How Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman Transformed Lateral Recruitment with Firm Prospects
Challenge
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP is an international law firm focused on the energy, financial services, real estate, and technology industries. As one of the nation's premier AmLaw 100 firms, Pillsbury sets a high bar for lateral recruiting, and Kat Davis, the firm's Director of Firmwide Partner Recruiting, focuses on recruiting outstanding lateral partners whose practices support Pillsbury's strategic investments in priority markets, differentiated practice areas, and client-focused growth initiatives.
When Davis arrived at the firm, the tools she had access to weren't built for the depth of analysis her role demanded. A baseline subscription to a legacy data provider meant she had to spend hours of her day digging for more details on candidates.
"Prior to Firm Prospects, I had to go through every AmLaw website and every bio manually," explained Davis. "A strategic search that takes me minutes today used to take a week or two of dedicated work."
Instead of finding everything she needed in one place, Davis often had to switch between up to 10 screens just to gather essential data. It was frustrating, inefficient, and quickly becoming a competitive liability.
Approach
When Pillsbury's subscription to the legacy tool came up for renewal, the case to make a change was clear. Firm Prospects offered a more powerful, more intuitive platform at a price point that came in below the legacy provider's baseline offering.
"Firms care about the cost of the subscription," said Davis. "The thing I love most about Firm Prospects is that I get better info, I get better usage, and I get a great deal. It was an easy sell."
Once onboarded, Davis quickly integrated Firm Prospects into her daily workflow and is now using the platform for research several times a week, winning back hours of her time to focus on more strategic, high-value activities.
Solution
Firm Prospects helped Pillsbury transform lateral recruiting with five features working in harmony:
- Unified data access: A single interface for attorney, firm, and practice area data has replaced fragmented, multi-tab workflows.
- Competitive intelligence: With Firm Prospects data, Davis can run strategic partner searches and give hiring partners a real-time picture of the talent landscape.
- Connections feature: The platform's professional and educational connection mapping highlights warm outreach pathways, turning cold contact attempts into informed conversations.
- Career moves tracking: Firm Prospects' Career Move and Title Change features allow Davis to stay on top of attorney movement across the market.
- Responsive service: "I'll ask for one thing, and our account manager will suggest something even better," said Davis. "That level of service is what keeps me on the platform."
What previously took one to two weeks of manual research now takes minutes, and despite offering a more powerful platform, Pillsbury is now spending less than the cost of their previous baseline subscription.
What’s next
For Davis and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, Firm Prospects has changed what it means to be a lateral recruiting professional. A weeks-long research process now takes minutes, and a capable recruiter has become a valuable strategic partner, one who's actively advocating for other departments in the firm to tap into Firm Prospects' intelligence capabilities.
"In my role, you have to keep your finger on the pulse of the market," concluded Davis. "Firm Prospects helps me do just that."
