with the director of integration of a firm. I would challenge them in a friendly way, right? Not challenge like they’re going to take offense.

"You don’t think I can do my job?" No. I would ask them detail and push back a little so that you get a good comfort level knowing that you’re taking a shot. If you go there and it doesn’t work out, the firm’s going to be just fine, but you won’t. So that’s how I’d recommend that, Elise.

Elise Holtzman: I have heard the statistic that 50% of lateral hires fail within the first five years. I’ve also heard the research done by Dr. Heidi Gardner at Harvard about how laterals are much more likely to succeed at firms if they are having those touchpoints that you mentioned, Scott.

Collaborating internally, working together on client matters, both the new lateral working on other people’s matters and other people working on the lateral’s matters that he or she has brought in.

What do you see? Do you see that many lateral hires failing? I may have to have you back to talk about integration, but do you see that many lateral hires failing? If so, what are you seeing that the partners themselves who have moved might be doing wrong? For example, siloing themselves or something like that?

Scott Love: I personally haven't seen that statistic in the work that we do. I would also challenge people to look at what is the corporate statistic of people in business. What are their statistics? It's probably a coin flip as well.

But I do think, hey, it's your firm, you don't want to have a 50% chance. How can you shore up that gap and increase the odds of that working out? I've actually done seminars at NALP and other managing partner roundtables where I talk about that: how do we get better odds than a coin flip?

I would say yes, that probably is accurate across the board, but I would say three things. Number one, have a really good business case as to why this person will be successful here. Yes, it does have to be synergistic. It does have to be—I hate to say it—"one plus one equals three or more."

Number one, you have to have a really good business case. Number two, you actually have to have an integration plan. I think, my own opinion is, have paid professionals who are involved in integration in the firm, not just, "Here's a partner that has nothing else to do."

No, you don't want to have somebody doing two jobs getting paid for one because it's not going to get the kind of time if they're not billing hours, you know it's kind of not going to be a priority. Make sure they have a paid integration person that does that.

Number three, I would look for what's the track record in the past. "Tell me about people that worked out. Tell me about people that didn't work out." That’s how I would phrase that for people looking to move to a firm, look at it through that lens.

Elise Holtzman: In your experience, when a partner with a book of business moves to a new firm, how successful are most people left to their own devices actually having their book of business be portable? We talk about this idea of a portable book of business, well, I guess, first of all, how successful do you see people being in it?

Second of all, how can the moving partner do a good job of making sure that he or she is able to bring those clients over?

Scott Love: I'd say, first and foremost, follow the ethics laws or the ethics rules. In our podcast, a recent episode, we had Hilary Gerzhoy, who counsels partners on movement, and moving to other firms. That's number one. She gives rules on how to do that. I would say that’s number one.

Number two, I would look at opportunities where you can serve your existing clients where they're not being served right now. Again, it goes back to the client perspective. I would look for places, a nd I would even recommend drafting a business plan unique to the firm that you're going to go to. Spend time on their side. Look at their bios, look at the people, and if you can get data on which companies they work with, see if that aligns with the companies that you know. Get real clear on that business plan, on how we can make sure that business is going to pull you over.

I'd say those are probably the two most important things I’d recommend: make sure that you follow all the ethics issues because you don't want to give your firm a reason to just cut you loose or do things to you that I've seen some people have had done to them.

Then some other things I just thought of: I remember we had one partner go to a small firm, and this was a 33-attorney firm. He was coming from a really big firm, and I didn't think to ask this question, but when he got there, he didn't last more than a year, I think it was after 10 months.

The issue was that his largest client wouldn't go there because that firm did not have a diversity initiative. This was probably in 2017, before it was top of mind like it is now. That was something I didn't think to ask. He didn't think to ask because he can't talk to his client until after he goes to the new firm.

"Hey, here I am. Let's bring that $2 million book over." "Oh, you know what? We can't do that." Because they don't have a diversity initiative.

The worst thing in the world is to be stuck in a place where, "Gosh, I mean, I didn't know to ask that question, Elise."

So I think looking at it from that perspective: how can you mitigate that risk in moving, and how do all those connection points fit so that you can sink yourself deeply into that new firm?

Elise Holtzman: I feel like we're coming full circle because it really goes back to what you mentioned at the very beginning of our chat today, which is serving your clients and making sure that when you get to the new firm, those clients are going to have everything they need—and maybe some of what they want that they didn't even know they wanted—before you make any determinations.

So yeah, you've got to be selfish in a sense—your own self-interest that you talked about. But that diversity issue would have been solved perhaps by the partner doing a deeper dive on, "What are all the things that my client needs in order to feel that they can continue working with me and be successful?"

Scott Love: Exactly right.

Elise Holtzman: Interesting stuff. Scott, as we wrap up our time together today, I want to ask you a question that I ask all of my guests at the end of the show.

There's a phenomenon called the curse of knowledge, where experts sometimes forget that what is so obvious and natural to them is not at all obvious to other people.

When it comes to law firm partners making lateral moves, what's a principle or piece of advice that may seem obvious to you but is important for people to hear?

Scott Love: I would say answer the question of why. "Why would someone work with you?" Start with that. Why would someone work with you?

Again, going to the client perspective. If you can answer that question—and I think the book written by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy called 10x Is Easier Than 2x—Dan Sullivan, executive coach, he talks about: what is your unique value? What is that one thing that you're good at, better than everybody else in the world, the number one thing?

I think taking that same concept: "What is that one thing about you? Why would they work with you?" If you build your whole business plan based on that, you're going to be okay.

I think people just forget. "I'm too busy. Got my head down. Grinding it out. Doing my work." They forget that strategic question: "Why would people work with me?" Start with that.

Elise Holtzman: That’s great advice, Scott. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here today. This has been a really interesting conversation. I think it's going to be of tremendous value to some people who are thinking about the possibility of leaving, or, as you say, maybe making the decision to stay where they are and succeed in their existing platform.

I also want to thank our listeners for tuning in. If you've enjoyed today's show, please subscribe, rate, and review us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. In the meantime, be bold, take action, and make things happen. We'll see you next time.