In a recent feature in The American Lawyer, Haley Revel’s commentary on the increasing focus on talent management in the legal industry, in which firms are beginning to focus on managing an employee’s career life cycle through integration, retention, and professional development, is mentioned.
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom’s hiring of its first chief people officer, in addition to other recent hires of talent focused leadership roles across the industry, signals a recognition of the importance of talent development in the overall law firm business structure.
Historically, firms have structured their HR departments into two facets – a department overseeing lawyers and a department overseeing business professionals. The shift to a model in which one position oversees the firm’s cumulative employees indicates the acknowledgement that talent is talent, regardless of the job function.
This change aligns with the continued corporatization of law firms, in which they are run more like a traditional business than a partnership and recognize the importance of attracting and retaining strategic business professionals in order to drive firm success.
Recently, Calibrate placed Jamie Lawless, a strategic, business-forward leader with deep law firm and corporate experience, as CEO at Am Law 100 firm Husch Blackwell. Her placement displays the firm’s commitment to empowering skilled business professionals that position the company for significant growth.
Haley Revel previously told Law.com that the best way to keep existing talent (and potentially recruit new talent) is to make sure that development is full spectrum.
“Talent management is not just encompassing a near-term directive to react to the needs of employees of the firm; it’s also about looking at what is the long-term strategy and what are goals that we can set for the firm,” Revel wrote. “When you think about the talent space, you’re layering on the next step in talent management: employee wellness, integration and holding hands of employees from start to finish.”
