Partner and Group Placements
Confidential lateral moves for partners and full practice groups, negotiated at the leadership level.
Executive Legal Search
Newport Associates
Placing exceptional attorneys at the nation's top law firms. Associates to partners. Coast to coast.
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Attorneys Placed
Since inception
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Recent Placements
In the last 12 months
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Firm Relationships
Across Am Law 100 and 200 firms
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Markets Served
Nationwide
Our Process
How a lateral move actually happens.
Six stages, from the first quiet conversation to a check-in a year after you start. The timeline moves on its own, or point at any stage to read it in your own time.
A conversation, not a pitch.
Everything begins with a private conversation about where you actually stand. We want to understand what is prompting you to look, which client relationships are genuinely yours to move, how your practice is likely to develop over the next five years, and what you would need a platform to do that yours is not doing today. We are equally interested in what you would refuse, because that narrows the field faster than anything else. You will not be asked for a resume in this first conversation, and nothing said in it leaves the room without your explicit permission. Most of the attorneys we eventually place were not actively in the market when we first spoke to them.
Step 01
Initial Interest
A conversation, not a pitch.
Everything begins with a private conversation about where you actually stand. We want to understand what is prompting you to look, which client relationships are genuinely yours to move, how your practice is likely to develop over the next five years, and what you would need a platform to do that yours is not doing today. We are equally interested in what you would refuse, because that narrows the field faster than anything else. You will not be asked for a resume in this first conversation, and nothing said in it leaves the room without your explicit permission. Most of the attorneys we eventually place were not actively in the market when we first spoke to them.
Step 02
Due Diligence
We go and find the fit.
Rather than circulating your materials and waiting to see what comes back, we go looking on your behalf. We work our relationships with practice group chairs, lateral hiring partners, and managing partners to establish which firms are genuinely investing in your practice area right now, what they have actually committed to fund, and how their rate structure would sit with your particular clients. We also test the things that quietly undo a move a year later: conflicts exposure, overlapping client relationships, whether the compensation system rewards what you are good at, and whether the seat you would fill is one the existing partners want filled. What reaches you is a short list with reasons attached, not a long list with hope attached.
Step 03
Meeting the Firm
Straight to the hiring partner.
We bring you directly to the lateral hiring partner and the practice group chair. Not a recruiting coordinator, not an HR screen, and no waiting while your materials work their way up the chain. Because those relationships already exist, there is none of the back and forth that normally stretches a lateral process across many months. We arrange and sequence each meeting so that you build momentum instead of repeating yourself, brief you beforehand on who you are seeing and what genuinely matters to them, and brief them properly on you so the conversation starts well past your bio. Between rounds we gather candid feedback from both sides and tell you exactly what we hear, including the parts you would rather not hear.
Step 04
Negotiation
Where the outcome is decided.
This is the stage that determines what the move is actually worth, and the one you should least have to handle alone. We know what your practice commands in the current market, what comparable laterals have cleared at similar platforms, and where each firm still has room to move. We negotiate the entire package rather than the headline number: base and target compensation, origination and billing credit, the length and structure of any guarantee, title and partnership track, associate leverage, and the practice support you will need to deliver what you have promised. Because we make the argument on your behalf, you never sit across the table advocating for your own value, which is both uncomfortable and, in our experience, markedly less effective.
Step 05
Placement and Offer
The paperwork, read properly.
We work through the offer letter and the partnership or employment documents with you line by line, and we model the full economics against what you have today rather than comparing headline figures. We flag the terms that matter later and are easy to wave through now: how a guarantee unwinds, how credit is allocated on shared matters, what happens to your compensation if the practice ramps more slowly than projected, and the reach of any restrictive covenants. We then advise on the mechanics of leaving well, which means notice timing, conflicts clearance, client consents, and file transfers handled in the right order. By the time you sign, the transition plan already exists and everyone involved knows their part in it.
Step 06
Post-Lateral Follow Up
We stay involved after the start date.
A placement is not successful because an offer was signed. It is successful when you are thriving on the new platform three years later and the firm counts the hire among the best decisions it made. So we stay in contact through your first year and well beyond it, confirming that the platform delivered what it promised, that client transitions completed cleanly, that the support you were offered actually materialised, and that the integration is working from both directions. If something is drifting we would far rather hear it early, while it is still a conversation and not yet a problem. That follow-through is also a large part of why firms keep taking our calls.
What We Do
Three mandates, one standard.
Associate and Counsel Placements
Career-defining moves for associates and counsel at every class year, from 2nd years to senior counsel.
Strategic Firm Searches
Retained searches for Am Law firms building out practices, opening offices, and planning succession.
Practice Areas
Where we run searches.
- Private Equity
- M&A
- Fund Formation
- Emerging Companies and Venture Capital
- Investment Management
- Corporate Governance
- Securities and Public Companies
- Capital Markets
- Technology Transactions and Licensing
- Joint Ventures and Strategic Alliances
- Finance and Private Credit
- Banking and Financial Services Regulatory
- Structured Finance and Securitization
- Project Finance and Infrastructure
- Public Finance
- Restructuring
- Real Estate
- Real Estate Finance
- Construction
- Land Use and Zoning
- Private Wealth and Trusts and Estates
- Tax
- Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits
- Litigation
- Securities and Shareholder Litigation
- Antitrust
- White Collar and Government Investigations
- Class Action Defense
- Appellate
- International Arbitration
- Product Liability and Mass Torts
- Insurance Coverage
- Labor and Employment
- IP
- Patent Litigation
- Patent Prosecution
- Trademark and Copyright
- Data Privacy and Cybersecurity
- Healthcare
- Life Sciences
- Energy and Natural Resources
- Environmental
- Government Contracts
- Media and Entertainment
- Immigration
Markets
From our home in Newport Beach, we run searches nationwide.
- Los Angeles
- Orange County
- San Francisco
- Silicon Valley
- San Diego
- New York
- Boston
- Chicago
- Dallas
- Austin
- Houston
- Miami
- Washington DC
- Seattle
- Denver
- Atlanta
- Nashville
- Philadelphia
- Minneapolis
- Charlotte