A Fireside Chat with Delia Swan, Part II
Our three-part series with our Founder Delia Swan continues, where we discuss Swan Legal Search’s edge in the California market, and lessons learned from economic peaks and valleys throughout the decades.
Part One.
You founded SLS on the principle that “the people best equipped to help lawyers meet their career goals should be lawyers and legal professionals themselves.” Have you found hiring lawyers and legal professionals to be a competitive advantage when distinguishing your recruiting practice to candidates?
In the early years we needed to distinguish ourselves as a cut above from a marketing perspective. From first hand knowledge I understood that someone who succeeds in law school necessarily is a “Type A” over-achiever with initiative. I culled through lawyers to find the right fit – people who genuinely desired to improve our candidate’s lives, and would be an honest and loyal partner to our law firm clients.
Many sought to join Swan Legal Search but were declined because they did not practice law in California. I felt that the experience my recruiters gained in a law firm lent itself to a deeper understanding of our clients’ needs and a greater empathy with our candidate’s desires. It stayed that way until Lorraine Connally joined us in 2017. It was potentially a big tradition to break. As a firm recruiting professional, she and I worked together for decades and had a strong mutual trust and respect. There was no way I was not going to bring Lorraine on board — and it’s been one of the best decisions I ever made.
Our reputation as #1 in California was cemented for years, so, breaking the rules and hiring her ushered in a few other new recruiters who do not have J.D. credentials but who rise to the highest levels of excellency required by SLS: Jenny Swan Meyer and Zach Blunck have since joined the firm and have injected a youthful vibe to the firm. While not lawyers, Jenny and Zach have the go-getter experience of start-ups, and connect well with the latest generation of California attorneys. We’ve drawn on young lawyers as well, with Zsaleh Harivandi joining the team. And of course we have our steady stars, Andrea Hartwell, Mindy Baggish and Carla Khalife.
What has motivated you to keep your recruiting practice in CA vs expanding throughout the US?
Swan Legal Search has always been an expert in the California market. I’ve never wanted to stretch our team bandwidth to the point where we lost our edge. We are able to first and foremost speak in-depth and with confidence about the California market. If we expanded into New York or Chicago, the purity our of knowledge might be muddied. Besides, there's been sufficient business here — California is a huge market.
Looking back, has keeping your recruiting practice in CA been an advantage during market highs and lows?
Being in business 25 years I’ve seen a lot of ups and downs and we’ve managed, but the Great Recession proved to be a huge teaching moment for me. It wasn’t easy. We worked hard to keep our team together and we did. That path ate up quite a bit of capital, but we got out of the red in due time. Would expanding out of California have helped? I’m not sure. Certainly being in the thick of it with our clients and candidates kept us up front in their minds. When the market loosened up, I like to think they came to us first.
Continue reading >> Part Three. To see Part One, click here.