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5 Ways to Retain Top Legal Talent: Why Employees Stay

By Richard Culberson |
December 17, 2024

5 Ways to Retain Top Legal Talent: Why Employees Stay

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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Court of Appeal Shuts Down BHP’s Attempt to Overturn Mariana Liability Judgment

By John Freund |

The Court of Appeal of England and Wales today refused BHP’s application for permission to appeal the High Court’s landmark liability judgment in the Mariana disaster litigation.

The High Court found BHP responsible for the 2015 collapse of the Fundão tailings dam in Mariana, Minas Gerais, Brazil, concluding that BHP is liable for the disaster under both the Brazilian Civil and Environmental law.

The Court of Appeal heard BHP’s application for permission to appeal the decision on 12 March after BHP was refused permission to appeal by the High Court in January.  BHP asked the court for permission to contest the findings that it was a polluter, and that it had knowledge of the risks associated with the dam before the collapse. The mining company also challenged the finding that all claimants brought their claims in time.

The Court of Appeal’s refusal marks a further victory for the hundreds of thousands of Brazilian victims who have spent over ten years pursuing justice, and a major setback for BHP. The High Court’s liability judgment remains in force, and BHP has exhausted the ordinary routes by which it could seek to overturn it.

In today’s ruling, the court concluded that BHP’s proposed grounds of appeal have no real prospect of success and there is no other compelling reason for the appeal to be heard.  The decision means that the parties will proceed to the trial of Stage 2 of the proceedings, which will determine issues of causation, loss and damages. The trial evidence is to be heard from April 2027 to December 2027, with closing submissions listed for March 2028.

Lord Justice Fraser wrote in the decision: “I do not accept that any of the grounds relating to BHP’s liability for the dam collapse are reasonably arguable. I do not consider that there is any foundation for the different complaints that the trial judge failed to engage with BHP’s case."

Jonathan Wheeler, lead partner for the Mariana litigation at Pogust Goodhead, said: “The Court of Appeal has now joined the High Court in finding that BHP’s grounds of appeal have no real prospect of success - an emphatic and unambiguous outcome. BHP remains liable for the worst environmental disaster in Brazil’s history, and it will not be given another bite at the cherry.”

“Our clients have waited more than a decade for justice while BHP pursued every procedural avenue to avoid accountability; those avenues are now closed. We are focused on securing the compensation that hundreds of thousands of Brazilians have been owed for far too long.”

Commercial

Corbin Capital Closes $342 Million Litigation Finance Fund I

By John Freund |

Corbin Capital Partners has held the final close of Corbin Litigation Finance Fund I at $342 million in fund and co-investment commitments, marking the alternative asset manager's first vehicle dedicated exclusively to litigation finance. The close caps a roughly two-year fundraise and consolidates a strategy that the $10 billion firm has run inside broader credit mandates since 2018.

As reported by Bloomberg Law, the fund has already deployed across 26 investments, with approximately 30% of capital allocated to mass tort matters and the balance spread across antitrust, commercial disputes, and intellectual property cases. Corbin runs a credit-style strategy that finances both case portfolios and law firms directly, including prior exposure to Boy Scouts of America abuse claims and ongoing financing of sexual abuse cases against government, religious, and educational institutions.

The fund drew commitments from institutional investors, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals seeking returns uncorrelated with public equities. Cesar Bello, Corbin's director of litigation finance, told Bloomberg that the strategy depends on diversification across legal risks rather than concentrated case bets. Litigation finance assets under management have climbed to roughly $16.1 billion as of mid-2024, up from under $10 billion five years earlier, according to industry data cited in the report.

Corbin's leadership has signaled that litigation finance will remain a complementary allocation rather than a flagship strategy, but the dedicated vehicle gives the firm a more visible platform in an asset class increasingly courted by allocators searching for non-correlated yield.

Commercial

ITC Proposes Disclosure Rule Reaching Litigation Funders in Section 337 Cases

By John Freund |

The U.S. International Trade Commission has proposed a new disclosure rule that would require parties and intervenors in Section 337 investigations to identify ownership interests, legal-rights holders, and non-party funders or decision-makers with financial or control stakes in the matter. The rule reflects a broader patent-forum trend toward unmasking the parties operating behind named litigants.

As reported by JD Supra, the proposal would mandate disclosure across three categories: parent corporations and stock owners; non-party persons or entities with legal rights to bring the investigation based on the asserted unfair acts; and any non-counsel person or entity providing investigation-specific funding or holding approval rights over litigation or settlement decisions. Counsel contingency arrangements, personal loans, bank loans, and insurance are expressly excluded.

The Commission framed the rule as a transparency measure aimed at evaluating conflicts, clarifying whose rights are at stake, and facilitating settlement. The proposal aligns with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's real-party-in-interest scrutiny and Chief Judge Colm Connolly's standing order in the District of Delaware, which already requires disclosure of non-recourse funding and funder approval rights. Public comments are open until June 29, 2026.

For litigation funders, the rule does not bar third-party financing of Section 337 cases but does demand visibility into capital structures and decisional control. Funders backing patent-heavy ITC dockets will need to assess whether portfolio mechanics, exclusive-licensee arrangements, or settlement consent rights cross the disclosure threshold — and prepare for a regulatory environment in which the named complainant is no longer presumed to tell the whole story.