Project Consulting Services

Entry-Level Hiring - Kimball can assist you in reviewing the effectiveness of your campus and office interviewing efforts - including a review or audit of current and recent results, competitive analyses comparing your results with those of your key regional, local, and national competitors. We have developed short and long-term recruiting plans for leading firms. We have conducted focus groups of summer associates, new associates, experienced associates and partners to evaluate all aspects of entry-level hiring. We have conducted individual interviews of law students who have declined invitations or declined offers to help law firm clients understand how they can improve their efforts in the future. Understanding the opinions of the targets of your recruiting efforts is a fundamental part of designing optimal entry level recruiting efforts.   We have reviewed firm's campus marketing materials and offered comparative competitive evaluations of the materials used by leading local, regional, and national competitors.

Lateral Hiring   - We have worked with leading firms nationally on improving the quality and effectiveness of their lateral hiring programs including developing and advising on due diligence matters, lateral hiring questionnaires. We have designed lateral interview evaluation forms and advised on the structure and content of lateral interviews. We have presented programs to hundreds of recruiting professionals, hiring partners, and managing partners on trends and issues in lateral hiring.  We advise law firms regularly on developing firm-friendly and effective search firm agreements and on developing lateral hiring strategies that are fine tuned to meet the needs of highly specific searches. We advise firms on developing strategies and identifying targets for expansion into new markets and new practice areas.

Interviewer Training - We have trained thousands of partner and associate campus and office interviewers for our law firm clients - including multi office national firms, leading regional firms, intellectual property specialty firms, and other law firms. Our programs have been presented to AmLaw 200 firms in Chicago, Los Angeles,San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Detroit, and other markets.

An exceptional interviewer training program will yield substantial and prompt benefits.  It can address concerns about the message your interviewers are communicating to a law student audience which is prone to skepticism and drowning in information from friends, law firms, and the media. It will help your partners sell the strengths and opportunities your firm offers. It will make your campus and office interviewers more effective - in evaluating students and selecting those who will receive offers. It can increase your yield rate from campus interviews and offers of employment - which will reduce the cash expense and attorney time associated with entry-level interviewing. Finally it will optimize your recruiting efforts - an important task in an era when scores of multi-office national / international firms compete for the attention of a short list of law school graduates who meet their needs.

Importantly, interviewer training is not an off-the-shelf /one-size-fits-all product. In fact a generic program is less than useful - it can be counterproductive because it will not resonate with an audience of lawyers who want to know what will work (and why) for their firm. The best training program is designed around your needs, concerns, and strategic objectives.
We have developed Quick Reference Guides for office and campus interviewers and more extensive training manuals appropriate for hiring committee members and others deeply involved in campus and entry level hiring. Clients are welcome to broadcast, store, and tape our programs for future use in other offices.

Professional fees for consulting services are charged on a project basis after discussing the scope and range of services required by the law firm client subject to a minimum fee per project of $10,000. Travel and other out of pocket expenses are charged at cost.