August 28, 2013
THE RECORDER
By Nathalie Pierrepont
SAN FRANCISCO – For attorneys over a certain age, the occasional call from a headhunter is as much a part of law firm life as the billable hour.
And both may be going the way of rotary telephones and the VCR.
San Francisco-based LegalReach, a professional networking platform for attorneys and clients, released a service this week to introduce legal recruiters to candidates in a manner more suited to the 21st century.
When a recruiter posts a job onLegalReach Talent, a message is sent to attorneys in the system who match the description. Those attorneys then decide whether or not they are interested in an introduction.
“We’re focused on having both parties interested in that transaction before we move forward,” said LegalReach Inc. founder and CEO Avlok Kohli. “Attorneys are actually interested in new jobs and new opportunities, but they’re not interested in being bombarded by the recruiters.”
With LegalReach Talent, headhunters can avoid posting opportunities on job boards or media outlets and will have less need to contact potential candidates directly, a process Kohli deems “outdated.”
Kohli helped launch Doximity Inc., a similar platform for physicians and health care professionals that has raised $27.8 million from a small group of investors. Before Doximity, he worked at Zvents, which was acquired by eBay’s StubHub in 2011.
With $900,000 of seed funding, Kohli, who “comes from a family of lawyers” worked with LegalReach Head of Product Matt Martin, a 2010 graduate of University of Pennsylvania Law School, to developLegalReach Alumni, a network for law school graduates. The demand for a professional networking tool was “huge,” according to Kohli, because attorneys were interested in re-connecting with former classmates and looking for “inside” connections at law firms and corporations.
Since launching earlier this year, LegalReach has added 10,000 attorneys, ranging in experience levels, to its network, including attorneys from 93 percent of the AmLaw 100 firms. LegalReach then launched a new tool to match businesses and individuals seeking legal services with counsel. According to Kohli, LegalReach has generated “a lot of value” from lawyers using the site to hire contract attorneys in anticipation of an influx of work.
Through LegalReach, he added, a client with a complex immigration case was connected with the former general counsel of U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement.
“We were able to match up clients with attorneys that were the absolute best attorneys for them, and now, in the case of recruiters, we actually do think we can match up recruiters with the best attorneys that are really relevant for the job,” he said.
But Larry Watanabe, the founder of search firm Watanabe Nason, says the personal touch still matters for high level placements. The veteran recruiter who placed partners this month at Pillsbury, Arent Fox, and Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton said he doesn’t “even try” to connect with people on LinkedIn.
“Most of the people I deal with at this stage call me and ask me to represent them. I do call partners on searches occasionally,” he said. “We’ve been in the industry so long that it’s not considered a ‘cold-call,'” adding that people who aren’t interested just don’t call back.
The majority of attorneys on LegalReach have been practicing between 5 and 15 years, according to Kohli. If the network appeals mostly to law school students or recent graduates, that could be a problem, he concedes.
“They wouldn’t have any experience to be able to handle the cases or to match the jobs coming in from the recruiters,” he said.
Joining LegalReach, posting job opportunities, searching anonymous profiles and reviewing job listings on LegalReach is free. Introductions through the site cost $50 for clients and attorneys and $100 for recruiters.
Once the introduction is made via e-mail, the recruiter follows the traditional steps: evaluating candidates’ credentials, talking to the hiring firm, supporting lawyers through the interview process, and eventually negotiating the terms of job offers.
“Technology and tools have definitely improved,” said Debra Boyle, principal at legal staffing firm Kearney Boyle & Associates, Inc. “But at the end of the day, you need a person looking at it and connecting the dots and making the client and candidate happy with their decision.”