Via DennisKennedy.blog comes news of a Law.com article about how some law firms have removed associate bios from their Web sites to prevent poaching by headhunters. This development reminds me of an incident during my first year of practice at Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Although we had just started our jobs, we first years started receiving calls from a legal recruiter.
Rumor had it that the recruiter had somehow procured a copy of the firm's phone book. This being 1993, the recruiter certainly didn't get our contact information from the firm's then non-existent Web site.
Just as you cannot stop the onward march of technology, you cannot stop a determined recruiter by stripping your site of associate bios (Wayback Machine, anyone?). However, as the Law.com article suggests, you can thwart a recruiter by creating a work environment that associates wouldn't want to give up. Easier said than done, but not impossible.
Update: Monica Bay, Larry Bodine and Bruce MacEwen have also weighed in this topic..
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