Insights & Resources

After nearly four decades in legal search, one trend I'm seeing in in-house legal hiring is that the strongest legal departments are not necessarily moving the fastest. They're spending more time defining success before interviewing candidates. They're spending more time building consensus among the General Counsel, HR, and business leadership team about the skills and attributes that matter most, and they're digging deeper into leadership style, judgment, and the ability to influence, not just technical legal expertise.

A resume may get someone into the conversation, but it rarely tells the whole story. The qualities that often determine long-term success are much harder to assess:

• Judgment
• Business acumen
• Ability to influence without authority
• Intellectual curiosity
• Leadership presence
• Cultural fit

The best General Counsel and senior HR leaders understand this instinctively. It's one of the reasons the interview process matters so much.

As a recruiter, I understand the pressure to fill an opening quickly. But the searches that produce the best long-term hires are rarely the ones that prioritize speed above all else. Over the years, I've seen candidates with impeccable resumes struggle, while others whose backgrounds may have seemed less obvious on paper became trusted advisors and key members of the leadership team.

Strong legal credentials matter, but finding the person who can earn trust, navigate complexity, exercise sound judgment, and help move an organization forward is something else entirely. The challenge isn't simply finding someone who can do the legal work. It's identifying the person who will still be thriving in the role five years from now. At Carpenter Legal Search, that's what we mean when we say we're Focused on the Fit®.

I'd be interested to hear from General Counsel and HR leaders: What qualities have proven to be the strongest predictors of long-term success in your organization?

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