Guide for BigLaw Attorneys
If you're a lawyer considering a lateral move, whether you're actively looking or just curious about the market, the right recruiter can be the difference between a well-timed, well-positioned move and a process that damages your reputation at your current firm. Scale Up Counsel is a Palo Alto-based legal recruiting firm founded by former BigLaw attorney Ezra Clark, built specifically for elite lateral moves.
Legal recruiting is a candidate-pays-nothing service. Law firms pay a placement fee to the recruiter when a hire is made. Candidates pay nothing at any stage.
Here is how a typical lateral search works with a specialist recruiter:
You share your background, your goals, and your timeline. A good recruiter listens more than they talk at this stage. They are assessing fit for their employer network, and you are assessing whether this person understands your market.
The recruiter identifies which firms are likely to be interested given your practice area, deal experience, class year, and academic credentials. At Scale Up Counsel, we use AI-assisted fit scoring to refine this mapping before any outreach.
A strong recruiter helps you refine your narrative: why you're moving, why this firm, how your experience translates. This is where recruiter quality shows.
Your materials are submitted only to firms you have approved, in the sequence and timing you have agreed to. No exceptions.
A specialized recruiter helps you prepare for lateral interviews, which are different from OCI. They also help you evaluate and negotiate offers.
Not all legal recruiters are equal. Here's what distinguishes the best:
Did they ever practice law? Do they understand what a BigLaw hiring partner values? Scale Up Counsel was founded by a former BigLaw attorney specifically because insider knowledge changes the quality of advice.
Generalist staffing agencies handle every level of legal placement. The best lateral recruiters work only with elite candidates and high-caliber firms, which means their employer relationships are built for this work.
Your search is confidential. A recruiter should never send your materials without your explicit written approval. Ask directly how they handle this.
The best recruiters tell you the truth about your candidacy, your timing, and your positioning, even when it's not what you want to hear.
Recruiting is not sales. You should be able to explore the market without committing to a search, and without being pushed into roles that don't fit.
Scale Up Counsel was built specifically for attorneys who want to understand their options without starting an active search. Our founder's experience at a Cravath-scale firm means we speak your language, understand your pressures, and know what good looks like on the other side of the table.
We use proprietary agentic technology to score fit and identify openings, which means less time spent on irrelevant processes and more time focused on real opportunities.
Our current employer network includes 20+ top-tier law firms and legal organizations, all actively hiring.
Legal job search strategy
Want a better shot at the legal job you actually want? One of the smartest moves is applying where competition is still thin. That is exactly why we built Scale Up Counsel: a growing legal jobs database plus recruiting support for attorneys who want access to opportunities others miss.
We combine human research with automated discovery to surface roles across firm sites, employer pages, and niche sources. The goal is simple: help you find strong fits faster through a confidential search with our team.
Some of the strongest legal openings never attract hundreds of applicants. When you pursue roles early or in narrower channels, your odds of moving forward improve dramatically.
High-quality opportunities often live on firm career pages, employer sites, and smaller regional listings. They rarely stay visible on the largest boards long enough for most candidates to find them.
Many boards only show roles employers pay to promote. Our team and automated research continuously add legal openings we discover across the market, not just sponsored listings.
Ready to see what is out there? Send your resume for a confidential look at roles that match your background.
Send your resume to ezra@scaleupcounsel.com to get started.
For moves between Cravath-scale, AmLaw 50, and comparable firms, a specialist recruiter adds significant value. They have relationships hiring partners trust, they know which firms have actual openings (not just posted jobs), and they can position your candidacy in ways you cannot do yourself.
Look for recruiters who have practiced law themselves, specialize in your specific market segment, have verifiable employer relationships, and will not submit your materials without your approval. Ask for references from candidates they've placed.
Yes. Scale Up Counsel charges nothing to candidates at any stage. Placement fees are paid entirely by the hiring firm.
Completely confidential. Your resume and materials are never submitted to any employer without your explicit approval. You stay in control at every step.
Most lateral searches from first conversation to offer take 4 to 12 weeks, depending on the practice area, market conditions, and how targeted your search is. Some placements happen faster.
Not actively looking, but wondering where you stand in the lateral market? That's exactly why we exist.
Email: jobs@scaleupcounsel.com
Headquarters: Palo Alto, CA · Serving the San Francisco Bay Area and nationally
