Who did I hire?

Imagine hiring an analyst and someone else shows up on day one. That would never happen in your management company, yet it happens all the time when fund managers engage counsel. Most clients focus on hiring a firm when what really matters is who will actually do the work.

The confusion starts early. You reach out to someone you know, maybe a partner from a prior deal or a referral from a colleague. But that person often isn’t the one drafting your documents, negotiating terms, or managing your matter. The larger the firm, the more likely the real lawyer on your file will be someone you’ve never met. In really big firms, it may be someone the relationship partner barely knows, if at all.

The usual response is, “Why should I care? The firm has a great reputation.” But that’s like saying it doesn’t matter who shows up on day one as long as both analysts went to Harvard. Reputation and credentials don’t guarantee experience, judgment, or quality.

Another common defense is, “I can rely on the relationship partner to staff the right person.” That sounds sensible until you realize you’ve just outsourced your hiring decision to someone who’s both conflicted and poorly equipped to select or manage the staff. The partner’s incentives are to keep the work in-house, not to identify the best individual for your needs who may be outside of their firm. And by “best,” I mean competent, available, and properly priced. Moreover, few partners have been trained to select or manage other professionals. Being a skilled lawyer or a personable “rain maker” doesn’t make someone a good manager.

The deeper issue is that most fund managers don’t have the time or skills to select or manage the legal talent so key to their fund’s success. Choosing a firm becomes a poor surrogate. A seasoned general counsel could, but few operating companies or fund sponsors have one. And many general counsel are “captured” by the firms they engage because they are alums of the firm or they view the firm as a potential future employer. As a result, fund managers make multi-hundred-thousand-dollar legal decisions based on relationships, brand names, or inertia.

The industry needs a new role: an independent professional whose expertise lies in identifying, structuring, and managing legal teams — ensuring that the right lawyer, not just the right firm, is on the job. That’s a role our firm fills: we organize and oversee the legal team so our clients can focus on their business, confident that their legal team has been professionally curated and managed.