Three things had to work simultaneously: internal advocates with real client access, a clear picture of what firm clients actually needed, and a mechanism to get the laterals in front of those clients with something concrete to offer.
We built an integration working group from a select group of commercially minded partners with strong connections across the firm’s core client relationships, practice groups, and offices. These were partners who saw the opportunity and had the relationships to move it. They took specific responsibility for introductions that had real stakes attached.
In parallel, we conducted structured diligence on a prioritized set of firm clients - drawing from market research, internal partner discussions, client secondees, and firm alumni embedded at those organizations - to understand exactly where each client stood on data privacy and cyber readiness, who owned the function, and what kind of support would actually resonate.
The third element was a client investment program, approved engagement by engagement by the managing partner and CFO. Enough structure to produce good thinking, not enough to create a bureaucratic hurdle. Over twelve investments were approved: bespoke data breach response protocols for clients who had none, live mock breach simulations for clients who had protocols but had never stress-tested them, and co-sponsored industry panels that put key client contacts and the lateral partners on the same stage. Each designed around a specific gap, a specific contact, a specific moment the diligence had surfaced.