Attorney Search Firm Protocols

Stevens & Lee welcomes all attorney search firms and appreciates your recruitment efforts on our behalf. Below are protocols we expect search firms to honor while engaged in any business relationship with us.

Search Firm Protocols

• Search firms must contact the Stevens & Lee Recruitment Team directly regarding submission of any candidate, and search firms must obtain the candidate’s consent prior to initiating any contact with the Stevens & Lee Recruitment Team.
• Initial contact with the Stevens & Lee Recruitment Team should include a blind candidate profile that contains the following: a short, no-name description of the candidate; practice area; Stevens & Lee office location desired; year of first bar admission; states in which the candidate holds an active license to practice law. 
• If we have further interest in the candidate after reviewing the initial blind profile, the Stevens & Lee Recruitment Team will respond either:
  • requesting submission of the candidate’s full materials, if Stevens & Lee and the search firm have a current, written agreement in place; or
  • requesting the search firm to execute and return our standard written recruitment agreement prior to submission of the candidate’s full materials.
• Stevens & Lee requires that a written agreement be in place with a search firm prior to the submission of requested candidate materials.  
• Candidate materials submitted without our express request and/or without a current written agreement in place are not valid submissions; Stevens & Lee is not liable for any placement fee if we subsequently hire that same candidate independently or through another search firm.
• If a search firm contacts either our attorneys or our staff without the prior, explicit authorization from the Stevens & Lee Recruitment Team, no placement fee will be due.
• We do not consider submissions from search firms on behalf of law students, entry-level associates or judicial law clerk candidates.
• Stevens & Lee honors all agreements with its search firms. Therefore, if more than one search firm submits the same candidate, the fee will be awarded to the first search firm to have validly submitted the candidate in accordance with these protocols.
• In the event a candidate has submitted materials directly to us prior to a search firm’s subsequent submission of the same candidate, we will notify the search firm immediately, and no fee will be paid.

Stevens & Lee, and The Stevens & Lee Companies, are committed to diversity and welcomes the recruitment of diverse candidates.

Thank you for your efforts on our behalf.