How Winstead Simplified Strategic List Building with Firm Prospects
Challenge
There's a strong focus on lateral recruiting at Winstead. Even the firm's managing partner is personally engaged in lateral outreach, calling candidates directly when he sees an interesting bio. Jaimee Slovak, Winstead's Chief Recruiting and Integration Officer, needed to provide reliable, well-organized intelligence that would allow the firm to take full advantage of that executive-level involvement.
Manual approaches to lateral research were a non-starter for Slovak and her three-person team. Human errors were inevitable, and trolling through law firm websites for talent took time they didn't have.
"Someone might ask me to run all the executive compensation people in America, and I would spend hours or even days building that list," explained Slovak. "It could be overwhelming."
Approach
Slovak worked with Firm Prospects at her previous firm and knew the platform would be the right fit for Winstead.
Firm Prospects offered a more modern, user-friendly interface than other platforms Slovak had tried, and she was also more comfortable with the accuracy of the data. As part of the evaluation process, Slovak cross-checked what different market intelligence platforms told her about specific candidates against her own human interpretation.
"I ran side-by-side lists to find out which platform offered the most accurate reflection of each candidate," explained Slovak. "Firm Prospects was the clear winner."
Once live, onboarding was effortless. Thanks to the platform's intuitive interface, Slovak's team was able to start using Firm Prospects with very little training, and stayed in direct contact with the account manager for any technical issues along the way.
Solution
Advanced technology with a human touch has helped elevate lateral recruiting at Winstead:
- Reliable market intelligence: Firm Prospects uses verified deal and dispute data to identify high-fit candidates and minimize manual research.
- Strategic list building: Based on that intelligence, Firm Prospects quickly generates candidate lists which Winstead's managing partner can use as the foundation for direct, personal outreach.
- Career moves and title changes: One of Slovak's most valuable views, allowing her to spot movement in the market and share that information with the wider organization.
- Dedicated customer service: Slovak has a direct line to the firm's account manager, who is quick to respond and offer support or guidance.
Before Firm Prospects, Slovak could spend hours or even days manually researching candidates and building lists. Now, it takes just a fraction of the time, freeing her three-person team to spend more time building relationships with candidates instead of chasing data.
What’s next
Slovak's decision to bring Firm Prospects to her new role at Winstead has been transformative. The firm's lateral recruiting function now supports executive-level engagement, produces fast and accurate intelligence, and scales without adding headcount.
"Firm Prospects does exactly what I need it to do," said Slovak. "It saves me buckets of time, and it's very user-friendly. You can't get much better than that."
