Some larger regional law firms are facing a crisis in their leadership succession as the generation of solicitors who helped grow the practices retire, a leading legal headhunter has warned.

Clio Demetriades, a partner at London search agency Howgate Sable, said the growth of major regional practices since the 1970s and 1980s through merger from small provincial firms offers opportunities to mid-tier lawyers looking for real career openings.


Demetriades: few contendere

The partners who oversaw the growth and are now heads of department are retiring, and ‘looking around, it quickly becomes clear that there are going to be very few likely contenders to take over such a position’, Ms Demetriades said.

This is because any given regional area will boast only a limited number of practitioners in a particular field, ‘and, more to the point, every other significant big firm in the broader region is probably in exactly the same boat, chasing the same people’.


She added it has often been seen ‘as a bit of a luxury’ to have a good-quality person as a number two, especially as that person could probably find a head of department role at another firm.


Ms Demetriades said: ‘Difficult and/or strategic recruitment often takes a back seat to routine recruitment, which normally presents a more immediate need, and in any case is easier to achieve. In terms of planning for the future, lots of firms also put their faith in the ideal scenario of growing their own partners from within. Unfortunately, this is becoming an outdated concept, relying as it does on an old-fashioned expectation that junior solicitors will prefer to stay “in the family” to progress their careers.’


Firms that fail to have a succession plan could face losing the retiring partner’s client base, and clients in general could drift if they perceive the absence of a leader, she said.

The problem becomes even more acute if several department heads are retiring simultaneously. Ms Demetriades said: ‘This isn’t unusual – masses of firms have been set up by a contemporaneous group of people. Also, what if as well as losing one or more senior people, there is also growing demand from clients to provide expertise in new areas? In such circumstances, the classic but still very sound solution is to merge – and that’s exactly what numerous mid-range regional firms are doing.’