So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People

“You don't have to craft your resume to make it look like you've wanted to be a lawyer since kindergarten. Just show your authentic self.” - Albert Tawil

What actually makes someone stand out in the legal industry?

In this episode of So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People, Megan Senese and Jennifer Ramsey sit down with Albert Tawil, Founder and CEO of Lateral Hub, to talk about entrepreneurship, authenticity, legal recruiting, and why the most interesting thing about you might have absolutely nothing to do with the law.

From starting a Costco delivery business before Instacart, to disrupting the traditional lateral recruiting model, to helping law students learn how to share the parts of themselves that make them memorable, this conversation is packed with practical insights and refreshing honesty.

You’ll hear about:
  • Why authenticity matters more than a perfectly curated legal resume
  • The Costco delivery business that unexpectedly made Albert a standout candidate
  • How entrepreneurship shaped the way Albert approaches recruiting and business
  • The origin story behind Lateral Hub and the inefficiencies it set out to solve
  • Why traditional legal recruiting can feel outdated and expensive
  • The changing landscape of lateral hiring
  • What firms are actually looking for in interviews
  • Why being “well-rounded” is often more valuable than looking traditionally impressive
  • The role creativity and adaptability play in legal careers
  • What COVID changed about lateral hiring, remote work, and law firm culture
  • Why some industries are ripe for disruption, and where legal may be headed next

About Albert Tawil:

Albert Tawil is the Founder & CEO of Lateral Hub, a legal recruiting platform helping attorneys take a more transparent and efficient approach to lateral hiring. A former IP and Tech Transactions associate at Cleary Gottlieb and Fenwick & West, Albert launched Lateral Hub in 2022 after experiencing the lateral recruiting process firsthand and recognizing an opportunity to modernize it for both candidates and law firms.

Since launching, Lateral Hub has become a growing resource for BigLaw laterals, law students, and recruiting teams navigating an increasingly competitive hiring landscape. Albert received his J.D. from New York University School of Law and lives in New Jersey with his wife and three children.

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Creators and Guests

Host
Jennifer Ramsey
Host
Megan Senese

What is So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People?

Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People where we explore the behind-the-scenes of work, law, life, and everything in between. We’re your hosts, business development and legal marketing coaches Jennifer Ramsey and Megan Senese, and we’re here to showcase the human side of the legal world, from marketing and consulting to the very real challenges of balancing ambitious careers with being human. This isn’t your typical, dry legal show. Instead, So Much To Say is a human-centered leadership, marketing, and culture podcast through the lens of law. We bring you real stories, candid conversations, and thoughtful insights that remind you that outside of being a lawyer or legal marketer, what makes you human matters too. So whether you’re navigating billable hours, building meaningful relationships, redefining success, or simply trying to stay human in a high-performance profession, this podcast is for you.
Stay human. Stay inspired. Namaste (or whatever keeps you human).

[00:00:00] Albert Tawil: So one of the things that I speak about with 1Ls very often is don't be afraid. Like, you don't have to make it like... You don't have to craft your resume to make it look like you've wanted to be a lawyer since kindergarten. Just show your authentic self, show the different things that you've done in your life, and the firms are interested to see that you're a well-rounded person who's smart.
[00:00:16] And if you could, instead of diminishing anything that's not legal related, if you highlight those and then show how those translate to being a law firm associate, then, then that's what's gonna impress the firms, not some sort of a manufactured legal experience that didn't really mean much.
[00:00:31] Megan Senese: Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People, where we dive into the beautiful chaos of work, life, and everything in between.
[00:00:40] Outside of being a lawyer or a legal marketer, we wanna know, what makes you human? And with that, let's get started. Our next guest is a former big law associate. They had the summer associate experience. They joined Cleary Gottlieb. They went to Fenwick, and then they launched their own business to help lateral associates move from one big law firm to another big law firm.
[00:01:06] They uncovered a need in the market, and what I love most about Albert is that he tells a story about how he has been covering needs in the market for a long time, and not just in legal. Every time I think I know a guest, they impress me, wow me with a new story that I didn't know, and Albert shares that with us on today's episode.
[00:01:30] He also makes an announcement of a new offering that they are going to roll out, so make sure you listen until the end to see what it is. Hope you enjoy. As you might have noticed, and sometimes I do this intentionally, but didn't send us any questions or any guideline or anything. And so- Gonna wing it.
[00:01:51] Well, you know, Albert, you and I have talked a lot, and so, um, welcome - meet my partner, Jen.
[00:01:56] Jennifer Ramsey: Hello.
[00:01:57] Albert Tawil: Yes, and nice to meet you.
[00:01:58] Megan Senese: So what, what I thought we could kick off with, particularly since it's hard sometimes when I feel like I know the guest and I'm like, "Well, I already know what you're gonna say," right? Um, which I don't.
[00:02:08] But what I thought we could kick off with is an, a, a little game that I picked up from this communications expert, and it's also a really great business development tool for people who are looking to network a little bit more deeply, in that sometimes people are like, "I don't wanna just ask people, what do you do?"
[00:02:29] Right? So it's called High Low Buffalo. Let's start with your high. What, what do, what's, what's your high point for this week, this month, this year? Pick a frame.
[00:02:38] Albert Tawil: Pick a frame. I don't know. I think I'm gonna do a year. I think, I think a month and a week is too hard to pinpoint, so I'll do the year. Um, I'll do kind of the last, I guess the last 12 months.
[00:02:47] Um, I mean, I'll s- you know, I'll start, I guess, it is interesting hearing about people's personal lives, right? So I'll start with personally. We just talked about it, my wife and I welcomed our- Our third child in January, which is very nice. So our family is growing healthy, so that's always, for me, always the most important thing, so you can't, you can't get better than that.
[00:03:05] Um, so just trying to enjoy this time and, uh, so that's definitely the high, um, as, as our family continues to thrive. But, um, professionally, I mean, look, our... we'll talk more about what Lateral Hub is. Uh, the Lateral Hub job board is basically, um, a way for firms to promote openings to laterals. When you hear from a candidate that they've landed a job through Lateral Hub, that they, they changed their career, that it was super helpful for them, uh, when you hear from firms how happy they are to have, you know, made a hire directly and be able to pr-present the, that hire to management without a placement fee, it makes them look good.
[00:03:37] It's great for the firm. So, um, you know, just the high for me is every time that happens, and it's been happening more and more. Uh, you know, I, I, we have a stat that we love to say is, over the last 18 months, pr- we've heard about a hire, a, an offer sent through the site every nine days on average. So we're hearing from candidates and from firms how, how happy they are to have found the site.
[00:03:56] You know, and some candidates have found roles on Lateral Hub that firms had never even heard of. Like, they would have never discovered this role had they not found it on this website, and, and it changed the whole trajectory of their career or changed their, you know, their life for the better because they're able to find the opportunity that was a better fit for them or their lifestyle or something like that.
[00:04:13] So to me, that's always the high. We've been getting some great feedback from candidates and from firms, and, and every time that happens, it's, it's like a jolt of, of excitement for us to keep, to keep going. So I ca- I guess that's... I'll say that's the high.
[00:04:24] Megan Senese: You got a low for us?
[00:04:25] Albert Tawil: A low. This is a tough one.
[00:04:26] This is a tough one. I don't know. I, I mean, you probably feel the same way, I think. I think, you know, not to get too sentimental about it, but I think if you frame things like this as kind of a challenge and what you can learn from it and how you can grow from it is, is important in life. I mean, professionally, I mean, I think we have a separate offering called Summer Associate Hub, which is basically it's a, it's a way for law firms to get in front of 1L students early in the process and engage with them because of the accelerated timeline for law student recruiting, which is a whole topic in itself, um, and pretty much the only thing anybody talks about in legal recruiting right nowadays.
[00:04:57] Um, a lot of layers to it. So firms approached us with this, with this, with this need and, um, and, you know, compared to Lateral Hub, which is we're always getting better, we're always improving, we're always growing the job board, the lateral hiring hasn't changed that much. The way you look, the way you find laterals and all that is hasn't changed that much.
[00:05:15] Law student recruiting has been done the same way for 30 years and then completely got turned on its head in the last three years. And, um, and so every season, it's required a lot of creativity, a lot of conversation, a lot of smarts, a lot of savvy to figure out, and a lot of, of, um, flexibility and being, and being willing to audible about what the offerings that we're gonna offer each year.
[00:05:37] So it's been a little bit of a, I wouldn't say in a negative way, because it's been actually successful that we've been able to be nimble and, and find opportunities that are effective. But it's been a challenge every year figuring out, okay, what are the programs that we're gonna host for law firms and students this year that matches the timelines and the needs of the students and the firms?
[00:05:53] So for example The biggest thing was for the la- for in 2024 and 2025, we hosted a really nice in-person job fair interview program for law students. It was kind of like taking the old OCI model and recreating it, but run by a third party, and we, we tweaked some of the things that firms were frustrated with at OCI and, and were able to resolve those challenges and create a really effective program.
[00:06:16] And we would be in the venue and 300 students, 350 students there, all, all dressed in their formal attire, interviewing, engaging with firms. Firms were thrilled about it. They haven't had that type of in-person engagement in a long time. And then this year, just the way that the market moved, it was es-especially difficult for firms.
[00:06:32] It was especially fast. Um, we had to move all of our programs during the school year, which was a challenge for students. We ended up having to move everything virtual, which wasn't as-- It wasn't a low in the sense of mathematically, it was a highly successful program. Um, and there were certain aspects of the program that were completely n-new for us, and we were like, I was proud that we were able to, to, to jump and, and, and fill the void for some of those programs.
[00:06:53] But not being able to like sitting there in a, in a virtual, in a, in a room with, during a virtual interview program, you don't see the 60 people that are interviewing at any given time. So it was kind of a challenge to say, "Oh, well, this is a really great program," but we had, we, we hadn't seen anybody there in person.
[00:07:07] And it's also just generally a challenge to figure out, okay, how can we focus on programs that are effective? But I think we've done a good job every year listening, you know, being smart, being flexible, listening to the firms, listening to the students and the schools, and figuring out, okay, what could we do to, to support everybody in this process.
[00:07:21] Megan Senese: Yeah. And you're Buffalo?
[00:07:23] Albert Tawil: One thing that's interesting, which is a good kind of... It does relate to, like, just the recruiting and interview skills and something I talk about often with students and laterals. I actually had some fun entrepreneurship experience when I was in, you know, before law school. I, um, when I was in college And I'm actually about to start law school, so I'm like a year out of law school.
[00:07:42] And, um, my brother and I actually started a personal shopping delivery company for Costco, like for customers to shop at Costco. This was before Instacart. Did it for about two, three years. It was a lot of fun, and it was a great learning experience, just building a business, being like smart, flexible, what else can we offer?
[00:07:58] At one point, we realized that the best, which, which anyone who's walked into Costco knows this is obvious, the best thing about Costco is when you walk in, everything else that you see that you weren't planning to buy, and then you like went in to buy three things and you leave b- buying 15 things. We wanted to help people who couldn't sho- like, who weren't there to shop in the store.
[00:08:15] So we actually, one day, we had a slow day and we actually walked around with laptops like perched on top of the shopping cart, and we actually logged every single thing that the store sold.
[00:08:23] Jennifer Ramsey: Oh my gosh. And,
[00:08:23] Albert Tawil: um, printed out, and printed out a, a physical packet of like 20, 30 pages, and basically every time we made a delivery, just slapped it on their kitchen counter.
[00:08:30] It gave our customers the ability to look through the packet and say, "Oh, I actually also want this and I also want that." And it benefited them, and it also benefited us because we were able to generate more, more of our, of our fees and everything like that. So that was a really fun experience.
[00:08:42] Fast-forward, you know, I'm a lateral two years out of law school, so now this business is about five years old. Five years ago, and, um, I'm at a top firm in the city. I'm looking to lateral to a different firm, and every single interview, the question comes up, "Oh, tell us about your Costco business and your delivery business."
[00:08:58] And I'm like thinking, like this is unbelievable. So and, and, and the questions and, "And how did you do this and how did you do that?" And good questions, but, "Oh, and how did you manage this and how did you price it?" And, and, and, and I was like, how to respond to all these different questions and show how thoughtful you are about the business and the marketing and all that.
[00:09:11] And so the firm that I, I ended up lateraling to Fenwick, and I was talking to the partner at Fenwick who hired me and, uh, and I said, "By the way, how come everyone was so interested in this, this Costco business?" And he made such a good point, which has stuck with me today, which I tell... We, we present and we have a lot of content for law students and laterals how to interview and all that.
[00:09:28] He's like, "Don't you realize, Albert? Every person who we interviewed was coming from a top firm." Yes, yes. But we were-- "But, but you had the differentiating factor of having this prior experience as an entrepreneur, as someone who created something. So the fact that you're at a top firm, we weren't ignoring that.
[00:09:42] Everyone who we interviewed was at a top firm. We knew you had that experience. We wanted to see what, what other experience you had." And with the acceler- especially now, the accelerated timelines of Law student recruiting, they don't even have, they don't even have anything to talk about in their interviews, which is a challenge, aside from the first few months of 1L year.
[00:09:57] So one of the things that I speak about with 1Ls very often is, don't be afraid, like, you don't have to craft your resume to make it look like you've wanted to be a lawyer since kindergarten. Just show your authentic self, show the different things that you've done in your life, and the firms are interested to see that you're a well-rounded person who's smart.
[00:10:13] And if you could, instead of diminishing anything that's not legal related, if you highlight those and then show how those translate to being a law firm associate with client service and hard work and proactiveness and thriving in a corporate environment and all of that, then, then that's what's gonna impress the firms, not some sort of a manufactured legal experience that didn't really mean much.
[00:10:30] So that, that, that whole, like, five-year full circle experience, um, was v- was really eye-opening and, and, and it's, it's something that I speak about often.
[00:10:39] Megan Senese: Oh, I love this so much, and if you haven't written about it on LinkedIn recently, you should recirculate that content.
[00:10:46] Albert Tawil: Yeah. I think I should re- rewrite it.
[00:10:47] Yeah. You
[00:10:48] Megan Senese: should recirculate it, 'cause there's so... I mean, obviously there's, it, as business developers, right, it ties into the things that we're trying to show people, whether you're getting hired or talking to people at a conference or trying to get a client to hire you. It's showing people what it's like to work with you, and that applies across so many different spectrums and all these different applications, right?
[00:11:09] And when you're saying that, "I saw a need," which, well, then we're s- we can talk about how Lateral Hub came to be, right? You and your brother saw a need, then turned around and built it, and then delivered the product, right? It's like, where's the gap? What are, what are people needing, and how can I help service that?
[00:11:25] Like, that doesn't matter if it's a delivery system or job posting board or talking to lawyers about how to, to network and grow their business in an authentic way, right? You have to figure out what that need is. And so I just love, I mean, I love that.
[00:11:41] Jennifer Ramsey: I mean, it's a little, it's a little more organic than that, too, right?
[00:11:43] Like, you know, when we're in college, we're not like, "Oh, what does the market need?" It's like you just, you were like, your mindset was there and, and you just, you did it. You acted on it. And if, when you were talking about that, bringing it all together and putting that, like, seriously beautiful bow on it, I was like, that's your...
[00:11:59] It's a differentiator, and then you said the word. And, and we are, we are constantly trying to help clients too. Like, what is different about you, right? Like, so we can mess- we can help you. We, like, what makes you interesting? What makes you different? What ma- 'Cause like you said, it's like everyone's a lawyer who we're working with, and they're all at firms.
[00:12:17] And, and so it's like, what is that like, that little like, that aha or yeah, like, the... So I, you know, that's, that's really cool that everyone was interested in hearing about it.
[00:12:28] Megan Senese: Yeah. It's hard sometimes for people to put through like nothing, right? You, you, at the beginning, you said, "I, I don't know. I don't know if I have anything that interesting," but then you did, right?
[00:12:36] So it's hard for people to sometimes identify that, so that's where, like, that's why authenticity wound ended up being, I think it was 2024, like, the word of the year. Yeah. And, but sometimes- Yeah ... I'm even like, "Maybe you just need to be weird," right? Like, be weird. Be even weirder. Like, stand out. Be yourself.
[00:12:52] Be yourself, right? So okay, thank you for playing this game with us, and look at all the fun things that we got to, that we got to, we got to learn. Yes. And I got to learn something new about you, which is always fun. So I want, obviously, to, to talk about Lateral Hub, and we have lots of listeners from, you know, all varying backgrounds.
[00:13:12] We have solo law firm owners. We have big law partners. We have mid-level. We have baby associates. We have people in all of, around the world. Um, actually, I don't know if I told you this, Jen, but there's a, someone I met on LinkedIn who lives in Colombia who's been using our podcast as a way to practice English.
[00:13:30] So they do, like, a legal podcast, and they listen to it, so we have people in Colombia listening to us. So talk to us about, again, you're seem to be spotting these opportunities of things that you're encountering, right? So you're like, you're like, "I live in this beach town. People can't get their shit delivered properly or whatever," right?
[00:13:46] And so now you go to law school. You come out. You're going to get a job, and when did Lateral Hub idea come to you? Like, what was the sh- what was the challenge? What was the obstacle?
[00:13:57] Albert Tawil: Yeah, yeah, it's a very great question. So, uh, I mean, I guess I kind of, I guess I kind of thought, you know, one day I would want to have my own business, whether that was a law practice or different type, whatever that was, but I wasn't-- That definitely wasn't the goal.
[00:14:08] The goal of going to law school wasn't to then become an entrepreneur. I wanted to practice and see where it went. I, I was at, um, was at a firm. Uh, I was practicing IP, like IP transactional work or tech transactions with some firms, so I was kind of basically helping out on large M&A deals and things like that with the IP aspects of it, uh, intellectual property aspects of it.
[00:14:26] And, um, I want something different. I lateraled to another firm, uh, and, um, went through that whole process, got a, you know, worked with a recruiter or search firm, headhunter, it's kind of all, um, synonyms. And then, um, landed at a firm, and I got really good advice about the process of, like, being, you know, a little bit more holistic than just the recruiter and getting-- kind of using your network and all different ways to find a job as a lateral.
[00:14:46] And even when I was a, a junior associate or a two or a three L, I always took calls from, you know, one else in my network who wanted advice about how to navigate OCI or which firms to think about and stuff like that. And when that-- And then after I lateraled, I started to get phone calls from former colleagues and from friends about, "Oh, yeah, I already lateraled.
[00:15:02] Who do you-- You know, how did you do it? Who do you use?" And I was able to pass on a lot of, a lot of that good advice. I don't know. One day, I was kind of, you know, I ended up building up pretty nice expertise in how to find a job as, as a lawyer and, like, the kind of the, the top-tier legal industry. And one day, I was kind of just-- That kind of came to me, like, what am I, what am, what is, what am I expe- what do I have a unique skill in?
[00:15:20] And I realized, like, oh, ver- you know, like, legal recruiting. And it kind of, it kind of occurred to me, like, how come... You know, I used a recruiter. Every phone call I had with, with a pot- you know, potential lateral interested in, in moving, uh, every call ended with like, "Oh, well, let me go see if they're hiring.
[00:15:34] Let me go see if they're hiring." And I realized, like, how come-- Then we're kind of getting into the weeds, but it's important. Like, how come-- It occurs to me, how come the top firms don't just post all their jobs in one place? Um, so with the, with the, the way that I call it, like the old way to lateral, like the way it is, is ninety-nine percent of firms, even top firms, are posting all, all their open lateral openings on their website.
[00:15:54] Now, they open that up to search firms or recruiters who, who-- which is unique to legal. It's not exclusive. So you could have a hundred, two hundred recruiting firms all vying for the same postings for the same candidates, which is a very stark contrast to other industries where typically a recruiter h- is exclusive, um, where you have one recruiter working on the roles.
[00:16:11] Now you have a hundred recruiters bombarding the candidates with the same roles and bombarding the firms with, with candidates And then the firms would pay the recruiters a, a placement fee that's twenty-five percent of the base salary, which is, in big law is, is, is sixty to a hundred thousand dollars just on the fee.
[00:16:26] So if the jobs are already posted on their website, by the time it gets to the candidate, that all that transparency is gone because all the... none of the search firms wanna give up who's-- give up the name of the firm because they don't want the person to go around them. And then by the time it gets to the firm, the ca- I guess the firm now it's costing the firm sixty to a hundred thousand dollars a placement.
[00:16:44] So there's two, two main issues here. And I thought to myself, "How come they don't just post on, like, a high-quality job board that's specifically for the niche of top-tier law firms, not, like, a broad job board like a LinkedIn or Indeed?" So, um, I had that idea, and I kinda so- thought about it, and I was like, "Wow, this is actually interesting idea."
[00:16:59] And, and, and, and the fees that are involved are so significant that this is-- it seems like it would be a profitable, you know, endeavor. So I basically, in my free time as a big law associate in twenty twenty-one, I was, uh, talking to a law firm. You know, I called a lateral recruiter who had been at my firm, like, "What do you think of this idea?"
[00:17:15] And she's like, "We're always trying to find other ways to source laterals. It's very expensive to hire through search firms. Here's, uh, five other of my friends you could talk to at other firms." And I spoke with them, and one of the, one of the la- lateral recruiting managers at a NAM law firm, so I as- I said, "Oh," I asked, "Well, how many-- what percentage of the laterals that you hire, um, comes through a search firm?"
[00:17:33] Which is like sixty to a hundred thousand dollars per placement. And she said, "Oh, like about ninety percent." And my chin, like, hit the table. And, and, and at, and at that point, like, I still had to do the research to make sure it worked. But my mi-- once I heard that, my mind was made up. Like, there's... I had, I had to do this.
[00:17:48] And, um, basically, so, you know, looked into how to develop a platform. Um, what, you know, got some really good advice about what the platform should be on the law firm side. Spoke to associates, to laterals, got their feedback and decided, "Look, I'm just gonna, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna do it. It's either I do it or I just think about doing it my whole life."
[00:18:04] And I think, you know, compared to, compared to other entrepreneurs, people who are at other stages in their life, I felt like with a law, with a law degree, with a, with a nice job at a, at a top law firm, you know, I had a, I had the credentials that if it didn't work out, I could f- I, I would be able to go back.
[00:18:18] Um, and, uh, and, you know, so it's worth taking a shot, and if I give it a year or two and it didn't work out, I could always go back to doing practicing. And I, and I, and I liked practicing. I liked what I was doing. So I wasn't unhappy about that prospect, and at least I could say that I tried. So, um, decided in fall of twenty twenty-one that I was gonna do it, and I spoke with the partners that I worked for, and they were very supportive.
[00:18:36] They actually let me go. My former firm, Fenwick, a great firm, they let me go part-time actually for a few months. And for, yeah, as I was working on Lateral Hub, you know, for the beginning of twenty twenty-two, I was still kinda winding down as an associate. And then midway through twenty twenty-two, it was no looking back.
[00:18:49] I decided to focus on it full time and, um, and that's pretty much the story. We launched in August of twenty twenty-two, about three and a half years ago, with about eighteen firms and a hundred and twenty job postings as part of our inaugural set. And here we are, March twenty twenty-six, we have about eight, almost eight hundred job postings, about seventy, more than seventy firms.
[00:19:06] And that's kind of the quick, the quick story of it, yeah.
[00:19:09] Megan Senese: I, I mean, I love that so, so, so much, and I think I remember seeing it. So we're-- I think we're right around the same time... Wait. What i- yeah, we're right around the same time. So I remember, 'cause we're, we're just entering into our fourth year of, of business, right?
[00:19:23] So we've just finished three years. So you're just a couple months ahead of us in terms of how long you've been operating. But I remember seeing that and being like, "Wow, that's, like, really-- that's really cool." And so did you get pushback from, like, recruiters who were like, "What are you trying to do? Take away our money?"
[00:19:38] Like-
[00:19:38] Albert Tawil: Yes. But yeah, I mean, uh, the, the, the first-- so the first year, first year, I wasn't even-- we weren't even launched yet. I was going to... I actually took vacation from my firm for a time to go to the NALP con-- the NALP annual conference, which is pretty much the biggest, like, legal recruiting conference of the year, and, um, you know, basically to, to get the name out and attract law firms to join our, our launch in August.
[00:19:59] So went to the NALP conference, had a booth and signage and materials and all that. Tried to be a little bit mindful that at the end of the day, it's an obvious an alternative to recruiters. And, you know, I was kind of think- preparing for the conference, and I was thinking about, you know, okay, how I have to make sure I'm prepared to have those conversations if somebody approached me, if a recruiter approached me, you know, challenging the concept.
[00:20:15] And, um, I think within the first eight and a half minutes of the conference starting, I had, uh, three recruiters approach my booth, you know, kind of with all the, with all what they thought were the tough questions, and basically, like, you know, it was kind of a funny conversation. I was actually in the middle of speaking with an Am Law, you know, firm, firm pr- prospective client who was already in touch with us, and this person kind of rudely in- rudely interrupted us and said, "Oh, well, I was looking at your stuff, and th-this is interesting.
[00:20:41] You know, people have tried this, but, you know, this might be good for the firms that we don't give a shit about, but, but for the..." They, they used those words. This is, like, an exact quote. "But, but for firms, you know, for, for, for the top firms, like, you know, like XYZ that work with us, they would never use this," which is ironic because Literally, I think all three of the firms that they mentioned all were like some of the first firms to use us, and the firm that, that they didn't give a shit about is actually one of the firms that for some reason just like, "Oh, we don't want..."
[00:21:06] And then while I'm speaking to this recruiting manager, he was like, he was like, "Oh, well, what firm are you from?" And this guy was like, "Oh, I'm from, you know, X firm." And he was like, "And what do you think about this idea?" And the guy was like, "I think it's great, and we're probably gonna sign up." So you know, this guy was like, "Okay, well, it seems like..."
[00:21:21] You know, and I, and I was like, "Oh, well, this is gonna be a long week. This is gonna be..." And, um, luckily that was kind of the only tough conversation I had that week. But h- honestly, at this point in time, you know, we have an established brand name. I, I try to be a very genuine guy. W- I post, I don't go online saying recruiters are horrible.
[00:21:38] There's plenty of good recruiters out there. Um, I think, I think candidates have to be mindful. There, there's a lot of bad recruiters, which has been a, a huge story within the industry, and I'm not gonna get into that. Uh, it's actually the people who are most upset about the bad recruiters are actually the good recruiters.
[00:21:52] But at the end of the day, what I'm talking about is you need, as a candidate, you need to be mindful. And as a firm, to hire your average M&A litigation associate, your recruiter is not needs to be your default avenue, and it's, it's very expensive and inefficient. And we, and modern society has moved on from that as a default avenue.
[00:22:08] So I think we've established a strong brand name. I think a lot of recruiters have, have nice relationships with a, a lot of recruiters. Once in a while, if we get a candidate that's not a good fit for us, you know, we can make a referral or something like that. But generally, you know, so there are, there are some recruiters who kind of look at us negatively, but I think recruiters who have an established, who have an established brand name who aren't threatened, you know, by the fact that they, they know, they know their value.
[00:22:27] They, you know, they have a lot of, a lot of respect for the concept and, and, uh, and all that.
[00:22:32] Megan Senese: There's also something to be said, I mean, this is just like general business development as well, right, is that if there's a recruiter who's maybe focusing on more senior con- more s- 'cause you don't have postings for partners, correct?
[00:22:44] Albert Tawil: There are limited circumstances, but typically no.
[00:22:46] Megan Senese: Okay. So if there is a recruiter, for example, who o- only deals with partners or, you know, partners that don't fit into your job posting board criteria, they could then, like you could have this beautiful referral flow back and forth between each other that said, "Hey, I'm not the right fit for you right now, but at some point- Right
[00:23:06] you will want to lateral as a partner." And I'm sure people come to you, Albert, and ask you, "Hey, I'm a partner now, and I used you three, 10 years ago. Who do you recommend that I talk to as a recruiter?" Right. It's probably not gonna be the ones that shit all over your platform. No,
[00:23:20] Albert Tawil: you're exactly
[00:23:21] Megan Senese: right.
[00:23:21] Right. Yeah. And so there's a lot, I mean, part, so much of business development is this long-term seed planting, relationship development, right? And having to invest in the long-term kind of turnaround. That's very shortsighted for the recruiters who- Yeah ... think that you're a threat because at some point there's, there's an overlap, or you wanna talk to somebody too, right?
[00:23:42] There, you need more hand-holding 'cause this is a bit more self-service, correct?
[00:23:46] Albert Tawil: Yes. Yeah, exactly. We do, and we do, we do act- we, we do engage with candidates quite often. We have some ways that we help them, so, so, uh... But, but I agree, yeah. It, it's, uh, a p- and part of the beauty of it is that a candidate can, can go on, you know, go on the website anytime and see who's, you know, see who's hiring without having to call a recruiter or get, you know, get information second, you know, secondhand.
[00:24:04] Uh, and, and our generation's used, is used to that. Like, we're used to having information at our fingertips, you know? So it's like, it's, uh, it's, you know, having that service is helpful. But I will say, even if a, even if a recruiter does feel threatened by it, there's also a way of going about it. And if, if a recruiter's rude to me or, you know, is something like that, that's different, that's different than someone saying, "Oh, well, interesting business model, you know, good luck with it.
[00:24:23] I'll see you." You know, like, "Here's why I think candidates would use us instead," I'm not offended by that, right? Um, but for someone to, you know, for someone to, to, like, approach it in an interesting way like that is, is, is interesting. We've also had, I mean, w- after we started, there was someone who had, someone who had a different job board which is not relevant, and they started posting on Reddit, like creating burner accounts, trashing LateralHub and making, making stuff up.
[00:24:45] And people were... We had people going on Fishbowl and making stuff up about LateralHub. We were like a data mining company and all this type of stuff, and it was, which is obviously not true. And, uh, and it's just, it was just, it just, um, it's just interesting to see, like, how people could react to something.
[00:24:58] There's two ways to react, and one way is to, like, okay, maybe we should see how we can do, you know, see how we can thrive or, or let's go on Reddit and, you know, anonymously trash this person and... But it's interesting, yeah.
[00:25:11] Megan Senese: I mean, what a t- what a time suck for that person. Instead of doubling down on what makes them different, they decided to use their time to trash another company.
[00:25:21] How did you respond to that?
[00:25:22] Albert Tawil: At the time, we had a couple instances like that. I think I responded like, "It's just, it's, it's not true," and, "Here's how it works," and just kind of left it at that. But there's no... You know, at a certain point when you go back, if someone's intent on creating a new, a, a different reality, there's no reason to go back and forth with them.
[00:25:35] Yeah.
[00:25:36] Megan Senese: Right. So just let them be.
[00:25:37] Jennifer Ramsey: I, I love it when there's, like, these old stagnant industries that are just truly ripe for disruption and innovation like this, and just to, like, make things much more e- efficient. 'Cause, like, it's... I don't know the recruiting process that well, 'cause, you know, like Megan said, we were, we were in Big Law, but on marketing, on the marketing and business development side.
[00:25:58] So recruiting we, we would tangentially, it was adjacent in some ways, but, like, I just never really... The, the process, we weren't involved in it. And so just, it's, it's really interesting to hear how this is just so efficient, and it makes so much sense. And I'm curious, since you were in-house, you were b- you were b- or you're Big Law, private practice, do you see other areas that are just ripe for innovation and disruption in the law firm, like, beyond recruiting?
[00:26:26] Albert Tawil: I mean, look, I, I was actually speaking with a n- with a firm about this today, and there's definitely interesting, interesting trend of, like, it only works for certain legal practice areas. But there's definitely interesting trend of, like, fully remote Leaner law firms, I'm sure you work with some of them that are emerging, where they're former, you know, they're the former big law attorneys who were doing super high quality work and decided like, "Hey, we could do the same work for the same clients, but for half the, for half the cost, for half the price.
[00:26:52] And people are becoming more fee conscious, becoming more AI conscious. Why don't we create this firm, 10 people? We could do it on our own remotely, or five people." So it's interesting to see, like, where that trend, where that trend will go.
[00:27:03] Jennifer Ramsey: Do you think that in the future at some point there could be an end to these ginormous global law firms?
[00:27:11] Albert Tawil: I'm probably not the world's expert on that, but I will say just from, just from my experience with w- working in, you know, in the time that I did, r- reading other people's thoughts on this, and kind of taking it all together and, and kind of thinking about it on my own, I think, uh, I don't think we will see the end of that because...
[00:27:28] And, and A- Alex Su, uh, who's very popular on LinkedIn and TikTok, has a really nice, really nice blog. He talks about this a lot, where these types of firms are always gonna exist because if you're a large company working on a very high stakes lit- you know, with a very high stakes litigation or very high value acquisition, you're not fee- uh, you're not looking for the, for the cheapest firm, or you're not looking for the f- like, you're looking for the firm that's going to give you the best service and, and get that type of white glove situation.
[00:27:55] Whether or not the, that firm, you know, the industry consolidates or focuses more on certain, on certain clients, may- maybe that, maybe that'll happen. But just, you know, for, for people, people s- like people on Twitter are seeing AI and saying, "Oh, this is gonna wipe out the, you know, the Vault 50." Like, that's not realistic, and they don't, they don't have an understanding of how clients work with law firms and why they work with law firms.
[00:28:13] Megan Senese: Yeah. Has the job openings changed? Like, the types of jobs that have been posted, the types of people that they're asking for. You mentioned that there's more, sometimes there's more fully remote positions. Have you seen a change at all in, since launching till now?
[00:28:30] Albert Tawil: I think the market is always cyclical.
[00:28:31] Kind of a brief, excuse me, brief history of lateral, lateral market kind of trends. So COVID hit in March of 2020. All the firms were like, "What does that mean?" So for the first three, four months, most of the firms had, like, a hiring freeze because they didn't understand what that meant. Once people emerged from those first few months of COVID and realized, like, we could all work remotely and actually business is busier than ever, and, um, a lot of the firms, especially the ones with trunk up practices, were hiring like crazy.
[00:28:55] So, like, the last half of 2020 through 2021, hiring like crazy. Firms were throwing out employee referral bonuses or doubling it. You know, all these associates became recruiters for like two weeks and started posting on LinkedIn. I actually had a colleague who was like, "Why am... Like, I should just be... I should just try to get as many of these referral bonuses as I can and, like, skip my bonus-"
[00:29:12] Megan Senese: I remember this, that, that they were basically saying that people were just, like, mailing laptops around.
[00:29:17] Essentially that, like, it didn't matter where you worked anymore. They were like, "Okay, one day I worked at, uh, Kirkland, the next day I'm at Fenwick, and the next time..." Like, the people, that's what they were... The sentiment in the market was that everyone picks on associates. Like, the associates don't care, and they can just work from anywhere, and they're just mailing laptops back and forth because they can work anywhere and nobody cares.
[00:29:36] Albert Tawil: Yeah. I mean, it's, it was a little more nuanced than that, but I know, which I know you know. But, like, but yeah, it, it was, it was... But it's what you're saying. It, it, it hits on an interesting point, which is when you're working remotely and you're working for all the... A lot of these firms are working for the same types of clients.
[00:29:50] If, if you want to lateral from one firm to the other in October of 2020, there's no difference. You just... The only difference is your laptop. It's kind of like the, the Jerry, the Jerry Seinfeld joke, like, in sports, where you're rooting for the same team every year, but the, the people are, it's different people every year, but you're just rooting for their, for the team.
[00:30:06] It's, you're rooting for their laundry because it's, like, their, their uniforms. So, like, it's like, so the same thing. Like, it's, it's really, there's no difference. You're just, you're just switching which laptop is plugged into your screen. So that made it easy for candidates. So yeah, it was kind of a perfect storm of corporate practice was, uh, very busy.
[00:30:20] There was no barrier to laterally because you didn't have as much of a tie to the culture 'cause you were remote. You, you weren't going into an office, so the commute didn't matter to you. So that was happening 2020 through 2021. Then once you got to 2022, that slowed down a bit. Firms, some firms did some layoffs publicly, some firms did layoffs not publicly and then called them something else.
[00:30:39] That's a whole different topic. And then, um, basically, so we started in 2022. The market was still fine, but it definitely wasn't as busy as 2021. So in 2022 when we launched, I mean, I could count on two hands how many corporate, like, regular, like, M&A openings were on the site. You know, between, you know, then the market, the economy getting, getting better, the corporate practices getting busier, all of that, I mean, we've seen now pretty much almost every firm on our, every large firm on our site has several corporate openings.
[00:31:04] So that's pretty interesting to see. One thing coming out of COVID I think is counterintuitive is that people, I think, thought after COVID that firms would be more open to candidates working across offices. So like, "Oh, we'll just open every opening to every office since everyone can work, you know, anywhere."
[00:31:19] Uh, and something that I've learned over the last couple years is that really it's very firm specific. Some firms are more open to that than others. For most firms, uh, for most, like, Am Law firms that are on our site, they're only gonna be hi- they're pretty strict on this. They're only gonna be hiring associates in the offices where the partners are gonna be, that they're gonna be working with because the...
[00:31:37] And it makes sense. If, if you, if you have a practice and your partners are only in Orange County and LA, if you have someone in, even in, in San Francisco, you might as well be remote. What's, like, what's, what's, what's the point? Even though you're in an office, that's what creates the tension where the associate's going in and saying, "Oh, well, I'm here, and nobody's here."
[00:31:54] So I've seen, interestingly, which is counterintuitive to a lot of people because of how well people work remotely, is that most Am Law firms right now are focusing on candidates who are, um, in the offices where the partners are actually going to be because they wanna avoid some of the training, integration, retention issues that they, that, that they experienced during COVID.
[00:32:11] Megan Senese: Yeah. No, so s- super, super interesting. So as we're, as we're wrapping up and closing, closing out our High, Low, Buffalo, where we started- Yes. ... what's, what's one thing that we didn't get to talk about? What's one thing you want people to, to leave with?
[00:32:26] Albert Tawil: Well, I'll say, I mean, I'll say if, if for any firms that, you know, whatever, whether there's large firms, small firms, uh, we also have a separate offering called Summer Associate Hub, which is, um, basically, uh, you know, a way for us to help firms get in front of 1Ls.
[00:32:38] So that's kind of another thing that, you know, is, is... I oftentimes focus on the Lateral Hub when we speak on, on different things like this, but, um, but it is important. Summer Associate Hub is, is kind of an equal part of our, of our offerings, and, uh, it's totally separate from Lateral Hub. But basically, we organize, like, really nice virtual programs.
[00:32:53] We have a c- we have a newsletter for 1Ls every school year. Uh, we have interview programs and all that, and, um, it's been a really, really nice way to expand our business, to respond to what firms are, you know, needs, the needs of the firms are. Um, you know, and what, and I like to say, well, someone once told me this, "When you do interesting things, interesting things happen."
[00:33:10] And we put ourselves out there to do interesting things, and then firms end up approaching us with other ideas. "Oh, by the way, have you considered X? Have you considered Y?" And that we've been able to, you know, in- add what we do to Summer Associate Hub. Like, the, the biggest example when I mentioned the interview program that ended up being successful this year, we ended up getting to the niche of, of patent hiring for law students.
[00:33:29] Apparently, there's been some changes, there's some business changes in that process, and a lot of patent-focused firms have felt frustrated. They wish they had a, um, a, a more effective way of getting in front of 1Ls, and we were able to... You know, we worked on it for a couple years thinking about, thinking about it, and decided to do it, and we had, you know, a, a, a highly successful, like, interview program with, like, over 40 firms only for patent, you know, for patent candidates with science backgrounds.
[00:33:51] Like a very specific niche, but very interesting thing that I, I didn't even, I didn't even know existed before I started Lateral Hub. So, you know, when you put yourself out there, and you do interesting things, and you're just genu- just show a genuine interest in listening and hearing and creating relationships, then interesting things can happen.
[00:34:05] And so I, I've been happy to see that, you know, but proud of that over the last, over the last few years.
[00:34:09] Jennifer Ramsey: Is there anything next, big thing on the horizon for Lateral Hub?
[00:34:13] Albert Tawil: Yeah, I mean, I think we're def- there's definitely something we're working on. I don't want to say too much because I think I don't wanna, I don't know what the timing is.
[00:34:18] But I would like to, to have this launched pretty soon. We're, we're working on something to help, um, candidates find in-house jobs, uh, which is obviously a very high-demand, uh, thing. But, uh, we are working on figuring out how can we support candidates in discovering those opportunities. Hopefully make a big splash when that happens, but that's, yeah, trying to figure out how we can be helpful for, uh, for the, uh, for the, uh, candidate pool.
[00:34:42] Megan Senese: If you're looking for more information about how to grow your business, visit us at www.stage.guide. Sharing is caring. Send this podcast link to someone you love.