Macrae

The firm: Macrae, founded in 2001, has grown from its San Francisco Bay Area origins to become the transatlantic market leader for strategic partner recruitment. The firm’s team across London, New York, Washington, DC, and the San Francisco Bay Area focuses on placing partners and partner groups into the world's largest and most successful law firms, primarily those in the Am Law 50 and Magic Circle. Macrae attributes its success to a highly collaborative business model powered by the collective intelligence of expert recruiters and a sole focus on growing partners' careers and law firms in the world’s most important legal markets.

Law firms and candidates partnering with Macrae benefit both from the deep expertise of a single recruiter or regional team as well as from the knowledge and networks of one of the most experienced partner recruitment teams assembled across a single firm. Immediate access to up-to-the-minute market intelligence enables recruiters to examine how a candidate would fit not only into a firm’s regional office but into a global practice group and the firm more broadly. Macrae’s unique approach and results haven’t gone unnoticed. Ten of the firm’s 15 recruiters, including three in London, appear on Lawdragon’s 2023 list of the “Global 100 Leaders in Legal Strategy & Consulting” – by far the most of any legal recruiting firm.

Macrae’s London-based recruiters include partners Andy Russell and Melinda Wallman and managing directors Adil Lalani, Suzy O’Keefe and Eleonora Wäktare. Firm founder Joe Macrae splits his time between London, New York and San Francisco. The London office handles partner search and representation in the UK and in Brussels, Paris, Luxemburg, and Germany, covering all practice areas for Am Law100 and UK 20 firms. These and high-end boutiques are Macrae’s primary clients.

Practice Area Focus: Macrae is skilled in placing partners across virtually every practice area. The specialties most in-demand at present include Corporate (public and private M&A and ECM), Funds, Private Equity, Real Estate Private Equity, Leveraged Finance, Real Estate Finance, Infrastructure, Energy Transition, Competition, International Trade, Disputes (Commercial Litigation, Investigations and International Arbitration), and Restructuring.

Law Firm Candidates and Groups: Macrae works closely and discreetly with the partner-level candidates and groups it represents to unlock the best opportunities based on their practices, personalities and compensation goals. Recruiters have deep knowledge of the business and culture of each leading law firm as well as ready access to firms’ local and international leadership.

This enables candidates to make confident moves to firms where they will thrive both professionally and personally.

Office Openings: Macrae has extensive experience advising law firms on strategic office openings and building the balanced teams required to ensure the firms hit the ground running in a new market and achieve growth goals. Recruiters have collectively helped launch more than 30 new offices for US and UK law firms in their own markets and internationally, including five in the last several years.

Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Macrae is committed to doing its part to make the field of law more inclusive of women, people of color and those who are otherwise underrepresented. Nearly 40% of the partners Macrae places are women, a higher proportion than the firm’s peers. Eleven of Macrae’s 16 recruiters are women, as are half of the firm’s board members. Recruiters in the London office actively engage with community organizations to this end. Melinda Wallman is co-founder and director of the Reignite Academy, an organisation that helps city-trained lawyers to get back on track after a career hiatus, serves on the advisory board of Black Women in Asset Management; Melinda and Suzy O’Keefe are on the Women in Law Empowerment Forum (WILEF) board in London, and Eleonora Wäktare serves on the WILEF board in Paris. Firmwide, individual recruiters and the firm as a whole support numerous local, national and international groups fighting for inclusivity, diversity and most fundamentally, equality for all under the law.