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After spending great time and effort to identify a top candidate and present that person with an offer of employment, many companies have a tendency to rush or forgo the last, crucial step—the reference check. Reasons why vary, but often it’s because the hiring manager thinks (cynically) that a reference check won’t produce any useful information, so why bother?

You left private practice and joined a great corporation for a lot of reasons: the challenge of running a legal department, being part of a business, not just acting as a hired gun and the opportunity to immerse yourself in, and become an expert in, an attractive industry. Suddenly your company is firing on all cylinders and your work/life balance is suffering. You spend more and more time thinking about hiring a junior lawyer to share the workload. How do you make the case to your superiors that hiring a junior, especially in tougher economic times, is good for the company?

Congratulations. You made an offer of employment to a dynamic, young private practice lawyer and she accepted. Your new junior in-house lawyer will start in four weeks. You have just entered the gap period between acceptance of an offer and the start date. What should you do?