Legal Jobs - Atlanta, GA

 WHY GLI?

Unfailing tenacity in completing our assignments successfully with a sense of urgency…flexibility to behave quickly on client needs while reacting to external market factors which influence our searches…pursuing our assignments with honesty, integrity and attention to detail…a passion for total client service; those are the traits which separate GLI from the mainstream.

We work with our clients as an integral team member – an indispensable resource for locating and recruiting the highest echelon of talent available to fill any given position, and as a viable extension of the client’s public relations effort. And always with the goal of constantly redefining the standards by which premium executive recruiting is conducted, without confinements, restrictions or formulas.

THAT’S WHAT MAKES GLI EXCEPTIONAL.

AT GLI, we pride ourselves in the fact that when companies cannot meet their hiring needs through their normal relationships with placement agencies, GLI delivers.

In today’s competitive legal venue, law firms and companies alike expect…no, demand placement firms execute their hiring agenda with candidates that meet their entire “wish list”. At GLI, our top-notch team of researchers performs intense, exhaustive studies of each market we service to insure we have a thorough understanding of the market climate. We endeavor to be market experts of our designated regions at all times. We know the comings and goings, the ins and outs, the ebbs and flows of each firm in the markets we serve. We do this so we can provide this information to our clients at any given time. Our clients know “who’s in play” because we do our homework. Our objective is the perfect match – EVERY TIME.

Candidates challenge placement firms to locate not one but several “perfect match” firms or companies which meet all their desires – supportive and collegial work environment, personal satisfaction, competitive compensation and benefits, and promising pathways for career growth. GLI has a 1:4 placement ratio. WE PLACE AT LEAST ONE OF EVERY FOUR CANDIDATES WE REPRESENT. We use everything we have – our passion, our creativity, our tenacity, our time – to insure you’ve everything you got to make the most informed decision. We LOVE what we do and it shows.

Let US show YOU!!!

Article courtesy of  Nancy Grimes - Founder GLI / Grimes Legal, Inc. - Legal Search Firm
    Retained Legal Recruiters © Copyright 2008 Grimes Legal, Inc. | All rights reserved

George joined GLI in 2006 after a lengthy career in the human resources department of a Fortune 500 company.

George very much enjoys his role as Project Coordinator for the Philadelphia market. Originally from the area, George knows the market well and believes the best way to service his candidates and clients is to LISTEN – i.e. get to know them, their wants, needs goals and aspirations so he can assist Them in making the absolute best decision possible. George’s dedication and commitment to both clients and candidates is what has made him an invaluable team member here at GLI. During his tenure, George has facilitated matches between attorneys of all levels and law firms and companies of all sizes. George guarantees each candidate he works with will interview because he only works with candidates he believes will benefit most from his experience.

George praises the forward-thinking, innovative training he receives at GLI. “Nancy Grimes is phenomenal. Her ingenious, cutting-edge training method creates a progressive mindset that equips you with the tools you have to succeed in the toughest market situations. She is truly a recruiting pioneer.”

When we asked in what aspect of his work he finds the greatest satisfaction, George replied, “Building relationships is the part of the job I enjoy most. Knowing I have positively affected the success of a candidate, company or law firm is the biggest high for me. It’s my way of leaving my imprint on the future, of personally impacting something bigger than myself”.

When not hard at work matching attorneys to opportunities, George enjoys a few holes of golf or watching his favorite baseball or football team in action. He looks forward to establishing long-term relationships with clients and candidates, enriching their careers and aiding in the manifestation of tomorrow’s legal firms and companies. Maybe he can assist you. You can reach George at georgemitchell@grimeslegal.com.

Article courtesy of  Nancy Grimes - Founder GLI / Grimes Legal, Inc. - Legal Search Firm
    Retained Legal Recruiters © Copyright 2008 Grimes Legal, Inc. | All rights reserved

Foundation Christian Academy (FCA) is hosting its 2nd Annual Benefit Dinner on Tuesday May 17th, 2011 at the Sloan Convention Center. GLI and Nancy Grimes are avid supporters of the community. Nancy Grimes has been a board member for Foundation Christian Academy for a number of years. Guest speaker for the event is former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. GLI/Grimes Legal, Inc. is one of the sponsors for the event.

Mike Huckabee is the host of the number one rated weekend hit “HUCKABEE” on the Fox News Channel and is heard 3 times every day on ABC Radio Network’s “Huckabee Report,” one of the nation’s fastest growing radio programs. An author of six books, his most recent work, “Do the Right Thing,” spent its first seven weeks of release in the big 10 of the New York Times Bestseller list.

Huckabee was sworn into the governor’s office in July of 1996 and became one of the country’s youngest governors. He was later elected to 2 full terms in 1998 and 2002 attracting the largest percentage of the vote ever received by a Republican gubernatorial nominee in Arkansas. Prior to his service as governor, he had been elected lieutenant governor in a 1993 special election and was elected to a full four-year term in 1994.

Huckabee is an avid musician and plays bass guitar in his rock-n-roll band, Capitol Offense. The band has opened for artists such as Willie Nelson and the Charlie Daniels Band, and has played the House of Blues in New Orleans and for 2 presidential inauguration balls. He and house band, “The Little Rockers,” are featured each week in the musical segment of his Fox News Channel program. His hobbies also include hunting and fishing. He was named one of the 25 most influential people for conservation by Outdoor Life magazine and was previously American Sportfishing Association’s Guy of the Year.

He and wife, Janet, live in North Little Rock. They have 3 grown children: John Mark, David and Sarah.

For more information about the event or to purchase tickets, please visit: http://www.fcafalcons.com.

About Foundation Christian Academy

Founded in 1995, FCA’s mission is to provide a strong Christian foundation for students and to prepare them for spiritual, intellectual and social growth while in a Christian setting.

Article courtesy of  Nancy Grimes - Founder GLI / Grimes Legal, Inc. - Legal Search Firm
    Retained Legal Recruiters © Copyright 2008 Grimes Legal, Inc. | All rights reserved

 By Nancy Grimes

Feel like your career has reached a dead end with no productive detour in sight?  Have you been forced to start over do to your company’s closure or layoff?  Not sure where to begin?   In “Path to Career Change”, Nancy Grimes guides you through the early stages of the process to get your new career started on the right foot.  Click this link to check it out FOR FREE!!!!

Article courtesy of  Nancy Grimes - Founder GLI / Grimes Legal, Inc. - Legal Search Firm
    Retained Legal Recruiters © Copyright 2008 Grimes Legal, Inc. | All rights reserved

By Karen Sloan
March 16, 2011

Copyright 2011. ALM Media Properties, LLC. All rights reserved. National Law Journal Online
Page from: http://www.nlj.com
——————————————————————————–

The employment picture is looking up for recent law grads — at least a little bit.

New figures from the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) show that offer rates to summer associates rose from the historic low of 69% in 2009 to 87% in 2010. That 18% increase puts offer rates back in the ballpark of the 90% offer rates of 2008, which was the last summer program season before the financial crisis hit in earnest.

“These numbers describe a soft bounce in the market,” said NALP Executive Director James Leipold. “Clearly, from a recruiting perspective, the most dramatic impact of the economic downturn has passed, and law firms are beginning to return to the market for new law school graduates with more confidence than they had at the height of the recession.”

However, Leipold warned that recruiting gains in 2010 were minor, and that the legal industry is still recovering.

With more career opportunity offers on the table last year, law graduates were pickier. Acceptance rates for permanent job offers fell slightly, from 85% in 2009 to 82% in 2010. There also were more opportunities for 2Ls to snag summer jobs than during 2009. The median number of summer offers from firms increased slightly, from seven to nine. Still, the overall size of summer programs remained smaller than usual in 2010 — the median class size dropped to four, after hovering at around six for most of the past decade.

On a bright note, most law firm offices that did not host a summer program last year are poised to add them in 2011, according to NALP’s survey.

Recruiters were a bigger presence on law school campuses this fall. A quarter of law schools reported a 5% or larger increase in the number of employers who visited in 2010, compared to 2009. More than a third of employers said NALP that they either maintained or increased they number of schools they visited in 2010. Firms with 500 or more lawyers were most likely to have increased their on-campus interviews.

The hiring of 3Ls remained slow in 2010, however. Only 15% of law firm offices reported interviewing 3Ls, and only 40% of these that did ultimately made job offers.

“My expectation is that this slow growth in entry-level recruitment activity will continue, but it will be some years before we see a return to the sort of robust recruiting levels we saw in 2006 and 2007,” Leipold said. “And as for summer associate class size, we may never see these numbers return to what they were before the recession.”

Article courtesy of  Nancy Grimes - Founder GLI / Grimes Legal, Inc. - Legal Search Firm
    Retained Legal Recruiters © Copyright 2008 Grimes Legal, Inc. | All rights reserved

By Karen Sloan
March 16, 2011

Copyright 2011. ALM Media Properties, LLC. All rights reserved. National Law Journal Online
Page from: http://www.nlj.com
——————————————————————————–

The employment picture is looking up for recent law grads — at least a little bit.

New figures from the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) show that offer rates to summer associates rose from the historic low of 69% in 2009 to 87% in 2010. That 18% increase puts offer rates back in the ballpark of the 90% offer rates of 2008, which was the last summer program season before the financial crisis hit in earnest.

“These numbers describe a soft bounce in the market,” told NALP Executive Director James Leipold. “Clearly, from a recruiting perspective, the most dramatic impact of the economic downturn has passed, and legal firms are beginning to return to the market for new law school graduates with more confidence than they had at the height of the recession.”

However, Leipold warned that recruiting gains in 2010 were minor, and that the legal industry is still recovering.

With more position offers on the table last year, law graduates were pickier. Acceptance rates for permanent position offers fell slightly, from 85% in 2009 to 82% in 2010. There also were more opportunities for 2Ls to snag summer jobs than during 2009. The median number of summer offers from firms increased slightly, from seven to nine. Still, the overall size of summer programs remained smaller than usual in 2010 — the median class size dropped to four, after hovering at around six for most of the past decade.

On a bright note, most legal firm offices that did not host a summer program last year are poised to add them in 2011, according to NALP’s survey.

Recruiters were a bigger presence on law school campuses this drop. A quarter of law schools reported a 5% or larger increase in the number of employers who visited in 2010, compared to 2009. More than a third of employers told NALP that they either maintained or increased they number of schools they visited in 2010. Firms with 500 or more lawyers were most likely to have increased their on-campus interviews.

The hiring of 3Ls remained slow in 2010, however. Only 15% of law firm offices reported interviewing 3Ls, and only 40% of these that did ultimately made job offers.

“My expectation is that this slow growth in entry-level recruitment activity will continue, but it will be some years before we see a return to the sort of robust recruiting levels we saw in 2006 and 2007,” Leipold told. “And as for summer associate class size, we may never see those numbers return to what they were before the recession.”

Article courtesy of  Nancy Grimes - Founder GLI / Grimes Legal, Inc. - Legal Search Firm
    Retained Legal Recruiters © Copyright 2008 Grimes Legal, Inc. | All rights reserved

Posted Mar 1, 2011 12:22 PM CST
By Martha Neil

At Cobb Cole—where five attorneys were laid off or left of their own accord last year—the lawyer roster decreased to 24, and there were staff layoffs as well.

At Chiumento Guntharp & Selis, the number of lawyers working at the firm was slash from seven to three in 2009, and the firm also made staff layoffs that year, too.

Meanwhile, Rice & Rose, which had five lawyers a year ago, now has 3, and the firm has shifted its practice focus to foreclosure defense and bankruptcy as the volume of real estate and transactional work dropped, reported the Daytona Beach News-Journal in a lengthy article detailing the recent travails of these and other Florida law firms coping with a difficult economy.

The article follows earlier news of a Florida Bar survey that paints a grim picture of what has been happening to practitioners throughout the state during the past 2 years.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel, according to the newspaper:

A number of firms, including Cobb Cole, are solidly in the black thanks to their belt-tightening efforts and rejiggering of their practice focus. Others, such as personal injury shops, were fortunate to be in a line of work that wasn’t hard-hit by the recession.

“We billed more hours in January than in any month last year, and November and December of last year were both up over the same months in the previous year,” managing senior partner John Ferguson, who had to make layoffs in 2010 only a few months after he started in this role, tells the News-Journal. “We’re headed in the right direction, which is nice.”

Article courtesy of  Nancy Grimes - Founder GLI / Grimes Legal, Inc. - Legal Search Firm
    Retained Legal Recruiters © Copyright 2008 Grimes Legal, Inc. | All rights reserved

By: Jerome Kowalski, Kowalski & Associates

Summary: As the United Kingdom marches towards the date upon which legal firms may be owned by non-lawyers and the date upon which legal firms may actually be publicly traded, the time has come to more seriously consider the viability of non-lawyer ownership of legal firms in the United States.

Capital is the lifeblood of legal firms. Law firms traditionally relied on 2 forms of raising capital: Traditional bank lending and partner capital contributions. As the credit markets in the United States have dramatically tightened, banks’ underwriting criteria have become increasingly tighter and lending has become far more difficult for law firms. Additionally, banks are monitoring their law firm borrowers extremely closely. Lending covenants, which previously were easily waived are now largely carved in to stone.

Law firms have been increasing capital contribution requirements from their senior partners. In some instances, law firms are even requiring capital contributions from non-equity partners, who are in essence, paying to get a career opportunity. Raising funds through capital contributions also raises other irksome issues: First, to the extent that increased capital requirements derive from deductions in profit distributions, partners are actually taxed on income they don’t even receive. Thus, the cost to individual partners in making these capital contributions imposes an added cost. Second, lateral partners, historically largely made their capital contributions through a bank with which the law firm had a friendly relationship. In today’s economic climate, pure friendship is not a valued coin of the realm. In making such loans, banks also view such loans as added exposure to a single borrower, namely the law firm.

Is investment by non-lawyers in law firms the answer? Should law firms go public? We have serious reservations about whether equity investment in law firms by non-lawyers will easily find their way to commercial law firms.

But, we will surely watch the British experiment closely.

Article courtesy of  Nancy Grimes - Founder GLI / Grimes Legal, Inc. - Legal Search Firm
    Retained Legal Recruiters © Copyright 2008 Grimes Legal, Inc. | All rights reserved

Less than a year remains until the final stage of the Legal Services Act comes into effect. This law will permit U.K. law firms to accept outside equity investment for the first time. Of course, law firms have been preparing for the change many feel will radically alter the vocation.

As referenced in September 30th edition of The AmLaw Litigation Every day, Matthew Hudson, former leader of the London offices of O’Melveny & Myers and Proskauer & Rose, feels “The legal market faces an interesting future.  I look at ABS as similar to the financial services major bang.  ”In the 1980s, investment banks were partnerships and charged by the hour. Now, all investment banks are companies with external capital and they charge transactionally. The same structural issues are present in the law. To have associates all trying to be senior partners is antiquated, unfair, and drives firms to make the wrong decisions. Something has to give.”

In July, Hudson started his own law firm, MJ Hudson, using seed funding from several private equity investors–debt he believes will be converted to “minor stakes” when the ABS legislation takes effect in October.

Major Law lawyers across the country are gearing up for the advent of ‘Tesco Law’, named after grocery retail giant Tesco, which is just one conglomerate likely to exploit one of the LSA’s other key elements: the potential for corporations and businesses owned by non-lawyers to provide legal services.

But while the seemingly inevitable influx of major brands into the legal market represents a major concern for these smaller firms, the extent to which the effects are felt elsewhere in the industry is a matter of debate.

Equity partners would also got to come to terms with the fact that significant outside investment would likely come at a price: they would make less money, at least initially. Intimate equity houses would want a return on their investment–typically Twenty % within 3 to five years. The long-term opportunities for cashing-in could be considerable. When Goldman Sachs floated in 1999, the partners’ stakes received during its transformation to a corporate entity were worth billions.

And while the sounds coming from larger firms suggest that they’re entirely dismissive of the need for external investment, doubters should recall that even Magic Circle heavyweight Clifford Chance tapped the debt markets in 2002, raising $150 million through a dual-tranche bond issue.

For the investor, too, there are a number of potentially serious issues to deal with. Most essential is how you would actually go about valuing a legal firm. While the reported profit margin, which treats the total net income distributed among the equity partners at the end of the financial year as the absolute bottom line, may look worthwhile, it actually presents an overly positive perspective by ignoring any fixed salary that these managers might receive. This also precludes the calculation of EBITDA–the favored tool for private equity valuation.

Explains legal consultant and former Clifford Chance managing partner Tony Williams, who was recently instructed by midmarket investor Lyceum Capital to advise on their possible activities within the sector, ”Law firm valuation is both an art and a science.  Law firm profit margins are only notional, as they’re on the basis that none of the senior managers are paid a salary—they’re not even getting a brass farthing above the line. Partner remuneration is reported as one figure, but really it’s 2 things–it’s a payment for a day career opportunity and it’s payment for putting capital into the business as a proprietor. Firms have never really looked at it that way before, but that’s exactly what [private equity investors] would do.”

Many believe this is the wave of the future. “Give it Twenty five years and all law firms will be incorporated,” adds Hudson, who previously spent six years working in private equity for Credit Suisse and specialist secondaries investor Coller Capital. “[The change] may start with the consumer firms, but it will transform law at the highest levels and will also travel across the Atlantic.”

In less than a year, the U.K.’s legal environment will change forever. U.S. law firms, attorneys  and investors will assuredly be looking on with intense interest.

Article courtesy of  Nancy Grimes - Founder GLI / Grimes Legal, Inc. - Legal Search Firm
    Retained Legal Recruiters © Copyright 2008 Grimes Legal, Inc. | All rights reserved

December 10, 2010

Bowling Green, KY – When you call the GLI (Grimes Legal, Inc.) headquarters, more likely than not,  the voice you will hear on the other end will belong to Tangi Wheet, the newest member of GLI’s Administrative Support team.

Tangi has served in the administrative field for several years with other companies including corporate and law offices. She brings with her the knowledge and skills to keep executive departments organized and focused on helping you attain your professional goals.

GLI is excited to have Tangi on board and feel she will be a productive member of the team for many years to come.

Article courtesy of  Nancy Grimes - Founder GLI / Grimes Legal, Inc. - Legal Search Firm
    Retained Legal Recruiters © Copyright 2008 Grimes Legal, Inc. | All rights reserved