Timothy B. Corcoran of Corcoran Consulting Group.

The earnest and breathless headlines always have the air of triumph: "Mega law firm announces market-leading associate bonuses" and "Monster Law matches Mega Law" and sometimes even "Humongous Law outbids Mega Law in the war for talent" Of course there's always a contrarian in the group, a managing partner who, as if watching with amusement as his peers engage in adolescent hijinks, claims to be immune to such frivolity, and unironically announces a 95% match to the market lemmings, er, leaders. Whether associate salaries or year-end bonuses, law firm leaders are perpetually increasing their cost base and impairing profits to achieve … what? Why do law firm leaders continually pursue a strategy that is so obviously harmful to the bottom line?

Clients with any business sense long ago imposed a "no first-year associates" restriction in their outside counsel billing guidelines. They also submit law firm invoices to a rigorous review to unearth when, say, a matter includes five times the expected billable hours. They also simply refuse to pay for inefficiency, resulting in an 82% national average in law firm collection realization. In many businesses, that leakage far exceeds the gross profit margin. No matter how law firm leaders try to paint a picture otherwise, clients know that an increasing cost base catalyzed by escalating associate salaries and bonuses will inevitably lead to higher prices. And they're having none of it. So why do it?

Law firm leaders believe there's a war for talent. They're wrong. Or, more precisely, they've conflated the notion of a very strict set of qualifying criteria with the idea of talent, and there is, unassailably, a shortage of individuals who meet these limited criteria. Many of the leading law firms define "quality" as students with the highest grades from a limited number of "leading" law schools. These schools, in turn, primarily admit students with impressive academic success as adolescents, coupled with high marks on an entrance exam designed ages ago to identify those with the potential to think like legal scholars. Those with a grasp of complex math will deduce that there's only so many top 10 students from the top 10 leading schools. Or top 25 students from the top 15 schools.

Let's not dismiss or overlook the tremendous accomplishments and sincere dedication of these fine students. It's an incredible feat to achieve such distinction and they should be applauded. What we should not do is confuse this academic success with effectiveness as practicing lawyers. Indeed, very few end up as partners in the law firms where they begin their legal careers. Making partner should be the inevitable, or at least statistically more likely, result of recruiting the right talent. And many of those who have risen to partner status are increasingly standing on the sidelines watching as law companies, alternative legal solutions providers, smaller and less prestigious law firms, and growing in-house law departments are doing the work that was once the province of the leading law firm brands. The market doesn't perceive a lack of talent. As it turns out, the law firm leaders engaged in their self-declared war for talent are actually engaged in a war for comfort and familiarity, for the status quo.

The market, driven by savvier buyers, is engaged in a war for quality, and the war is being fought on multiple fronts. Big law firms accustomed to setting the rules of engagement are the least equipped to prevail in this new warfare. The winning strategy is to better understand how clients define quality, and what skills and competencies are optimally correlated with delivering this day in and day out in today's legal marketplace. Undoubtedly many of those who are the beneficiaries of the outdated war for talent will excel in this new dynamic. But a far greater number will emerge from different schools, with different trajectories to their legal careers, with different accomplishments than merely top academic rankings.

Lest this observation be confused with a case for compromising quality, nothing is further from the truth. The disconnect is that quality isn't now, and for quite some time hasn't been, what Big Law leaders have claimed it to be. Success in today's legal market requires emotional intelligence, resilience, client focus, technology aptitude, business acumen and ambition. These are not traits that can be easily discerned from class rankings in a small subset of law schools.

The challenge for and to law firm leaders is to overcome their risk aversion, to stop mirroring the business strategy of respected peers and competitors, and instead to define what are the ingredients for sustainable success in their own firms. Start by mapping out every single factor noted in outside counsel guidelines, requests for proposals and client feedback interviews. Prepare a gap analysis between these desired traits and your current hiring profile. The end result will be a welcome surprise: the talent you seek is not contained solely within the top ranks of the most notable schools. The talent you seek is far more accessible than you think.

It's the nature of law firms to have high labor costs. We can't escape that. What we can escape is wildly overpaying for talent that isn't what the market is demanding more of. Law firm leaders aren't compromising quality or their brand by widening their focus. It will come as a pleasant surprise that hiring for the criteria that please clients and that match your culture is a much wiser and more profitable investment than engaging in a false war for talent with deep-pocketed competitors.

Timothy B. Corcoran is principal of Corcoran Consulting Group, a Trustee and Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management, and past president and a member of the Legal Marketing Association Hall of Fame. A former CEO, he advises law firm and law department leaders on the profitable disruption of outdated business models. With offices in New York, Charlottesville, and Sydney, he can be reached at www.BringInTim.com and @tcorcoran.