One of the most common questions we are asked in demos of Haistack – Law Firm is, “How are you different from your competitors?” While many services aggregate publicly available data from across the web, what we do with that data is very, very different.
We begin by creating a detailed profile of your firm, evaluating multiple attributes. Once this profile is built, we use it to match with candidates outside of your firm. It’s not enough that the person matches your firm’s profile, they need to be in the location where a job is, they need to have the right amount of experience, and most importantly they need to have the specialty and skills to do the job. To accomplish this we create an overall score of a candidate. Let’s look at what goes into this score.
JD Year and Location
The first two components of a candidate’s score are JD Year and Location, which serve as essentially filters. If a candidate falls within the desired JD Year range and is located where the job is based, they’ll score 100% in these categories. This method works especially well in larger markets.
What happens in smaller markets or when a search yields few candidates? Our model automatically adjusts the criteria, expanding the Location or JD Year range to widen the search. For instance, if your firm needs a 3rd to 5th-year Labor & Employment associate in Northern Virginia, but the search only returns 13 candidates, our model may include nearby areas like Washington, DC, or extend the JD Year range to 2nd or 6th-year associates. These candidates would score slightly lower in Location or JD Year, but could still outscore others based on their overall score.
Law School and Current Firm
The next factors in the scoring system involve the candidate’s Law School and Current Firm. Using your firm’s profile as a reference, we employ unsupervised learning techniques to score candidates based on these attributes. For example, if you are an AM Law 20 firm, and you prefer candidates from firms ranked both higher and lower than you, we adjust the score accordingly. If your firm typically hires from firms within five places of your ranking, candidates from firms further away in rank will score lower.
Similarly, candidates from specific law schools are scored based on your preferences, with added points for honors or notable activities during law school to refine their scores.
Specialties and Skills
The most crucial part of the candidate’s score is their Specialties and Skills. Our platform standardizes how jobs and candidates are classified across practice areas and specialties. This ensures candidates with expertise in areas like Labor & Employment or M&A are correctly matched with relevant job openings. We use semantic matching techniques to align a candidate’s skills with the specific requirements of the job. This method provides a very accurate match and score of candidates with the skills a job is looking for.
Overall Score
What makes our system truly innovative is how we then calculate the overall score. Each above factor carries a different weight depending on its relevance to the specific job. Imagine if we weighted all the scores the same, we would just average them. Location would have the same weight as Specialty and Skills. If you have 300 candidates that match on Location 100% it really isn’t a differentiating factor and in fact it dilutes the Specialities and Skill score. So instead our model dynamically applies different weights, mimicking how we as humans analyze and interpret different attributes of a job.
JD Year and Location are less differentiating because many candidates match these criteria. They may only account for just 3-5% of the total score. On the other hand, Law School might contribute 10-15%, and Current Firm 20-30% because they provide differentiating factors to the candidate. Candidates with a higher score in Current Firm are more likely to move to your firm based on where the firm has recruited in the past.
The biggest differentiator, however, is the candidate’s Specialties and Skills, which typically account for 40-60% of the final score. This ensures that the right skills and expertise are given the greatest weight in the overall evaluation. At the end of the day can the candidate do the job we need them to do? This weighting system identifies candidates that have the location, experience, match your firm’s profile, and have the skills to do the job you are looking for them to do and then diminishes or enhances their significance in the total score.
Looking to the Future
We’ve been asked whether firms will eventually have the ability to control these weights and customize the scoring model to suit their specific needs. While we are open to exploring this option in the future, our current model already weights each element dynamically based on its significance. It automatically assigns less weight to factors like JD Year and Location in scenarios where they matter less and gives more emphasis to skills and fit—the elements that truly matter.
So, What Makes Us Different?
Returning to the original question: “How are you different from your competitors?” When Haistack – Law Firm processes a job it provides the end user with a list of the most qualified candidates, ranked in order. In contrast, our competitors often offer an unranked list, leaving you wondering where to start. Perhaps your firm doesn’t recruit from certain law firms or typically avoids candidates from specific law schools. Maybe you wish to include candidates from surrounding areas but aren’t finding enough. Instead of constantly adjusting your search filters, our system intelligently adapts, helping you find the best candidates more efficiently.
In short, Haistack – Law Firm doesn’t just provide data—it provides actionable insights tailored to your firm’s unique needs, making your recruitment process faster and more effective.