Contingency vs. Retained vs. Milestone: Which Legal Recruiting Model Is Right for Your Firm?

When a law firm needs to hire an attorney, most managing partners reach for the same tool they've always used: call a recruiter, see who they surface, pay if someone starts. That's contingency. It works -- until it doesn't, and when it doesn't, it's expensive.

This page breaks down how all three legal recruiting models work, what each one actually costs, and when each makes sense for a firm.

The Three Models at a Glance

How Contingency Search Actually Works

Contingency is the dominant model in legal recruiting. You engage a recruiter (or multiple recruiters), they surface candidates, and you pay only if you hire someone they presented. No placement, no fee.

The upside is obvious: no upfront cost and no risk if no placement happens. The downsides are less obvious but more consequential:

• Recruiters prioritize their highest-fee opportunities. If you're running a non-exclusive contingency search, your opening is competing for recruiter attention against every other client they have. Roles that are difficult to fill or lower-fee get deprioritized.
• Candidates presented are often already shopping. Active candidates -- the ones willing to apply through multiple recruiters -- are a fraction of the available market. The best lateral hires are passive candidates who aren't actively looking.
• Fees are high relative to the service level. A 25–30% contingency fee on a $200,000 associate hire is $50,000–$60,000. For a search with no exclusivity, no dedicated effort, and a 50/50 chance of filling the role.
• Searches drag on. Average time to fill for contingency legal searches runs 60–120+ days, partly because the recruiter isn't exclusively focused on your role.

How Retained Search Works

In a retained search, the firm pays a portion of the estimated fee upfront (typically one-third), another portion at the presentation of a finalist slate, and the remainder at hire. In exchange, the search firm works exclusively on your assignment.

Retained search makes sense when:

• You're hiring a senior partner, practice group leader, or rainmaker where the stakes are high and the talent pool is narrow
• The role requires significant market mapping and direct sourcing from competitors
• You need the search firm to represent you confidentially in the market

The fee is higher (25–35% of total first-year compensation, plus the upfront retainer), and you lose the retainer if the search doesn't result in a hire. For standard associate and lateral attorney hires, retained search is typically overkill.

How Milestone-Based Placement Works (BEG's Model)

Milestone-based placement is the model BEG uses through isolved Job Placement Services. It combines the best elements of contingency (no fee unless you hire) with a dedicated search capability and significantly faster timelines.

Here's how it works:

• You pay nothing upfront. No retainer. No commitment fees.
• Payments are tied to milestones -- typically at candidate presentation and at start date.
• Fees are roughly 50% less than standard contingency. This is possible because of the isolved platform infrastructure, which reduces the manual sourcing overhead traditional recruiters face.
• The candidate pool is passive, not just active. BEG's pipeline sources candidates who aren't actively on job boards -- the same pool retained firms access, at a fraction of the cost.
• 45-day replacement guarantee -- if the placed attorney leaves within 45 days, BEG fills the role again at no additional fee. 50% discount on repeat hires for the same role description.
• Payment goes to isolved directly -- BEG is the authorized reseller; your firm's payment relationship is with isolved.

The average fill time in BEG's placement program is 23–35 days, with an 86% fill rate across completed searches.

Which Model Is Right for Your Firm?

See how we fill roles fast: BEG Job Placement.