Lateral hiring for law firms is more than a talent acquisition strategy — it’s a business development opportunity. Many law firms treat lateral attorney hires as isolated events, missing the chance to integrate them into broader strategic initiatives.

Here are four steps firms can take to create an easy-to-repeat and scalable marketing process to support lateral integration from day one.

1. Align Strategically to Avoid Reactive Marketing

Experienced attorneys require more than just a welcome email when they join a new firm. Before the firm brings in a new partner or associate, the marketing team should be included in strategic conversations about the business case behind the hire. This is about aligning the attorney with business development and marketing strategy.

When marketing is looped in early, the team can proactively plan how to position the hire, leverage their strengths to advance firm goals and support their integration. Here are some key questions legal marketers should consider:

• What strategic goals does this hire support?
• What industries are being targeted?
• Where does the hire complement or differentiate from the firm’s brand?

By answering these questions upfront, firms can avoid reactive marketing and instead build a thoughtful, repeatable process that supports both the individual and the firm’s long-term growth.

Tip: Treat lateral hiring as part of your firm’s long-term growth strategy rather than only a recruitment event. When marketing is involved early, the team can build messaging and materials that reflect broader business goals.

2. Develop a Repeatable Onboarding Framework

Once the strategic alignment is clear, the next step is to build a consistent onboarding framework that the firm’s marketing team can use for every lateral hire to ensure integration is smooth and timely.

A repeatable framework should cover both internal and external marketing touchpoints, including:

• Announcement strategy (internal, external and media)
• Bio drafting
• Social media rollout
• Client communications
• Thought leadership opportunities

This process should be a collaborative process with the firm’s legal marketers and key stakeholders, such as practice leadership. The goal is to create a cohesive experience that positions the new hire as a strategic asset.

Tip: Consider developing an internal onboarding checklist to guide the marketing team and lateral hires through each stage of the process to stay organized and consistent.

Want a deeper dive? Don’t miss Nancy Kostakos’ session on building a high-impact onboarding checklist — details below.

3. Build Turnkey Materials for Streamlined Execution

Once your onboarding framework is in place, the next step is to build out the materials that will make execution seamless. This means creating templates, messaging guides and communication plans that can be quickly adapted for each lateral hire.

Here are some foundational materials to help your firm handle lateral hires:

• Bio templates and formatting guidelines
• Internal and external announcement templates
• Social media templates
• Media contact list to promote the hire announcement
• A communication plan that outlines timing, channels and responsibilities

Having these resources ready in advance allows the marketing team to move efficiently while maintaining consistency with every hire and ensuring that the firm’s messaging stays aligned with its strategic goals.

Tip: Build these tools to scale — the goal is to create a flexible system that can be tailored as needed.

4. Establish a Feedback Loop to Refine the Process

The process for lateral integration should not be static. Law firms need a mechanism to evaluate how well their marketing efforts are supporting lateral integration and refine the process over time. Identify gaps and streamline workflows by gathering feedback from internal stakeholders and performance metrics from external communications.

Here are some ways to build a feedback loop:

• Conduct internal debriefs after each onboarding to assess what worked and what didn’t.
• Track engagement metrics on external communications
• Maintain a living version of the onboarding checklist that can evolve with each iteration

Tip: Don’t forget to gather feedback from the lateral hires themselves — even a short post-onboarding conversation can help refine your approach for future attorneys.

Build the Process Before You Need It

The firms that handle lateral attorney hires most effectively aren’t scrambling to respond. They’re executing a plan. If your law firm is planning for growth, don’t wait until a lateral hire is finalized to start thinking about marketing.

Are you building out your law firm’s lateral onboarding checklist?

Join Nancy Kostakos to learn about the evolution of lateral hiring and how it has reshaped law firm culture and profitability. Walk away with a practical roadmap for onboarding and promoting new attorneys with impact.

Session Information

Lateral Integration and Attorney Onboarding

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

10:00 a.m. CT / 11:00 a.m. ET

Register here