A&O, Eversheds, Latham and SJB review partner recruitment systems

Allen & Overy (A&O) has reviewed its lateral partner hiring programme over the last seven years, with the firm retaining more than 90% of the partners it brought in over the period.

The magic circle firm's research, which comes against a backdrop of increasing numbers of UK and US firms taking a detailed look at their lateral hiring record, found A&O has brought in 95 partners over the last seven years, 19 of whom were hired for the firm's Australia launch last year. Of the total, only nine have departed.

The review also saw the firm look at whether its laterally hired partners had an easier or more difficult career progression than homegrown partners.

A&O senior partner David Morley said: "We decided to step back and to see what lessons we could learn when looking at results over a seven-year period. Our conclusion is that we have a successful programme, which is partly because we're fanatical about cultural fit, but we also go to extraordinary lengths to due diligence lateral additions and review the business case."

A&O did not provide a regional breakdown of the hires but said most had been added in the Asia-Pacific region, which is a major growth area for the firm.

In London it has only hired partners in key areas of strategic priority, such as last year's addition of Herbert Smith energy partners Paul Griffin and John Geraghty and the hire of high-yield specialist Kevin Muzilla from Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy in 2009.

A&O's findings come as Eversheds and SJ Berwin both look at their lateral hiring programmes. SJ Berwin is considering introducing an integration programme for laterals, while Eversheds is assigning a partner 'buddy' to every lateral recruit as part of an extension of its existing 90-day induction programme.

Meanwhile, US firms Latham & Watkins and K&L Gates have both reviewed the success of their lateral hiring programmes in recent months.