There are two criteria that law firms are commonly judged by: the strength of their reputation and the quality of their employees. In terms of public appeal, perhaps the greatest advantage that a law firm can possess is a stalwart reputation for quality legal advice and passionate representation. However, unless a respected firm employs attorneys and paralegals that are capable of supporting its reputation, it soon becomes a facade of respectability. When a firm is looking for new attorneys or paralegals, the sheer number of applications that flood in can make it impossible to determine which attorneys or paralegals would fit best with a firm's culture and professional expectations. Therefore, many law firms rely on independent legal placement services or litigation support providers to provide them with the best prospects to fulfill their needs and expectations. In order to accomplish this, legal placement services use two main criteria that contain sub criteria to evaluate legal professionals: practice area and screening process.

Practice Area

Regardless of what areas of law your firm specializes in, legal placement providers specialize in supplying you with legal professionals that excel in those areas. In some cases, law firms hire paralegals and attorneys who have "experience" in a certain area of law but do not possess a consummate understanding of its academic perspectives or its application to depositions or court trials. In most cases, law firms hire non-proficient attorneys or paralegals for one of two reasons: they experience difficulty attracting an attorney or paralegal that possesses the ideal level of expertise or such ancillary benefits as an attorney or paralegal's personality and salary requirements make him or her an ideal fit with a firm's culture and current finances. But when a law firm relies on a reputable placement provider, they can expect to hire attorneys and paralegals that possess both the necessary experience and other ideal characteristics, such as a winning personality and affordable salary requirements.

Screening Process

One of the worst experiences that can befall a law firm is when it hires an attorney or paralegal who looks far better on paper than he or she performs in a legal setting. In some cases, legal professionals go to great lengths to boost their resume with falsified credentials and experience that are difficult to discredit. Therefore, relying on a placement service that puts attorneys and paralegals through a rigorous background check and a rigorous face to face screening process is the best way to ensure that you end up hiring an attorney or paralegal whose credentials and legal experience are genuine. Because a reputable placement service uses former attorneys and paralegals to conduct background checks and extensive face-to-face interviews, disingenuous attorneys and paralegals are quickly detected and prevented from becoming hirable through the placement service.