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Commercial Funder's Corner Legal Innovation

5 Ways to Retain Top Legal Talent: Why Employees Stay

By Richard Culberson |

The following article was contributed by Richard Culberson, CEO of Moneypenny & VoiceNation, North America.

The legal profession is evolving rapidly, and so is the workforce driving it. This makes retaining top talent critical to ensuring continuity, quality of service, and avoiding the costs and disruption of frequent recruitment.

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 47 million Americans left their jobs in 2021 alone, with millions continuing to do so each month. For businesses , this turnover presents both a challenge and an opportunity to understand what employees truly value and how to build a workplace they won’t want to leave.

Here are five steps to guide you in creating a workplace where professionals feel supported, motivated, and committed to growing with your firm.

1. Hire for Culture and Potential

The stakes are high in legal recruitment, and hiring the wrong person can have a ripple effect on morale, productivity, and client relationships. So, let’s slow down and hire right.

Instead of focusing solely on technical skills and qualifications, look beyond the resume for candidates whose values align with your firm’s culture and long-term goals. Diversity of thought and perspective is an asset in all business and adaptability is increasingly important. The first step is to revisit your hiring process to ensure you’re asking the right questions and seeking individuals who can not only excel in the role today but also grow with your firm in the future.

2. Invest in Their Professional Journey

Your people are your greatest assets, and just like your clients, they require attention and investment. You’ve spent time hiring right, now, it is time to invest in your choices, ensuring that they are set up to succeed from day one.

Make their onboarding experience seamless and engaging but also show them the culture and career path you promised during recruitment. Then, continue this thinking beyond the onboarding and provide opportunities for professional development through training, mentoring, and clear advancement pathways.

In the competitive legal sector, demonstrating a proactive commitment to employee growth and well-being is key to retaining top talent, ensuring your team feels valued and supported in reaching their full potential.

3. Foster Engagement Through Purpose

We all know that engaged employees are productive employees, but often it is forgotten that engagement starts with clarity. Do your team members understand how their daily work contributes to the firm’s overall success?

Lawyers are often driven by purpose—whether it’s delivering justice, protecting client interests, or achieving innovative outcomes. So, make it a priority to connect their individual roles to the bigger picture and, in doing so, celebrate their contributions, involve them in decision-making, and foster an environment of trust and open communication.

By aligning their goals with the firm’s mission, you create a workplace where everyone feels invested in the outcomes.

4. Lead with Empathy and Kindness

The legal world is often synonymous with high pressure and long hours, but that doesn’t mean kindness should take a backseat. Empathy and understanding go a long way in fostering loyalty and trust. It is important, therefore, to recognize achievements, whether big or small, and make time to connect with your team on a human level. From writing a personal thank-you note for a job well done to ensuring flexible working arrangements during challenging times, it’s often the little things that make the biggest difference.

Kindness isn’t a sign of weakness—it’s a powerful tool for building a resilient and loyal team.

5. Make Retention a Continuous Process

Retention isn’t a one-time initiative—it’s an ongoing commitment. Law is a people-centered business so embed employee well-being, recognition, and development into the core of your firm’s culture.

Create an environment where your people feel genuinely appreciated, understood, and aligned with the firm’s vision. By doing this, you’ll cultivate a culture of loyalty and stability, where your team thrives—and your clients benefit as a result.

Why Employees Stay

In a profession where your people are your greatest asset, putting them first is essential. A happy, engaged team isn’t just good for employee retention; it directly impacts client satisfaction and the firm’s reputation.

By investing in your employees, fostering connection, and leading with empathy, you can ensure your firm remains competitive, resilient, and ready to face the future with the best team by your side.

About the author

Richard Culberson

Richard Culberson

Commercial

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Commercial Special Features

LFJ Podcast: Stuart Hills and Guy Nielson, Co-Founders of RiverFleet

By John Freund |

In this episode, we sat down with Stuart Hills and Guy Nielson, co-founders of RiverFleet, a consultancy business specialising in the global Legal Finance market.  

RiverFleet works with clients to help navigate the complexities and idiosyncratic characteristics of the Legal Finance market and make the most of the financial opportunities and risk solutions the market has to offer for business and investment. 

RiverFleet has a highly experienced team, with specialist litigation, finance and structuring, and investment and portfolio management expertise.  They offer a broad range of legal finance services tailor-made for a global client base, including investors, litigation finance funds, claimants, corporates, insolvency practitioners and law firms.

Watch the episode below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb1ef7ZhgVw
Commercial Regulatory Issues

Insurers Intensify Offensive Against Litigation Funders

By John Freund |

In a fresh salvo that lays bare the brewing turf war between two sophisticated risk-transfer industries, a cadre of major U.S. insurers is doubling down on efforts to hobble third-party litigation finance.

An article in Bloomberg Law reports that carriers including Chubb, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide and Sentry are leveraging their Washington lobbying muscle—and, critically, their underwriting leverage—to choke off capital flows to funders. Executives have signaled they will refuse to place policies for firms that invest in, or even trade with, outside funders, arguing that those investors fuel “social inflation” and nuclear verdicts that drive casualty-line losses. The aggressive posture follows the industry’s failed push to tack a 40% excise tax on litigation finance profits into the Trump administration’s sweeping budget bill earlier this month.

Yet the campaign has its detractors—even within the insurance ecosystem. Ed Gehres, managing partner at Invenio LLP, calls the stance “logically inconsistent,” noting that insurers themselves underwrite contingent-risk cover that is often purchased by the very funders they now vilify. Marsh McLennan, Lockton and others already offer bespoke judgment-preservation and work-in-progress (WIP) policies that dovetail neatly with funder portfolios. Daniela Raz, a Marsh SVP and Omni Bridgeway alum, underscored that such products can allow litigants to “retain more proceeds than they would in an uninsured litigation-finance transaction,” blurring any bright line insurers try to draw between their own risk-transfer solutions and funder capital.

Insurers’ hard-line rhetoric may complicate capacity-placement for funders and plaintiff firms, but it also highlights litigation finance’s growing systemic relevance. If carriers continue to walk the talk—declining placements or hiking premiums for funder-adjacent risks—expect a rise in alternative instruments (captives, bespoke wrap policies, even reinsurer-backed facilities) and deeper collaboration between funders and specialty brokers to fill the gap. The skirmish could ultimately accelerate product innovation on both sides of the ledger.

Case Developments Commercial

Court Shields Haptic’s Litigation-Funding Files From Apple

By John Freund |

A Northern District of California decision has handed patent plaintiff Haptic Inc. an important procedural win in its infringement fight with Apple over the iPhone’s “Back Tap” feature.

An article in eDiscovery Today by Doug Austin details Judge Jacqueline Corley’s ruling that work-product protection extends to Haptic’s damages analyses and related documents that were shared with a third-party litigation funder during due diligence.

Although Apple argued that those materials might reveal funder influence over strategy or settlement posture, the court held that Apple showed no “substantial need” sufficient to overcome the privilege. The opinion also rejects Apple’s broader bid for a blanket production of Haptic-funder communications, finding the parties had executed robust NDA and common-interest agreements that preserved confidentiality and avoided waiver. Only royalty-base spreadsheets directly relevant to Georgia-Pacific damages factors must be produced, but even those remain shielded from broader disclosure.

Judge Corley’s order is the latest in a string of decisions limiting discovery into financing arrangements unless a defendant can identify concrete, case-specific prejudice. For funders, the ruling underscores the importance of tight contractual language—and disciplined information flows—in preserving privilege. For corporate defendants, it signals that speculative concerns about control or conflicts will not, standing alone, open the door to funder dossiers.