When a law firm makes a hire, technical ability is understandably one of the first considerations.
Does the lawyer have the right experience? Can they manage the required caseload? Do they have the technical skills the team needs?
These questions matter. But they don’t tell you whether someone is likely to thrive within your firm.
A lawyer can be technically excellent and still be the wrong long-term hire if what they want from their career doesn’t align with the environment they’re joining.
That’s where values become important.
Hiring for values isn’t about finding people who are all the same. It’s about understanding whether there is enough alignment between what matters to the individual and how your firm genuinely operates.
Getting that right can have a significant impact on retention – and ultimately reduce the cost of having to recruit for the same position again.
The true cost of a poor-fit hire
The cost of recruitment goes beyond a recruitment fee or advertising spend.
Every hire requires time from partners, hiring managers and HR teams. There may be several interviews, onboarding, training and months of support while the new employee becomes fully established.
If that person leaves relatively quickly, much of that process starts again.
There can also be wider consequences for the team. Work needs redistributing, colleagues may need to cover additional responsibilities and clients can experience changes in the people handling their matters.
This is why the success of a hire shouldn’t simply be measured by whether someone accepts the offer.
The more useful question is whether they are likely to stay, perform and develop within the firm over the longer term.
Values influence whether someone feels they belong
Two firms can offer similar work, salaries and progression opportunities but provide very different experiences for their lawyers.
One might offer considerable autonomy, while another provides closer supervision. One may place significant emphasis on individual business development, while another takes a more collaborative approach. Some teams work predominantly from the office; others have built greater flexibility into how they operate.
None of those approaches is inherently better.
What matters is whether the lawyer joining the firm wants to work in that environment.
If someone values autonomy but joins a highly structured team or wants collaboration but enters a more individually driven culture, frustration can develop even when the role looks right on paper.
Understanding these preferences before making a hire can reduce the likelihood of discovering a fundamental mismatch several months later.
Be clear about what your values mean in practice
Many firms have defined organisational values, but those words only become useful in recruitment when candidates can understand what they mean day to day.
- If one of your values is collaboration, what does collaboration actually look like within your teams?
- If development is important, how are lawyers supported to progress?
- If flexibility is part of your proposition, how does it operate in practice?
Candidates are better able to assess whether a firm is right for them when they can see tangible evidence of its values rather than simply reading them on a website.
The same clarity also helps hiring managers assess alignment more effectively.
Explore motivations as well as experience
A strong recruitment process should establish more than whether a candidate can do the job.
It should also explore why they are considering leaving their current firm and what they want to be different in their next role.
For example, are they looking for:
- Greater autonomy?
- More support or supervision?
- A clearer progression route?
- More flexibility?
- Different quality or variety of work?
- Opportunities to develop a specialism?
- Greater involvement in business development or leadership?
The answers help build a much fuller picture of whether your opportunity can genuinely provide what that lawyer is looking for.
It can also prevent firms from trying to attract candidates with aspects of the role that aren’t actually important to them.
Don’t confuse values alignment with similarity
Hiring for values shouldn’t mean recruiting people with similar personalities, backgrounds or ways of thinking.
In fact, doing so can limit the diversity of perspectives and experiences within a firm.
Values alignment is different.
A candidate may have a very different personality or approach from the rest of the team while still sharing fundamental expectations around client service, collaboration, development or how colleagues treat one another.
The aim isn’t to ask, “Are they like us?” It’s to understand whether the firm and the candidate can realistically give each other what they need for the relationship to work over the long term.
Honest recruitment conversations support better retention
Hiring for values only works if both sides have an accurate picture of the opportunity.
Overselling the firm might make an opportunity easier to accept, but it can create problems once the candidate joins.
If a role is predominantly office-based, be clear about it. If progression depends on developing a following or taking on business development responsibilities, explain that. If a team is going through a period of change, give candidates enough context to understand what they’re joining.
This doesn’t weaken your proposition.
Instead, it allows the right candidates to make a more informed decision and reduces the likelihood of expectations and reality being significantly different once they start.
Better alignment can reduce repeat recruitment
There will always be reasons people leave that a recruitment process couldn’t have predicted.
However, when lawyers repeatedly leave because the culture, working environment or career opportunity isn’t what they expected, there may be an opportunity to look more closely at how the firm recruits.
A slightly longer conversation about motivations and values before making an appointment can be considerably less costly than replacing someone six or twelve months later.
It can also contribute to stronger teams. Lawyers who feel aligned with their working environment are more likely to build relationships, engage with the wider firm and see a longer-term future within it.
For law firms, that makes values-led recruitment much more than a culture exercise. It becomes part of a more sustainable approach to recruitment and retention.
How we can help
At Realm, we believe successful recruitment is about more than matching a CV to a vacancy.
We work closely with law firms to understand their culture, values, working environment and longer-term ambitions, while taking the time to understand what individual lawyers genuinely want from their careers.
That allows us to look beyond technical experience and consider the factors that can influence whether someone is likely to thrive within a firm over the longer term.
If you’re reviewing your recruitment approach or finding that new hires aren’t staying as long as you’d hoped, we can help you explore how values and long-term fit can play a greater role in your hiring decisions.
