Nelson Mullins Partner Mark Jones was recently featured in ALM’s Litigation Leaders series. The Q&A interview delved into Jones’ tenured career and role as the firm’s litigation group leader. Based in Columbia, South Carolina, Jones has served as nation­wide coordinating counsel in litigation involv­ing pharmaceuticals, consumer and mechanical products and technology. Below is an excerpt from the interview:

I see your name come up in lots of stories about the firm’s expansion. How much of your role as the litigation group leader involves lateral recruitment? With your leadership duties, do you still have time to practice?

Recruiting and integrating lateral attorneys is one of my primary roles as litigation group leader. While many lateral candidates approach us, we have been very intentional about identifying lateral candidates to build our bench depth in existing practice areas and to add new practice areas to service our clients. It takes a lot of time to identify, recruit and integrate new attorneys, but it’s critical to our ability to service our clients and attract new ones, so I make this a priority. While I sometimes wonder how, I still main­tain my practice despite the time commitment of group leadership. This is only possible, however, because I have incredibly talented partners supporting me on the practice side, and I have seven phenomenal assistant group leaders to assist with the management of our group.

Read the full article here.