Connor: Hi, all. My name is Conor Kinnear, and welcome to the Passle podcast Laterals & Mergers: 2 Good, 1 Bad. It's a short podcast where we ask leaders from law and professional services firms who are involved in the integration of lateral hires or mergers two good things they've done or that work really well for them, and then one bad thing they've done that they would never do again.

For our first ever episode, I am delighted to welcome Grasford Smith from the law firm Akerman. 

Grasford, welcome. 

Grasford: Thank you, Connor. It's really a pleasure to be here with you.

Connor: So before we ask you two good things and one bad thing. Grassford, how are you involved in lateral integration at your firm?

Grasford: Yeah. Roughly about four years ago, the CEO of my law firm appointed myself and one of my partners in the New York office to serve as co-chairs of the lateral partner integration program here at Akerman.

Connor: Great stuff. And I think that's a role we see happening more and more with just the huge importance of getting lateral integration correct at firms. So, could you tell us two good things you've done at your firm that have made a difference?

Grasford: Yeah. So we're very focused on how we can improve our program, constantly. One of the things that we implemented within the last several years is a video essentially where when a lateral joins us, they record a video with us talking to us about their personal background and also their professional background, and once we polish that video, we end up sending it out to the entire firm.

And what does that do? It allows your partners and, and other colleagues to get to know you quickly so that they can integrate you into the firm, refer clients your way, et cetera. So that's one thing that we've implemented that has gone quite well within the firm.

Connor: I love the idea, Grasford, of both the professional side but also that, the personal side as well, so who that person is as, as a human, not just as an attorney.

Grasford: Correct. Because you know that we say we do business with who we know, like, and trust, and that like part is something that is sometimes, understated, but as you know, Connor that is quite, quite important.

Connor: Absolutely.

Grasford: And so you asked for two positive things. So we've really dissected the process when a lateral joins. What we want for them is to be able to join our firm and to hit the ground running and know that they're supported really from day one. So we've dissected the entire process, and we've come up with a checklist and the stakeholders who are involved in making sure that laterals can be successful from day one.

So when a lateral joins us, they will be provided this checklist, and they will see in a very structured way what are the steps that they can take to be able to integrate into the firm quickly and to be successful.

Connor: Brilliant. That's great, Grasford. And tell us this is there one bad thing you, that hasn't worked or that you wouldn't do again?

Grasford: Well, let me frame it this way. When my partner and I became the co-chairs of the lateral partner program, one of the very first things we did, Connor, is we, we started a listening campaign where we went to all facets of the firm. Anyone involved in the lateral program, we wanted to hear from them what was working well and what wasn't working well.

The main stakeholder, of course, in that process were the laterals themselves. We wanted to find out from them what was working well and what wasn't working well. The idea is if something wasn't working well, we would improve it. And one of the things I would say is even when you make some improvements to something, you can never rest on your laterals, right?

I think anytime we've done that, we realize that as new laterals come in, as the landscape itself changes, even something that was a strength at one time could become an area of concern. So we have made sure that anytime we've seen anything that looks to be not functioning optimally, we're continually listening and we're just making sure that we can improve it.

Connor: Brilliant, Grasford. Listen, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been absolutely brilliant. And thanks everyone else for tuning in and having a listen. So you've been listening to the Passle podcast, Laterals and Mergers: 2 Good, 1 Bad. Have a great rest of the day.

Charlie: This episode is brought to you by CrossPitch AI, the new cross-selling tool from Passle. You can follow the Passle CMO Series podcast on your preferred podcast platform. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time