How do you hire a lateral attorney?

A lateral hire is an experienced attorney who joins the firm from practice somewhere else — another law firm, a corporate legal department, a government office — rather than as an entry-level hire out of law school.

"Lateral" describes the move, not a rank: the label covers a mid-level associate and a partner with an established client base alike, and the gap between those two is where most of the process differences in this guide live.

Firms make lateral hires for what the candidate already brings.

A lateral arrives trained in a practice area and can take work on with less ramp-up than a new graduate, and a hire at the right seniority can add a capability the firm does not currently offer.

An entry-level associate is a bet on training and supervision; a lateral is hired for skills and, in some cases, client relationships the candidate already has.

The trade-offs are the mirror image.

A lateral's skills are on display in the interview process; whether their client relationships will follow them is a diligence question, and in the end each client's own choice.

How the lateral will be paid inside your existing compensation system, and how the arrival lands on the lawyers already in the practice, are decisions the later stages of this guide take up.

The lateral is one hire among many in the wider employer picture — roles, pay, screening and onboarding are covered in our guide to hiring for your law firm.

This page stays on what makes laterals different: the sourcing, the conflicts work, the evaluation of a book of business, and an offer the ethics rules allow.

Lateral candidates reach a firm through three channels: legal recruiters, the firm's own network, and postings the candidates find themselves.

A search can run more than one channel at a time, and each has a different cost, pace and discretion profile.

Recruiters put candidates in front of firms directly, and the business terms are the first thing to settle: who pays the fee, when the fee is earned, and what happens if the hire leaves soon after starting.

Those terms vary by recruiter and by market, so get the engagement in writing before the search begins.

The firm's own network is the second channel: referrals from lawyers the firm already trusts, contacts made through bar-association work, and former colleagues of your own attorneys.

Candidates also approach firms directly.

Whatever the channel, the candidate meets the same gate in the next section — no source exempts a lateral from the conflicts process.

Postings are the channel you control.

A lateral-ready posting states the practice area, the experience level and what the firm offers, and sits where experienced attorneys actually look; the mechanics of choosing the venue are covered in our guide to where to post law firm jobs, and the attorney jobs board shows what a posting looks like to the lawyers reading it.

One caution applies across every channel: a lateral search is a confidential event.

The candidate is employed somewhere while you are considering them, and discretion protects both their current position and your client relationships.

Keep the search group small, and carry that discipline into the conflicts work below.

Conflicts work gates everything else in a lateral hire, and the reason is Model Rule 1.10(a): the ABA's model rule imputes a conflict under Rules 1.7 or 1.9 of any one lawyer in a firm to all lawyers in the firm, unless an exception applies.

The day your lateral joins, the lateral's former-client conflicts become the whole firm's.

A candidate who would create a conflict the firm cannot manage is a candidate to decline, however strong the practice.

The model rule's exception is the ethical screen.

Under Model Rule 1.10(a)(2), a lateral's former-client conflict from a prior firm is not imputed if the lawyer is timely screened from any participation in the matter and is apportioned no part of the fee from it.

The model text builds machinery around that screen: prompt written notice to the affected former client that describes the screen, states the firm's compliance, notes that tribunal review may be available and agrees to respond to inquiries; and certifications of compliance from the screened lawyer and a partner, at reasonable intervals on the former client's written request and when the screening ends.

The comments fill in the edges.

Comment [7] says the (a)(2) screen works without the former client's informed consent, though a tribunal may weigh other factors on a disqualification motion.

Comment [8] lets the screened lawyer keep a salary or partnership share set by a prior independent agreement, while barring compensation directly related to the screened matter.

Comment [9] says the screening notice should describe the screened lawyer's prior representation and go out as soon as practicable after the need for screening becomes apparent.

All of that is the ABA's model text, and model rules bind no one until a state adopts them.

States differ on whether, and on what terms, they allow non-consensual screening of laterals, and our research did not verify which states do — the version that governs your firm is your state's version of Rule 1.10.

Confirm any screen you plan to rely on with your state bar's ethics counsel.

Confidentiality runs through the process in both directions.

You cannot clear conflicts without knowing the candidate's current and former clients and the adverse parties, and the candidate — still employed elsewhere — is guarded about client names.

A staged disclosure keeps the work moving: practice areas first, then adverse parties, then the client list as the offer becomes real, with a small group inside the firm handling the names.

What a candidate may share about their clients' identities is governed by the confidentiality rules of their own jurisdiction, so do not press for more than the process needs.

If the lateral brings staff, the conflicts question follows the staff.

Comment [4] to Rule 1.10 says a nonlawyer's conflict — a paralegal's or legal secretary's — is not imputed to the firm under 1.10(a), but such persons ordinarily must be screened from the matter all the same.

The broader duties that come with nonlawyer hires are covered in our guide to supervising nonlawyer staff under Model Rule 5.3.

Evaluation starts with the work, not the resume language.

Map the candidate's actual matters against your firm's: the practice area and sub-specialty, the kinds of clients, the jurisdictions, and the level the candidate operated at — supervised, supervising, or running matters alone.

References, work product and verified bar admission and standing in every state where the lateral will practice belong in this pass, and the offer should not go final before they are done.

Structure the interviews so the candidate meets the lawyers they would actually work with, and expect the diligence to run both ways: a strong lateral is evaluating your firm's platform, its conflicts posture and its compensation system at the same time you are evaluating their practice.

The book of business is the harder half, and it is a set of questions rather than a number on a form.

Which clients make up the candidate's practice?

Are the relationships personal to the candidate or institutional to their current firm?

What do the engagement terms and the clients' own industries allow?

What are the rate structures, and how have collections run?

None of these has an answer you can assume; each is something the interview process and the candidate's records have to establish.

The conflicts results feed straight into this evaluation, because a book the firm cannot take is not a book.

A practice that conflicts with your existing clients is worth nothing to the firm no matter its size, so the conflicts check and the book evaluation are one analysis, not two.

A partner-level lateral multiplies every question here — the economics of the book, the depth of each client relationship, any history of claims against the candidate — and deserves its own diligence workstream before the firm commits.

The diligence output is what the offer is built on: what the practice is worth to the firm shapes both the role and the money.

The offer is where the ethics rules bite.

Model Rule 5.6(a) bars lawyers from offering or making partnership, shareholder, operating, employment or similar agreements that restrict a lawyer's right to practice after the relationship ends, except agreements concerning retirement benefits.

In lateral terms: a non-compete does not belong in the offer letter, the employment agreement or the partnership papers.

Comment [1] gives the reason — restrictive covenants limit the lawyer's autonomy and clients' freedom to choose a lawyer — and Comment [3] names the carve-out: the rule does not bar restrictions included in the sale of a law practice under Rule 1.17, which is a different transaction from hiring a lateral.

That is the model text, and your state's adopted version controls.

The rule's reach also has a boundary worth knowing when the lateral brings staff: Rule 5.6 covers agreements restricting the right of a lawyer to practice, so non-competes for nonlawyer staff fall under ordinary state contract and employment law instead — a different body of law with different answers.

Malpractice coverage is the third offer-stage item.

How a policy treats a lateral's prior acts, and what the coverage costs, are policy-specific, and our research did not verify typical treatment — raise the question with your carrier or broker before the start date rather than assuming the new lawyer arrives covered on the firm's existing terms.

The start date then has to clear the gates above: conflicts resolved or screened, bar admission verified, offer signed.

A date set before the conflicts work finishes is a date the firm may have to move, so sequence the announcement around the clearance, not ahead of it.

Client transition runs on the same freedom the ethics rules protect — clients choose their lawyer.

Agree with the lateral in advance how and when clients will be approached and who owns each conversation.

And know what the model rule says about the firm the lawyer left: under Model Rule 1.10(b), once the lawyer is gone, that firm may act adversely to the lawyer's former client unless the matter is the same or substantially related and a remaining lawyer there holds material protected information.

Employer information, not legal advice. This page describes ABA model rules; the versions your state has adopted control. Confirm current requirements with your state bar's ethics counsel and, on insurance questions, with your carrier.