At Sheppard Mullin, as at most large law firms, recruiting law students and lateral attorneys consumes signifant amounts of energy and money. And it should. The practice of law is a service profession, and a law firm can only be as good in delivering service to its clients as the caliber of its lawyers. But it is possible to go about recruiting in a perfunctory - albeit expensive - manner: go to the best law schools; make offers to the people with the best grades; and hope that those who accept will succeed.
A better approach is to consdier recruiting in the context of the firm's human resource strategy. The firm's approach to recruiting should be guided by a thoughtful analysis of the types of lawyers the firm wants to hire. At Sheppard Mullin, our objective is to hire people who are not only highly capable, but are likley to succeed in our firm. These people will provide longterm service to our clients, and carry our firm into future generations. We take this objective seriously; we elected 10 of our associates to partnership last year, notwithstanding the global economic crisis.
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