How do you vet a lateral partner and their book of business?

A lateral partner arrives with a claim — the clients will move — and the lateral partner questionnaire (LPQ) is the document that turns that claim into checkable data.

It is a long-form questionnaire the firm, or the search firm acting for it, asks a partner candidate to complete, itemizing the clients, revenue and matters behind the book they say they would bring.

Client-level revenue detail is what the LPQ exists to collect, so the LPQ — not the resume, and not the interview alone — is where partner-level diligence starts.

Firms do not have to design one from scratch.

NALSC (the National Association of Legal Search Consultants) publishes the U-LPQ, an open-source Uniform Lateral Partner Questionnaire that any search firm or law firm may use without obligation; NALSC estimates it covers about 80% of the data a firm needs from a lateral partner.

Take it as a baseline and add what your firm's own matters require.

Whichever form you send, a partner-level questionnaire should ask for:

• Clients and relationships — each client the candidate says would move, whether they personally service it, and who else at their current firm touches the relationship
• Revenue history — billing by client by year, with collections and write-offs against it, for enough years to show a trend
• The shape of the book — litigation matters pending and their stage, transactional relationships and their cadence, contingent work and when it pays
• Personal clients vs. house clients — which relationships the candidate holds themselves and which are firm clients where they are one of several relationship partners
• The moving party — the associates, paralegals and staff the candidate would want to bring
• Conflicts history — every firm they practiced at, with dates and practice groups, so the conflicts search can run
• Current obligations — what their partnership or operating agreement requires on departure

The questionnaire and the interview test the same story from two sides.

In the room, ask what the paperwork cannot answer: which clients they would call first, what they think happens to the relationships that stay, what their current firm's departure terms are, and how much of the book they would describe as theirs alone.

An answer that is vague where the questionnaire was specific is a diligence finding, not just an interview impression.

Ask in stages.

A candidate mid-move may keep current-client detail close until the move is real, so keep the first round to what a conflicts search runs on — firm names, dates, practice groups — and ask for client-level revenue once both sides are serious.

Staging protects the candidate's obligations and keeps your process moving.

The LPQ is one track of a wider process: the rest of hiring for your law firm runs alongside it, and this page covers the partner-level piece.

A completed questionnaire is still a self-report.

Verifying the book means testing it on three axes: what it billed, what it actually collected, and how much of it can move.

Keep the profession's measures straight as you read the answers.

In the definitions Clio's Legal Trends Report uses, realization is the share of billable work that gets invoiced and collection is the share of invoiced work that gets paid; utilization, the third measure, is the share of an eight-hour day spent on billable work.

Ask the candidate to label their figures the same way — a book quoted only as billing tells you less than one quoted as billed, collected, and collected client by client.

For context, Clio's 2025 Legal Trends Report put average realization at 88% and average collection at 93%.

Treat those as context from one vendor's report, not a pass mark: your diligence question is how this partner's collections compare to their own history, year over year, and how their figures were produced.

Portability is the part to test hardest.

A relationship the candidate describes as mine may sit on top of a firm platform — business development spend, other partners, staff — and the client, not either firm, decides what happens next; the freedom of clients to choose a lawyer is precisely the interest the model rules name (Comment [1] to Rule 5.6).

Know, too, what the model text says about the firm the partner leaves: under Rule 1.10(b), once a lawyer leaves a firm, the firm they left may act adversely to that lawyer's former client unless the matter is the same or substantially related to one the departed lawyer handled and a remaining lawyer holds material protected information about it.

Whatever the candidate's confidence, portable is a claim to verify client by client, not assume.

Where a matter straddles the move — work half-done at the old firm and continuing at yours — how the fees on it are handled is a departure-terms question.

Read what the candidate's current agreement says about unfinished matters, and take the question to your state bar's ethics counsel before the work continues at your firm.

Ask for corroboration at the level your decision needs: firm-reported summaries by client and year, the candidate's own production records where they may share them, and references who can speak to the relationships.

Reconcile what the questionnaire, the interviews and the documents say — gaps between them are findings to resolve before an offer, not after.

Conflicts are where partner-level diligence has the sharpest rules, and the imputation rule is the reason: under the ABA's model text of Rule 1.10(a), a conflict under Rules 1.7 or 1.9 that would bar one lawyer in a firm bars all of them, unless an exception applies.

The lateral partner's conflicts arrive with them and become yours, so the search runs before an offer goes deep.

The mechanics — what to collect, when to search, how to document each hit — are the full subject of our conflicts checks guide; this section covers the partner-specific parts.

The model text gives firms an outlet for the conflicts that travel with a lateral.

Under Rule 1.10(a)(2), a former-client conflict from the partner's prior firm is not imputed where the lawyer is timely screened and apportioned no part of the fee.

For a partner, the compensation design is the trap door: Comment [8] to Rule 1.10 lets a screened lawyer keep a salary or partnership share set by a prior independent agreement, but bars compensation directly related to the screened matter — a partner whose pay moves with matter-level economics cannot be paid out of a screened matter.

Under Comment [7], the model screen works without the former client's informed consent, though tribunals may weigh other factors on a disqualification motion.

The screen carries paperwork of its own — prompt written notice to the former client describing the prior representation, and compliance certifications from the screened lawyer and a partner — with the notice expected as soon as practicable after the need for screening becomes apparent.

How far a no-consent screen carries you depends on the state: states differ on non-consensual screening, and our research could not verify which states accept or reject it, so check your state's version of Rule 1.10 with your state bar's ethics counsel before you rely on one.

Discipline is a records check.

The ABA says the state agency that licenses lawyers can confirm whether a person has a law license and may practice there, so confirm the candidate's license with that agency in each state that has admitted them.

Put the discipline question to the same agency — whether it holds a discipline record for the candidate and how the public can access it — because our research did not verify how each agency reports discipline; our bar status verification guide walks the procedure.

Ask about pending grievances directly too — a pending matter may not yet appear anywhere public.

Malpractice exposure moves with the partner as well.

Ask about pending and past claims, and about the work they leave behind at their current firm.

How your own policy treats matters a new partner brings from their prior firm is a coverage question our research could not verify norms for — we will not quote premium or prior-acts patterns here — so put it to your insurance broker or carrier before the start date.

The move is paperwork on both sides.

The candidate's current partnership or operating agreement governs their departure, so ask what it says about notice requirements, what happens to their capital account, how unfinished matters and fees are handled, and what they must do about clients and staff.

Get a copy early — its terms can set the timeline for everything else on this page, from when clients can be approached to when matters can move.

One rule shapes what you will find in it.

Under the ABA's model text of Rule 5.6(a), a lawyer may not make or offer a partnership, shareholder, operating, employment or similar agreement that restricts the right of a lawyer to practice after the relationship ends, except an agreement concerning benefits upon retirement.

Comment [1] explains the reasoning: restrictive covenants limit the lawyer's autonomy and limit clients' freedom to choose a lawyer.

Our research captured the model text, not state adoptions, so confirm your state's version with your state bar's ethics counsel — but the upshot for diligence is to be skeptical of departure terms presented as locking clients in place.

The other agreement is yours.

Before the offer, decide and write down what joining your firm asks of the candidate: any capital contribution or buy-in and how it is paid, the compensation structure and what it rewards, how the firm treats origination credit, notice terms, and what happens to the client relationships if the partner later leaves.

These are your firm's own terms to set — what matters for diligence is that they are decided before the candidate prices the move around assumptions.

Put both agreements in front of counsel before signatures: employment counsel for your offer and its terms, and your state bar's ethics counsel for anything in the candidate's departure that touches clients, fees or screens.

Diligence does not end at the offer; the last track is the plan for the partner's first months.

Built before the start date, it protects the book you just verified.

Improvised after it, it is where a verified book can leak.

The plan should cover, at minimum:

• Client transition — who contacts which client, in what order, and with what engagement paperwork. The client decides, so sequence the outreach around the relationships the questionnaire flagged as strongest.
• A fresh conflicts run at the start date, with screens stood up immediately for anything the diligence flagged.
• Moving staff — the associates, paralegals and assistants who come with the partner go through the same conflicts process. Under Comment [4] to Rule 1.10, a nonlawyer's conflict is not imputed to the firm, but such persons ordinarily must be screened from affected matters anyway.
• Matter handoffs — for work straddling the move, the handling of fees on unfinished matters settled under the candidate's departure terms, with ethics counsel, before the work continues.
• Measurement — a schedule for comparing actual collections against the questionnaire's history, so the book you verified is the book you can see arriving.

Done this way, diligence does two things at once: it prices the book you are actually buying, and it shows the candidate that your firm takes its conflicts and its clients seriously.

When the file is complete, you are hiring on evidence rather than on a pitch.

And when the role is ready to post, see what candidates see on attorney jobs on this board.

Employer information, not legal advice. This page describes the ABA's model rules as researched; your state's adopted versions control, and states differ on non-consensual screening. Confirm screening, unfinished-matter fee and departure questions with your state bar's ethics counsel, and coverage questions with your insurance broker or carrier.