One of the key differentiators Young Mayden offers firms and lawyers looking to move is its principals’ vast national network of lawyer connections. In addition to Barbara and Ken’s national law practices, this network, in large part, evolved out of Ken and Barbara’s active participation in local, state, and national bar associations. While working on issues of concern to the profession with some of the best lawyers in the country, deep friendships, and invaluable connections were being made.

Ken Young and Barbara Mayden, then Barbara Mendel, first met in 1983 at an American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division meeting. Ken and Barbara have been two of the longest-serving members of the ABA House of Delegates – the policy-making body of the ABA comprised of 550 lawyers from state and local bar associations across the country as well as ABA sections – both having begun serving in the mid-1980’s.  In addition, Ken and Barbara have served and continue to serve the ABA in other significant leadership positions, meeting, working with, and socializing with lawyers all over the country. It is this active participation nationally that creates the ability to help make lawyer employment matches not only across the street and across the state, but uniquely, across the country.

Ken and Barbara have also worked with their state and local bars and various specialty bars – local and national. Their “electronic Rolodexes” are full, enabling them to reach out personally to the practice leaders of potential firms as well as to potential candidates, minimizing if not wholly eliminating, the need for “cold calling,” which differentiates Young Mayden from other search firms. Organized bar participation has cemented friendships and connections, evolving into the Young Mayden tagline: connecting lawyers we know with workplaces we understand.

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