Transcript

Matt Halloran [00:00:02]:

Welcome to the Life Unlimited podcast with Larry Heller. You deserve complete financial advice so you can confidently live your life your way for life. Now let’s get into this week’s podcast episode. Hello and welcome to another Life Unlimited podcast with your host, Larry Heller. Today we are talking to Shari Davidson about legal recruiting unveiled.

Shari Davidson [00:00:27]:

Right.

Matt Halloran [00:00:27]:

We’re going to talk about trends and challenges and success stories now. She is the founder and president of On Balance Search Consultants. It is a boutique legal recruiting firm with over 20 years experience in recruiting and development. Shari specializes in placing attorneys and groups, establishing regional offices for national law firms, and facilitating law firm mergers.

Known for her industry experience and expertise and high retention placements, Shari focuses on long term career success, not just the next job. All right, Larry, take it away.

Larry Heller [00:00:58]:

Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Shari. The audience is going to love you as a guest today.

We have a lot to unwrap and talk about the legal world and the legal recruiting world. So why don’t we just get right into it and talk about kind of what are the trends that you’re seeing today in the legal market and beyond in 2025 and beyond?

Shari Davidson [00:01:19]:

Well, first, Larry, I want to thank you and tell you I’m very honored to be here today. The trends. We are in a candidate shortage and it really started in 2008, 2009 with the last recession and what has happened.

And then we have Covid. So children were not going to law school, they weren’t graduating. And then now we don’t have those skills. So now we had Covid. So a lot of the candidates still don’t have the skill sets they need for the positions that are available today.

So right now the talent shortage probably could be sitting around a dinner table of four or five attorneys, accountants, retailers, and everybody’s going to be complaining about talent. It’s just not there.

Larry Heller [00:02:06]:

Are you talking about a shortage in the junior world? The people that you know post Covid or across across all different sizes.

Shari Davidson [00:02:17]:

It’s across all different sizes.

First of all, we’re at the lowest point of unemployment in years and I believe as of last week it was like 1.9% for just attorneys for unemployment. That’s very low. Anything under 3% is low. So finding the candidate that you really want and the ones that you’re going to find on indeed. Or any of the job boards, 9 times out of 10 unfortunately do not have the skill set that you’re looking for.

So and that’s part of the problem. And then the next part of the problem that we have or the challenge I Don’t like to say. Problem is that we are. A lot of baby boomers are still working. I’m a baby boomer, I’m still working.

So we’re looking to keep going forward. And we really don’t have anybody to bring with us to go forward because they’re just not out there or they just don’t want to do the jobs that we’re doing at this time.

Larry Heller [00:03:12]:

What do you mean by bring forward?

Shari Davidson [00:03:14]:

Bringing forward. For instance, a lot of the baby boomers saying, oh, my secession plan, I’ll go into be the associates in my firm.

But they never really discuss it with the associates. So the associate looks to the right, they look to the left and they say, what’s going to happen to my career? So they actually will walk out with half their book of business. And then the attorney who’s there, they’re scratching their head saying, all my clients just went with this younger attorney. And I have no one to take over my law firm.

Larry Heller [00:03:46]:

So it’s a little bit different. I’ve had these conversations before with some people. So there’s really not a value to sell the law firms with the clients. So I want to just talk a little bit about that, expand upon that a little bit.

Shari Davidson [00:04:02]:

Well, I would say selling a law firm is really.

Because first of all, lawyers do not own the client and the clients can go wherever they want. So you sell the law firm, you can’t. There’s no one to really, what are you selling? Maybe the computers, the hardware, the software, and maybe some of the talent. But on the most part, the clients aren’t going to make the decision if the business is going to stay with the firm or not.

So you really, the best way to do that is to think now for your recession planning. Have a conversation with me and then figure out what the next steps are. Do you bring people up from below, meaning the associates, and saying this is what you want to do. And believe it or not, there’s a lot of associates don’t want to own a law firm. Like, they don’t even want to own homes anymore.

So they’re not looking for that. So you have to figure out where you are in the marketplace. And I’m finding a lot of the smaller firms can’t compete with whatever talent is out there with larger firms because the larger firms can give more benefits, more money, more opportunity, more cross selling, you name it. Where the small firms may not be able to do that at this time. So what the larger firms are actually eating up.

A lot of the small firms And I’m actually doing a lot of mergers and acquisition, and I expect most of my business next year will be that.

Larry Heller [00:05:28]:

So let me just go. What’s the difference in your mind when you talk about large firm versus small firms?

Shari Davidson [00:05:34]:

Okay, there’s something called the AM200. That’s the top 200 law firms internationally and nationally.

But that’s not the area that I always believe in working because there’s. It’s just too big of a machine. I like working with the middle market firms, the firms that have 40, 60, 100 attorneys. So that, to me, would be even a larger firm absorbing the five to 10 attorney firms.

Larry Heller [00:05:59]:

So do you see in some of these.

We just talked about, you know, succession planning and, you know, do these firms kind of proactively talk about that? Culturally wise to start with, the junior associates are right up the beginning. Hey, this is kind of the progression. So maybe weed some of those out or be able to hire some of those attorneys that want to progress to the next level and potentially take over or become a partner.

Shari Davidson [00:06:30]:

I want to say the leadership right now is still thinking like they were thinking in the 1960s and beyond.

Really. Law firms are a little bit slower on going forward. Covid did something very interesting. There were a couple of firms that really embraced Covid immediately. I had one candidate that was starting literally the day of the shutdown, and he opened up his door and there was a computer and everything ready to go.

They were technology savvy and ready. But the firms that have been working for many, many years from now, you know, for years, they didn’t think of the technology that I need to have the technology for people to work from home. And yet that is. And I just want to put a caveat in here, a little sidebar. Young attorneys cannot learn law from being home.

They have to be in the law firms next to the senior attorneys. So when the clients come in, they are sitting at the table and really learning. They’re not going to learn from their living rooms at home.

Larry Heller [00:07:37]:

I think that goes through with a lot of industries out there. But it’s a challenge because the younger generation wants to work from home, and there’s a crunch on employment.

So if they don’t give in, they may not get certain key employees. So it’s a balancing act to really. To really try to manage. I know my industry. That’s the kind of same way the accounting industry is even.

Probably even worse right now. So let’s. Let’s just kind of go back. We were talking a little bit about the Attorneys considering a retirement or maybe a possible move. So why don’t you kind of give us some advice and what you would do to help them make the most out of their opportunities.

Shari Davidson [00:08:17]:

Okay. I call myself your GPS system for attorneys. I help guide them through the mirage of reaching out to different law firms and figuring out what firm would be the right fit. Understanding what the candidate and. And by the way, candidate and law firm are pretty much interchangeable with me because one minute somebody could be my candidate, and the next minute they can be my client.

But understanding the needs of what that attorney needs to do to leverage their book of business, or what they want to do if they want to retire in five years or do they want to work until they’re 90? And believe it or not, I have a lot of attorneys that want to work all the way up to the last minute of their life. They enjoy it, especially the trusted estate attorneys. I find they just really love helping people and they want to be doing that. They may not want to do it 80 hours a week, they might want to do it 50 hours a week.

That’s for them scaling back. So finding out what their needs are and then finding the firm that might absorb them and take them in and saying, yes, we would love you to come. Love for you to help teach our younger attorneys how to be better attorneys and how. And to be able to take over their books of business eventually. In case there is a trigger event, what’s going to happen to the law firm?

So when I find a law firm that says it’s blank and associates, usually the person, the main person and the associates, they’re not telling the associates what their plans are for the rest of the. With the firm. They just think they’re going to get up and work until they’re 90. But the younger attorneys at that point are turning around saying, well, what happens if, God forbid, there’s a trigger event? What’s going to happen to my job?

So they’re jumping ship and going to other firms and taking literally nine times out of 10, half of the book, if not more, of their business. So that that becomes a major problem in our industry right now.

Larry Heller [00:10:22]:

Yes. I was going to kind of ask, you know, what are the biggest challenges the firms face? I’m guessing that’s the biggest one.

But what are some of the other, you know, big challenges that they’re facing and how can they address them to effectively combat them?

Shari Davidson [00:10:36]:

Well, it’s culture. I always say the bigger the book of business the person has and brings to the firm, they have probably more clout within that firm than anybody else because they have the larger clients and more money coming in. However, if they’re not telling the younger attorneys what they expect or what they want to do, and I’m saying have conversations, not scream at people and belittle them. Have conversations.

This is what we want to do. What are your goals? How do we all align our goals? That’s how a culture becomes. How do you align everybody’s goals to do the same thing for growth?

And I think that’s the biggest challenge because when we were growing up, or I should say when I was growing up, we were told, you do your job, keep your head down and just do it. Whatever the boss says to you, do it. The younger attorneys, the younger generation will say, why? And we don’t want to explain why. I know, listen, I am a baby boomer, so I’m going to say we don’t want.

I just told you to do it. So communication, I think is really the biggest problem within law firms right now, is to communicate what you want to do, how you want it to be done, the way, the best way to do it, and to be open for other suggestions for things to go forward.

Larry Heller [00:12:00]:

As these firms continue to merge. And if someone’s looking to go to, from say, a smaller firm to another firm, how can you protect, how can someone be protected to moving to a firm and then that firm merging with a larger firm can’t.

Shari Davidson [00:12:18]:

I mean, there’s no.

You cannot ever say that. However, you can do ask due diligence, good questions. Like one of my favorite questions is if I was to be you to hire me today and a year from now we’re sitting down for my evaluation, what would I have had to have done to exceed your expectations? And I’m going to tell you, a lot of my clients can’t answer that question because they really all they think they need that three to five year associate to do xyz. They’re not thinking about, all right, we bring in this three to five year associate to do this. But where is it going to go to the long term?

It’s not for the immediate need. It’s for the long term. They don’t look too far ahead.

Larry Heller [00:13:28]:

Yes. No, that.

I mean, I think that’s a Great. You know, that’s a great question, because I think a lot of these firms, like you said, they’re looking at a time frame here, or even if they. Some of the firms don’t even have a timeframe in here. So if you’re hiring somebody and they want to know what the. The process, the procedure is, and there is no clear path, there’s a big disconnect.

And when they come aboard, that’s when some of the issues come forward. In any company, I’m guessing.

Shari Davidson [00:13:57]:

Absolutely. I mean, I call it promis phobia. We promise you, the world, you walk in, the job is a totally opposite of what you think the job is going to be.

And now you say, now what? And then you see that that actual person may jump from one job to another and not have a footing because that candidate is not asking the right questions on the interview, as well as they don’t know what they want to do. I don’t know why. In law school, they never really train their attorneys in how to manage their careers.

Larry Heller [00:14:31]:

And that’s, you know, I would think, unfortunately, a lot of industries don’t do that.

So then how can you find the right culture when you’re trying to match an attorney with certain partners of the firm to make sure that there’s a, you know, going to be a good fit for both the candidate and the firm?

Shari Davidson [00:14:49]:

Well, many questions I have to ask the client, which you, the other law firm saying, what are you looking for? Paint a picture for me of what the perfect candidate is for you. And then when I speak to the candidate, my favorite question is, tell me what you want to be when you grow up. That’s the first question I ask a lot of my candidates.

They start laughing or they’ll tell me, I’m already an attorney and I know what kind of personality I’m working with already. So now I say, okay, he’s very serious, or she’s very serious, and this is what this person is looking to do. And I love when attorneys that come to me to make a transition are transparent with me. If they say, you know what, three to five years, I’d love to start a family, but I want to do commercial litigation. I said, is that really what you want?

Or would you rather maybe start steering yourself into trust and estate litigation? So maybe you. Or maybe even just trusting the states so you can make your lifestyle a little bit different and build your lifestyle around your practice. So now all of a sudden, you’re. You’re building what you want and where you’re Going to go.

Another metaphor I use a lot is what is your box top look like? Do you do jigsaw puzzles at all, Larry?

Larry Heller [00:16:08]:

I do jigasaw puzzles. I haven’t done one in a while, but I love jigsaw puzzles.

Shari Davidson [00:16:13]:

Yeah, I do too.

But what do you do when you take all the thousand pieces out when you first put it out on your table?

Larry Heller [00:16:19]:

Well, yeah, I know. I’ve actually gone through this with someone, had this conversation about trying to make the outside, getting all the edges around the outside first so you can get that and then matching the colors. And that’s kind of what you, you know, kind of what you do when it’s time to build a puzzle.

Shari Davidson [00:16:35]:

What do you do with the box?

Do you put it on the side or you throw the box out?

Larry Heller [00:16:41]:

No, the boxes turn towards you, in front of you while you’re doing this. So you can kind of see.

Shari Davidson [00:16:46]:

Yes. Okay.

So that’s what I say. What does your box top look like? Where do you see yourself at the end of the rainbow? What do you want to get at the end of the day? And then we try to fill in the pieces to match what your needs are.

And then I look for law firms that will match those needs. And I can jump into probably another question, probably say, tell me about a success story. I had a candidate. He was a. He was working on the island.

He was franchise attorney, excellent attorney. He had several paralegals, and he had associates. But he wasn’t going to grow his book further than where it was. He really needed to have offices in California, Chicago, Miami, and he did not want to travel into Manhattan on a daily basis. So with those, that information just on location, the next thing I asked, what kind of practices areas do you need to support your franchise clients?

He said labor and employment, real estate, corporate intellectual property. I took all that, came up with several different firms, presented them, and he had a choice of which firm would work with him and which firm wanted to open up an office on the island for him so he can eventually have his cake and eat it too. So at the end of the day, he had everything that he needed.

Larry Heller [00:18:13]:

Right. Do you go through, you know, like you said, culturally, some firms, they want to, you know, they’re working crazy hours and they expect certain billing numbers.

Other firms are a little bit more flexible with their rates. I mean, do you have those kind of conversations ahead of time?

Shari Davidson [00:18:32]:

Absolutely. If it’s a partner with the book of business, I always like to know what they’ve done the last past three years. And with COVID Sometimes they might even go two years behind it because I believe history does repeat itself.

And then we look at all of that and then we look at what other firms and how many hours they’re billing. If I have one candidate that is billing 500 hours but has a book of business of $2 million, I mean, there’s something to be said about that. So we try to understand that. But some firms will say you only have five clients and you have $2 million book of business. That doesn’t make sense for us.

We need to have a $5 billion book of business and have 10 clients minimum. So that, that point we have to look at your book, how to carve it out, as well as finding out the law firms that are interested in having a, a candidate come on board.

Larry Heller [00:19:27]:

That expectations and the positions you’re taking are. Well, I’ll ask it a different way. You know, what is then an ideal client for you?

Shari Davidson [00:19:39]:

Ideal client is actually knows what they want. I know that sounds really funny, but even a candidate, I mean, I. When somebody calls me and says I’m looking for a new job, I said, I don’t, I don’t find new jobs. I am not a temp. I’m not a Robin half.

I’m not, you know, just put you in a job, collect the commission and run. I want to know what your career looks like and where you want to go. And then I look at the law firms and I ask them, where are you going? What are you doing?

Larry Heller [00:20:08]:

If Are you looking for candidates that have their own clients to bring to another firm or if you’re looking a candidate that’s kind of an expert in the field, they don’t need clients to go to another, another firm.

Which ones kind of you. You helping?

Shari Davidson [00:20:24]:

I prefer having the candidate that has a book of business because that they already are goal oriented. They already know what they want. They really.

And they want job security. So like in 2008, 2009, we go back to that. I had this candidate. I’m going to tell you, any recruiter, a mouse Rule, Harvard candidate, 10 years, two jobs, you know, perfect. What’s your book of business?

And when they tell me, well, I was told in law school, if I want to sell potato chips, open up a potato chip factory, if I want clients, they’ll come to me. I’m going to tell you. When I heard that, my mouth fell open. Networking is important. So I will actually even help candidates how to network or even how to build a book of business better.

I will coach them through that do you get involved?

Larry Heller [00:21:16]:

Let’s say a company is looking for an in house counsel. Is that something that you work with?

Shari Davidson [00:21:21]:

Attorneys in house counsel positions I really do not work with as often. First of all, you will have 20 to 500 attorneys applying for the same job.

If you look at the banking world and how many mergers and acquisitions in the last 20 years, the bigger bank, you know, and everybody’s writing their own pink slips and you have no idea how many trusts in house counsel people that I’ve actually worked with that actually literally turned the key and locked the doors on their way out. They did. And they have no job. So now they’re competing with all these other people who want in house counsel jobs. And by the way, the reason why 9 times out of 10 why somebody will say they want in house counsel over working in a law firm is because of billable hours.

The reason why people don’t like billable hours is because they feel like the measurement and they’re being yelled at, get your hours in, get your hours in. It’s a great measurement. It shows you where your time is going. Don’t use it as negative. And law firms shouldn’t be.

The leadership of Washington should not be using that as a way to punish people. How do we help you build up billable hours? And then the realization rate on the billable hours is important. Just billing out hours and not getting paid means nothing. You got to get paid for those hours.

So it’s really important that you use the billable hours as a great metric to grow. Now you go work for a company, you don’t have billable hours. Now you can work from 9 to 5, but you might get fired a little quicker because of mergers and acquisitions, private equity buying the companies and they no longer need your services. And now you, you’re scrambling to get another job. It’s not.

And by the way, the salaries are usually a lot less in a corporation versus a law firm. And I always say to an attorney, go get yourself four or five clients, become their outside counsel. One client decides to give it to their son or sell private equity. You find another client and put it in there, you will have job security. You will not be losing your job.

Larry Heller [00:23:45]:

Right. So you’re, you’re helping individuals that have kind of their own clients kind of find a better fit, better place for them about a housing place for them. That’s kind of what you see is your sweet spot.

Shari Davidson [00:24:01]:

Yes, absolutely. Matter of fact, several years ago Goldman Sachs had a job out there, great job.

And I had maybe two or three candidates to place in that firm. They had over 200 applicants. So think about that. 200 applicants. I’m sure they were able to find one really fabulous applicant and didn’t have to pay me for my fee or, or anybody else for that matter.

And I knew another recruiter that put in like 30 different names into the applicant pool. It was just a total waste of time. And they also could pay a lot less. Not working with the recruiter, right?

Larry Heller [00:24:44]:

Well, I guess maybe if the client was your client, the corporation was your client.

That’s what I was kind of trying to find find out. And you’re finding the candidate for them.

Shari Davidson [00:24:54]:

Yeah. Now I’ve had clients work with me. I’ve had and I have found only if a client calls me and says, listen, I have, I have, I need an attorney to do XYZ and to be working in our office and I’m going to use your exclusively, then I will work for that corporation.

It does not pay to do the. As I said, because you will always find 150 applicants for that one in house position. And it’s only because they don’t want billable hours. But once you get into that corporation and working, you still have to do your job and you still have to bill out hours. It may not be called billable hours, but you have to show at the end of the year what, how you gave profit to that company.

Larry Heller [00:25:48]:

Let’s pivot back to where you can really help and kind of, what is kind of your specialty to help someone that’s looking to, maybe not even looking to change jobs, but is really kind of moving along in their career and wants to go to a, to another firm or want to kind of, kind of explain that.

Shari Davidson [00:26:13]:

Okay, my perfect candidate. All right. Or if somebody who I can help is one who’s transparent with me, tells me what they want, what their end goal is. And even, even if you’re not sure what your end goal is, we could discuss it and at least start working towards a direction and then finding the firms that meet those, those needs of that candidate.

That’s the main thing. If a candidate has a book of business, and even if the book of business is fifty thousand dollars, a hundred thousand dollars, why is it low? Tell me, why is it low? And then sometimes the firms that they’re working at, they just want worker bees. If you just want to work be and you really want to start building your own book and the firm is not supporting you, then we need to find a firm that will support you and help you grow that book and what you need.

So taking all the things that that person needs, their lifestyle, what they want to get out of their career and where they want to RET. At 26 years old coming out of law school, you’re not thinking about retirement. I know I wasn’t thinking about retirement 26 years ago, you know, so it was a little bit more than that 26 years ago, but I wasn’t thinking about it, you know, but if you have an idea what you want to do and where you want to go and that’s the way I can help direct you.

Larry Heller [00:27:39]:

Great. So hopefully everyone out there got a little bit of a taste of what Shari can do and some some tips and pointers and some of the questions that maybe you want to ask when you’re on your interview.

So, Shari, what’s the best way, how can someone contact you?

Shari Davidson [00:27:54]:

You can reach me at 516-731-3400 or email me at Sharinbalance search.com or go to my website at www. On balance search.com or LinkedIn. You can find me. I am there.

I am here. Please, if you leave me a message, call me. Leave that message. I do answer them. I will call you back.

Larry Heller [00:28:22]:

Great. Thanks, Shari, for joining us today.

Shari Davidson [00:28:25]:

Thank you.

Matt Halloran [00:28:26]:

And we will make sure that we have all of those links that Shari just talked about in our show notes, but please make sure that you go ahead and leave a message. If you are a Shari’s ideal candidate, please please reach out because it sounds to me like everything that she’s doing is really what you’re looking.

It can be really helpful for you to grow your firm. And if you are in a law firm and you’re looking for a financial services firm that can truly help you bring your firm to the next level to hire and retain and more importantly, help your overall balance sheet. Larry and Heller Wealth Management have a great 401k program that works very, very well for firms just like yours. So for Shari and Larry, this is Matt Halloran and we’ll see you on the other side of the mic very soon.