Legal recruiting glossary.

Legal recruiting runs on a vocabulary that usually goes undefined until it turns up in an offer letter or a questionnaire. Here's what these terms mean in practice, for attorneys weighing a move and for the firms hiring them.

Lateral move: A lateral move is a change of firms by an attorney already in practice, as distinct from a hire out of law school or a clerkship. Most associate hiring and nearly all partner hiring happens this way. For the attorney, the question is whether the new seat is a better job, which the pay number alone won't answer. For the firm, a lateral fills a gap in a busy group far faster than training someone into it.
Lateral partner questionnaire (LPQ): The lateral partner questionnaire is the form a firm asks a partner candidate to complete before it makes an offer. It typically asks for several years of originations, billings, collections, and realization, along with the client list and current rates. Firms use it to price the practice and to run conflicts, so accuracy matters more than optimism. Am Law firms tend to ask for more detail and press harder on the answers than mid-size and regional firms do.
Book of business: A book of business is the client work an attorney originates and controls, usually measured in annual billings or collections. It sets a partner's value on the lateral market, because a firm can add capacity much faster than it can build client relationships. Size alone doesn't settle what a book is worth. A smaller book of recurring work the attorney controls often matters more to a firm than a bigger one resting on a single matter.
Portability: Portability is how much of a book would follow the attorney to a new firm. Firms discount the stated number, sometimes heavily, because plenty of relationships belong to the platform rather than the individual. Rates, conflicts, panel arrangements, and the other partners who touch the work all pull on the answer. A figure that holds up under diligence is worth more to a candidate than a high one that falls apart in it.
Origination credit: Origination credit is the firm's internal record of who brought in a client or a matter, and it drives a large share of what a partner is paid. The rules vary widely. Some firms give full credit to the originating partner for the life of the client, others split it with the partners doing the work or retire it after a few years. A lateral should settle in writing how credit for existing clients will be recorded at the new firm, since this is the term partners most often assume and least often confirm.
Guarantee (lateral partner compensation): In a lateral partner deal, the guarantee is compensation the firm commits to pay for a defined period at the front of the arrangement, regardless of what the practice produces in that window. It exists because a book takes time to move and neither side wants year one priced on incomplete information. What follows the guarantee matters more than the number itself, because that's when the firm's normal compensation formula takes over. Ask how the practice gets measured when it does.
Of counsel: Of counsel is the least standardized title in a law firm, and two offers carrying it can describe very different jobs. At mid-size and regional firms it often marks a senior attorney who runs their own matters outside the partnership, sometimes arriving with a modest book. At Am Law firms it more often means a career specialist seat in a technical practice, a place for a senior associate past the partner decision, or a stated track toward partner for a lateral. What a firm has done with the title before tells you more than the offer letter does.
Non-equity partner: A non-equity partner carries the partner title on a salary, usually with a bonus, but holds no ownership stake and takes no share of firm profits. Two-tier partnerships are standard at large firms now and common at mid-size firms as well. The tier decides how you're paid and what say you have in how the firm is run. At some firms it's a step toward equity and at others it's where the title stops, so ask which one is on the table before you accept it.
Conflicts check (lateral hiring): A conflicts check is the firm's review of whether a candidate's clients and matters collide with work the firm already handles. For a partner with a book it's the step that most often ends an otherwise strong fit, and at a large firm with a wide client base it can run for weeks. Mapping likely conflicts before either side invests much time spares everyone the late surprise. Mid-size and regional firms usually clear faster, mostly because they have fewer existing clients to check against.
Contingency search: In a contingency search, the recruiter is paid only if the firm hires a candidate the recruiter presented. Nothing is owed to start, and nothing is owed if the search produces no hire, which is why most associate and mid-level hiring runs this way. Firms often have more than one recruiter working the same opening. Candidates pay nothing under either model, contingency or retained.
Retained search: In a retained search, the firm pays part of the fee up front and the recruiter works the assignment exclusively. It's the usual structure for a lateral partner search, a practice group move, or a confidential opening a firm doesn't want circulating. The firm gets a mapped search of the full candidate pool rather than whoever happens to be looking that month. Mid-size and regional firms use it selectively, most often for a hire that would reshape a practice group.
Market scale (Big Law associate salaries): The market scale is the published salary ladder most Am Law firms pay their associates, set by class year and matched almost firm for firm. One firm announces a raise and the rest publish matching memos within days, so the scale moves as a block. As of July 2026 it starts at $235,000 for a first-year associate, with a year-end bonus on top. Mid-size and regional firms generally pay below the scale and ask for fewer hours, which is why comparing two offers on base alone tells you very little.