McKenna Long still in hiring mode

By Péralte C. Paul

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

McKenna Long & Aldridge, Atlanta's seventh-largest law firm,  is hiring.

Even as the bad economy has other law firms cutting costs via layoffs and salary reductions, McKenna hasn't.  Some rival Atlanta firms rescinded offers to associates they initially hired or pushed back start dates to next year. But because of client demands,  McKenna moved up the start dates of half of its 12 fall hires to late summer.

The firm, with offices across the country and in Belgium, expects its attorney roster to grow to 470 by year’s end, up from 450 at the end of 2007.

Its growth – even as some competitors have shrunk – comes from a two-pronged strategy, said Jeff Haidet, McKenna’s chairman.

First they changed the firm's evaluation and employee raise structure. Then they identified business trends and boosted the ranks of select practices firm leaders bet would grow despite the economy or because of it, he said.

Following the industry's traditional "lock-step" compensation model, McKenna gave raises toassociates each year.

“Two years ago we took a close look at our associate advancement approach, we said it doesn’t make sense to us where everybody got an increase just because they were alive and were here and had been practicing for many years,” Haidet said.

Now the review process is more stringent, looking at employees’ ability to meet or exceed certain competencies.

“Not everybody advances at the same time. Some associates this year got raises and others were held steady," he said.

McKenna's moves will become industry practice, predicts Ed Poll, who heads Law Biz Management Co., a Venice, Calif.-based law firm consultancy.

"More of them are going merit based," Poll said. "That's what is going to be the standard now, not how many years you've been out of out law school."

Changing wasn't an easy sell. "At the time, the economy was booming and some associates were skeptical," said Jennifer Queen, McKenna's chief hiring officer. She's received several inquiries from firms looking to change their compensation model.

Along with changing its review process, McKenna grew those practices it thought would get a larger volume of activity.  In 2007, before the housing market collapse and meltdown of global financial markets, it hired more bankruptcy and corporate restructuring lawyers. The rationale: Real estate was becoming too big a bubble and had to burst.

. "Our overall strategy is about anticipating changes and developing services for our clients whether those changes are threats or opportunities for them," Haidet said.

That explains why the firm, which has a large government practice and represented Canada in that country's bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, added attorneys to that area. Its government contracting and government affairs group has swelled to about 100 lawyers from 75 in anticipation of federal stimulus spending.

This year, the firm hired the public finance group from Kilpatrick Stockton, anticipating rising local and state government bond activity.

"The government is the best customer you can have right now, but the government is a very complicated customer," Haidet said.

That long-term view will help McKenna and other firms who are proactive in the current downturn, said Poll, the law consultant. Troutman Sanders

"Not every law firm is experiencing difficulty today. Some firms understood and took a long range view of the economy and made an evaluation of those practice areas that would survive long-term," Poll said. "Other law firms were fat and happy and whether they stumbled or not was a matter of accident."