Young Mayden, LLC is a boutique legal search and consulting firm with long-standing personal access to highly credentialed attorneys across the country. Professional experience and the personal contacts of the firm's principals as well as the firm's unique approach to placement set Young Mayden apart. After many years on the "client" side of lawyer hiring, Ken Young and Barbara Mayden came together to form Young Mayden, LLC, pooling perspectives and contacts cultivated through their law practices and long time high level involvement in the American Bar Association and other professional organizations. 

Young Mayden provides services in three distinct areas – legal search, consulting, and career counseling. Young Mayden Legal Search places attorneys with leading law firms and corporate legal departments nationwide. Young Mayden Consulting provides business and employment consulting services to law firms and law departments. Young Mayden Career Counseling offers individual career planning for lawyers.

Recent Placements

Young Mayden was pleased to assist with the following recent expansions:

• Columbia: Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice merged with Hall & Bowers, LLC adding a Columbia, SC office.   (View Article); Kenny, who brokered the deal, was interviewed by the North Carolina Lawyers Weekly (NC Lawyers Weekly).

• Charleston: Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice and Buist Moore Smythe McGee, one of Charleston's oldest and largest firms, have merged. (View Article)

• Charlotte: Gallivan, White & Boyd, a 60+ year old Greenville, SC firm, expanded its southeastern presence by opening a Charlotte office.

• Charleston: North Carolina legacy firm Smith Moore Leatherwood, broadened its Atlanta, Charlotte, Greensboro, Greenville, Raleigh and Wilmington footprint with a new Charleston, SC office (View Artilce).

• Boston: A new office for a national labor and employment law firm.

and Young Mayden was pleased to assist with recent placements:

•    In Texas, the placement of a new general counsel with an agricultural technology company

•  In Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Orlando, Chattanooga and Boston, of partners and associates specializing in private equity, project finance, litigation, bankruptcy, environmental, tax and labor and employment

In addition, Young Mayden was pleased to assist the American Bar Association with the successful search and selection of Jack Rives as the ABA's Executive Director. (View article)

Feedback...

... from satisfied clients:

• We make a great team.  Could not have done [this merger] without you.

• A perfect fit… her energy and talents are welcome additions.

• Your real strength was knowledge and contacts in the profession that produced a broad array of superb candidates from which to choose.

• Your flexibility in structuring the placement fee for the group we sought was extremely helpful.

• We are thrilled.  Thanks so much for your great work.

• We were impressed with and benefited from Young Mayden's speed, efficiency and cost effectiveness… Young and Mayden [used their] extensive contacts both inside and outside the legal profession to identify and enlist an impressive number of excellent candidates for our consideration.

... and from satisfied candidates:

• I am extremely happy.  I hope you put me in the column of 'most satisfied placements.'

• Whatever happens, thank you, Ken for your wonderful support and your razor sharp focus on reality! 

•  Barbara, you are the job-getting goddess....

• I am extremely happy.  I hope you put me in the column of 'most satisfied placements.'I can't thank you enough for helping me. I absolutely love it here.

• In case you're wondering... I love my job!

• Dear Barbara and Ken, just wanted y'all to know, this week has been GREAT.  I should have done this years ago

• Thanks again for all your help and guidance, Ken.  Without you, I don’t think any of this would have happened.

• I am so glad [our group] is in your and Ken's hands.

 ... and the highest praise:   

referrels from satisfied candidates & repeat assignments from satisfied clients

Recent Young Mayden Activity

• How to go about hiring a corporate lawyer?  Barbara Mayden was asked that by The Business Journals and you can read her answer here. 

•  Ken Young gave useful/practical advice in the Winter edition of LawPractice News, which we are pleased to communicate with you here. 

• Barbara Mayden was the guest speaker at the University of Michigan School of Law's class "Law Firms in an Evolving World" reflecting on changes in and the state of the legal marketplace.  

• At the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association in Toronto, Barbara Mayden was elected to a three year term on the ABA's Board of Governors as a representative of the ABA Sections. This is Barbara’s second election to the Board of Governors, previously representing the State of New York.  Also at that meeting Ken Young was on a panel of legal thought leaders exploring the evolving business model for law firms on a program entitled The Once and Future Law Firm: Fact v. Fiction. presented by the Law Practice Management Section and Barbara participated on a Program presented by the Section of Business Law entitled "Career Management and Business Development for the Diverse Lawyer."

• Ken Young spoke to the Defense Research Institute's (DRI) New York seminar in a presentation entitled Best Practices for Law Firm Profitability. For information about the DRI, visit the DRI website. The DRI has published Ken and Barbara’s paper “Should I Stay or Should I Go/Merge? Considerations Involved in Lateral Partner/Group Acquisitions and Mergers, and the Pros and Cons of Using Legal Search Firms,” in its most recent Annual Law Practice Management Review.

• When the Seattle law firm Lane Powell PC combined with the Portland firm of Roberts Kaplan LLP, the Portland Business Journal interviewed Ken for his take on the merger market. 

• Barbara Mayden shared tips on networking for the ABA's 2010 HOLIDAY NETWORKING Webinar presented by the Career and Practice Development Committee and the Membership Committee of the ABA Business Law Section and the ABA Young Lawyers Division.  You may download the (free) webinar by clicking on this link.

• Ken Young is serving on the seven-member Task Force on The Evolving Business Model for Law Firms established by the ABA Law Practice Management Section. For more information about the work of the Task Force, click here. 

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