LEGAL RECRUITMENT REPORTwww.ten-percent.co.uk Legal Recruitment Report dated 4th June 2008 on the UK legal recruitment & job market.next report due - 14th July 2008 Prepared by Jonathan Fagan, Managing Director of ten-percent.co.uk limited; specialist legal recruitment consultants for solicitors and legal executives seeking legal jobs and law firms seeking staff in the UK. Click here to visit our online vacancy database This report is based on our recruitment activities in the legal job market for the past month, and is updated on a regular basis. It is divided into commercial and high street areas. Before viewing this information, please click here to read our disclaimer. View our daily legal recruitment articles and blog Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment is made up of a number of different websites and you can register to improve your prospects via any of our sites. Our sites simply offer law jobs, and we are totally committed to legal recruitment - we operate www.ten-percent.co.uk, our main site, www.jonathanfagan.co.uk (property, wills, probate, litigation), www.conveyancing-jobs.co.uk, www.crime-solicitor.co.uk (crime - duty solicitors, police station accredited reps and NQ), www.eastmidlandslegal.co.uk, www.yorkshire-legal-recruitment.co.uk, www.hampshirelegal.co.uk, www.homecountieslegal.co.uk and www.chancerylane.co.uk (UK legal job board for general practice, corporate and commercial solicitor recruitment). All our sites are an integral part of our legal recruitment group. We also offer a locum service for assignments of more than 1 month at www.ten-percent.co.uk/locum.htm We remain at the forefront of online recruitment, and currently feature fairly prominently on Google, Yahoo and MSN Search in the top 10 at most times. We retain our commitment to donate 10% of our annual net profits to charity.
02/06/08 Ten Percent Legal Recruitment Legal Job Market Report Outlook The last few months have brought turbulent times to the legal job market with a radical shift from the property recruitment that matched the expansion in the buy to let mortgage and the purchase of homes at rapid speed. There has been a radical change in the pattern from the related posts that arose dealing with these into different fields of law. This has been the same in the commercial world as well with commercial property posts becoming thinner on the ground than they were some time ago and although the recruitment industry is yet to experience a downturn in the legal field, it has become harder to make placements simply because of the lack of conveyancing posts. This report is broken down into the different fields of law. Conveyancing Conveyancing has become the new family law of a few years ago. We are suddenly seeing lots of conveyancing lawyers looking for work and almost one out of every two registrations we are currently getting from candidates is from a conveyancing solicitor or executive. It has been interesting to see how the pattern purged. Firstly London firms started to offload staff. We had a large influx of candidates looking for work around London. This then moved into the Home Counties before moving rapidly up country to the Midlands and the north west. That was a few weeks ago, and over this weekend we have received a large number of applications in the north east, all looking for conveyancing jobs. This is slightly surprising because firms in the north east have traditionally struggled to find conveyancing solicitors and executives and posts have stayed open for many months if not years. At the same time we have had posts come in for London and the south east for residential conveyancers and it is clear that there is still a market for conveyancing, just not in certain areas or with firms who have specific types of clients. Salaries are down as well. I would estimate that instead of a two year qualified conveyancing solicitor looking for a salary of £30,000 to £40,000, this will now be closer to £28,000 to £32,000. For a three year PQE upwards, the salary range is looking at anything from £30,000 to £40,000 but there has been nothing in above £40,000 since the turn of the year. We are still getting some candidates asking for salaries of above £50,000, these really have gone for the time being and I do not anticipate seeing any again until the market picks up. When will the market pick up? Difficult to say because it really depends on when house prices start to show stabilisation and the banks start reporting same or increased numbers of mortgages going through. As soon as this happens there will be a bit of confidence in the market again and conveyancing will pick up. Wills and probate Wills and probate has become the new boom area of recruitment. Every time a candidate registers without too many geographical restrictions and in particular outside of London, there are plenty of interviews and interest within a matter of days. This is particularly so at this time of year with newly qualified solicitors. There are plenty of NQs out there in wills and probate as the downturn in conveyancing has been fairly well anticipated by some firms for quite some time and more and more trainees have realised on qualification that they do not want to be looking for a conveyancing job in the current climate and have instead focused on wills and probate during their search for a newly qualified job. London is slightly different in that there have never really been boom times in wills and probate in the capital, there are plenty of wills and probate lawyers looking for work in the area. The NQ salaries start at about £23,000 and go up to £32,000 depending on the area, the quality of the work and the billing history within a particular department. Family Family law has been very poor for quite some time but we are hearing anecdotal evidence of posts arising across the board for both LSC and privately funded lawyers. This has been so in the London area and the south east as well as across the UK. Salary levels are still not very good with newly qualifieds starting at about the £20,000 mark but going up to about £29,000 for working at a good firm with good billing records and reasonable commissions. Panel members are currently looking at salaries above £40,000 upwards and LSC funded childcare specialists are looking from about £34,000 with panel membership and the ability to generate just less that £100,000 in billing. Civil litigation Litigation has enjoyed a fresh start this year, and there have been quite a number of posts coming into us as firms look for alternative streams of revenue when the conveyancing has dried up. In particular anything related to property has been in demand with firms looking to cash in on any litigation coming out of conveyancing departments and thinking about developing a specialism further. Current salaries for three years upwards are anything from £35,000, with a good high quality civil litigation case load attracting closer to the mid £40,000’s after three years. NQ levels are anything from £20,000 for LSC funded work up to £27,000 for privately funded matters. Company commercial Company commercial has always been in demand and firms are always on the look out for anybody from NQ level upwards as it is such a specialist market and in particular to find anyone outside of the large commercial firms who undertakes this work with sufficient quality to generate good income from it. Within the commercial world there are plenty of corporate commercial posts across the board whether this be banking, tax, corporate finance or any of the other individual specialisms falling within the remit of company commercial. Salaries in the high street and smaller regional firms can be anything from £30,000 upwards and salaries in the larger commercial practices, anything from £40,000 upwards. Three year PQE, the salary range is about £45,000 in the smaller high street firms and £70,000 plus in the larger practices. Housing Housing has enjoyed a bit of a resurgence, and we are currently handling a number of assignments for firms in Greater London and Kent including Shepway Citizens Advice Bureau who are on the look out for a housing advocate and have retained us as consultants. I am not sure why there has just been a resurgence as for some time housing lawyers have not been in demand and we have had a number registered for quite some time. Crime Crime has gone back to its old times of being a good area for recruiters and there are certainly a good number of posts out there for criminal solicitors where in times gone past there have been none. In recent weeks we have had a lot of requests for duty solicitors around London and further afield and also three year PQE solicitors to supervise officers. There also seems to be a bit more of a market in NQ crime solicitors which had gone last year and we are not seeing the numbers of candidates registered with us this year that we have seen in the past, which is a good sign of a healthy market and people being offered posts on qualification. It will be interesting to see whether this gets reflected in salary levels as well as in recent times the salaries have started to drop in crime as the number of candidates looking for work has increased. Commercial property Commercial property work has gone down and we have seen a good number of newly qualified commercial property solicitors register with us, which is never a good sign as it means that firms are off loading candidates or offering them work in other fields when they do not want it. There are a number of more senior lawyers as well looking for work and the amount of locum assignments have gone down as well in the field. I do not anticipate this remaining for long, unlike the residential market, commercial property work appears to be good and I hear anecdotal reports from partners that their departments are busy at present. Summary In summary, it is a bit of a mixed time for the legal job market. There are certainly posts there and we are making placements, but the fields are changing. There are less posts in certain areas and more in others.
Contact for Work Contact Ten-Percent and register for our jobfinder service . You can contact Jonathan Fagan directly on 0845 644 3923 or at jbfagan@tenpercent.co.uk if you would like to discuss career opportunities. You can also read his blog, Legal Recruitment. We can provide you with regular updates of vacancies and firms across our entire family of websites. www.jonathanfagan.co.uk for 1-5 year PQEs in conveyancing, litigation or private client legal recruitment, or try our other regional sites www.yorkshire-legal-recruitment.co.uk or www.homecountieslegal.co.uk, www.eastmidlandslegal.co.uk You can also view our selection site at www.lawyer-recruitment.co.uk New legal job vacancies into us in the last few weeks are as follows: please click here for our full vacancy database
Any interest, please drop us an email to jobs@tenpercent.co.uk, quoting the ref. no and attaching a CV. We look forward to being able to assist you. If you would like to know about salary levels, get in touch. You can view full careers advice by clicking this link, including negotiating salary, attending interviews, considering changing career or field of law. We also offer CV Writing Services to lawyers who do not want to use our recruitment services. Click here to view details. Jonathan Fagan, MREC Cert RP LLM Managing Director & Solicitor (non-practising), Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited. Visit my blog "Legal Recruitment" by clicking here This information is provided strictly on an informing basis. ten-percent.co.uk limited does not supply this for viewers to rely on in any way, and the company accepts no liability for anyone doing so. The above is copyright, and should not be reproduced without ten-percent.co.uk limited's express permission. privacy policy | disclaimer | contact | home | advertise a service | statistics Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment Blog | Search for Jobs | Search for Candidates | Post your CV | CV Writing Services | Legal Recruitment Advice | ILEX | The Law Society | The Legal 500 | Find a Solicitor | Lawyer Recruitment Website - The Ten-Percent Group | Crime Solicitor Jobs | Home Counties Legal Recruitment | Chancery Lane Corporate Commercial Legal Recruitment | Jonathan Fagan Specialist Conveyancing, Commercial Property & Private Client Recruitment | Hampshire Legal Recruitment | East Midlands Legal Jobs © Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited - March 2000 to 2006 all rights reserved. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment (www.ten-percent.co.uk) acts as an Employment Agency in the introduction of candidates to its clients for legal jobs. Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited recognises that it is essential to provide equal opportunities to all persons without discrimination. We encourage our employees at all levels to act fairly and prevent discrimination on the grounds of sex, age, race, sexual orientation, religion, marital status or disability. Click here to go to our home page |
| |
Solicitors - we can find you work in all areas of the UK - click here | ||
