There’s a fascinating concept in biology: every seven years, the human body has largely replaced its cells, regenerating itself at a molecular level. Scientifically, it’s more nuanced than that. Some cells renew in days, others take decades. But the poetic truth holds. Seven years is a transformation.
This month, CB Consulting Group, LLC turns seven years old. And as I mark this milestone, I find myself looking back not just at what I’ve built professionally, but at the full life that has been lived alongside it and what it truly took to get here.
Built on One Belief
When I launched CB Consulting Group seven years ago, I had already learned what the wrong fit looked like. Bad experiences at agencies, and even a full-blown noncompete lawsuit, had made one thing crystal clear: I needed to do this work on my own terms. No quotas to hit. No metrics imposed by someone else. No pressure to close deals fast when the right solution simply needed a little more patience. As an independent recruiter, I have always had the freedom to negotiate my own contracts, build my own relationships, and bring a genuinely human approach to a business that can too easily become transactional. That freedom is not a luxury. It is the foundation of everything I do.
A Life Being Built in Real Time
Here’s what the last seven years actually looked like: I got married. I had a baby. I bought a house. I built a business from scratch, on my own, with no safety net beneath me.
Each of those milestones, beautiful as they are, carries weight. A mortgage means the stakes are real. A child means your time is no longer entirely your own. A marriage means another person is riding alongside you through every slow month, every big win, every moment of doubt. Building a solo business while building a life is not for the faint of heart, and there were moments, more than a few, where I asked myself honestly: Is this path realistic? Am I doing the right thing?
Those questions weren’t weakness. They were wisdom asking to be heard.
The Weight of Working Alone
For much of this journey, I worked solo. Just me, my network, my instincts, and an unwavering commitment to making the right matches in the legal market. There is something clarifying about that kind of independence. Every decision is yours, every relationship is personal, every placement feels deeply earned.
But working alone can also be isolating in ways that are hard to admit. Legal recruiting is a relational business, and when the only person in the room is you, the silence can start to feel heavy. With a growing family and growing financial responsibilities, the isolation wasn’t just professional. It was personal. I wanted community. Stability. A sense of being part of something larger than myself.
The Answer Was Collaboration, Not Conformity
In 2024, I joined yet another agency to try to build a legal division. I was looking for connection, structure, and the energy that comes from being part of a team. What I found instead was clarity. My instincts, my relationships, my way of working. They are built for the autonomy of running my own practice. Returning to CB Consulting Group wasn’t a retreat. It was a homecoming.
What I had been searching for, that sense of community and partnership, didn’t require giving up my independence. It required finding a better way to collaborate within it. Working with other independent legal recruiters on split deals has given me exactly that. I can reach further, serve more clients and candidates, and stay connected to a broader network of trusted peers, all while remaining the sole architect of my own practice. The answer was never to become part of someone else’s structure. It was to build bridges to others who understand this work the way I do.
In the midst of that rediscovery, I joined the National Association of Legal Search Consultants and attended their conference. Being in a room full of people who understood this work, who had chosen this path and built something of their own, was nothing short of invigorating. It was a reminder that independence doesn’t mean going it alone. There is a whole community of legal search professionals out there, and being part of it has made me a better recruiter.
What Seven Years Has Taught Me
Seven years teaches you things. Hard things. True things. Here are the lessons I carry with me into the next chapter.
Always keep swimming. There will be slow months, quiet inboxes, and deals that fall apart at the finish line. There will be seasons where the effort feels invisible and the reward feels impossibly far away. Keep going anyway. Forward motion, even when it’s small, is what separates the people who make it from the people who don’t. You don’t have to swim fast. You just have to keep swimming.
Activity breeds activity. Make the call. Send the email. Reach out to the candidate. Submit the resume. Even when the fruits of that labor are not immediately visible, they are taking root. This business rewards consistency above almost everything else. The placements that close in December are often the relationships that were planted in July. Trust the process, do the work, and the results will come.
Believe in yourself, especially when you fail. There will be failures. Deals that don’t close. Candidates who ghost. Clients who go in a different direction. Moments where you wonder if you are cut out for this. You are. The wins will come if you keep going. Belief is not the absence of doubt. It is the decision to move forward in spite of it. Every setback is a setup for what comes next, if you refuse to let it be the end of the story.
I am not the same person who started this company seven years ago. I am a wife, a mom, and a business owner who has been tested in every direction and has chosen, again and again, to keep going.
Looking Forward
I enter this next chapter more clear-eyed than ever. I know what I’m building, I know how I work best, and I know the kind of relationships, with clients, candidates, and fellow recruiters, that make this work meaningful. The doubts haven’t disappeared entirely, but they no longer have the final word.
CB Consulting Group is seven years old, and in many ways, it feels brand new.
To the attorneys who have trusted me with their careers, the firms who have trusted me with their teams, the fellow recruiters who have been generous enough to collaborate, and my family, who has believed in this dream even on the days I struggled to: thank you for being part of this story.
Here’s to the next seven and beyond!
Carrie B. Marcantonio
CB Consulting Group, LLC