LEGAL RECRUITMENT REPORTwww.ten-percent.co.ukLegal Recruitment Report dated 1st June 2009 on the UK legal recruitment & job market.next report due - 1st July 2009 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 legal recruitment news 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 & international 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.
Legal Job Market Report 1st June 2009 from Ten-Percent Legal RecruitmentWe have had 5 interviews, 1 job offer and 8 new vacancies since our last newsletter in April. 80% of these interviews have been for for employed positions with salaries. In the recruitment press at present we keep reading of agencies who are bucking the trend, doing business in new areas, and taking the time to develop other fields. All of this is simply code for "we are in trouble". Similarly we would like to pretend that business is booming in legal recruitment, but it is not. If you look in the back of the Law Society Gazette recently, the amount of vacancies has dropped, and only 2-3 of the larger agencies are still advertising, possibly because they have tied-in contracts. However - it is not right to say that as a result of this the market has completely collapsed. We are still getting vacancies into us and there are still fields of law and geographical locations where firms are short of candidates. We are aware that there have been large numbers of staff laid off, but the vast majority of these have been from medium to large firms who have taken the opportunity to reduce their wage bill (rightly so as otherwise staring bankruptcy in the face!), and not necessarily because the work is not likely to be there in a few months time (or when the market picks up). So in summary, the market is not good but similarly not completely gone. We are hearing of lawyers finding jobs across the UK in a range of fields whether by agencies or direct applications. Some firms have indicated that work has picked up. As a guide on the recruitment front it has been reported recently that permanent recruitment across the UK is down over 50% in terms of level of profit for recruitment consultancies. Legal Job Market Report 6th May 2009Legal Job Market Report April 6th 2009March 2009 has been an interesting month. At present recruitment is a little bit like a farmer sowing seeds in a field, watching plants grow, only to be eaten up by rabbits and having to start again! We saw a small resurgence in conveyancing, with a few vacancies being registered as well as posts turning up in the Law Society Gazette, and have also had tentative enquiries on the commercial property side as well. Wills & probate continues to surprise us - very few firms have reported doing much business at all in private client, but we are seeing some posts back on the market. Legal Job Market Summary 1st March 2009February 2009 has been a bit of a resurgent month for us. We have had good quality job offers from good firms for good candidates, and although the fields of law have mainly been in new or quieter areas, we have introduced and placed two candidates into conveyancing posts. 11th February 2009 Monthly Legal Job Market ReportGeneral Outlook With increasing redundancies and law firm closures across the UK, you could be forgiven for thinking that it was all doom and gloom and that very little recruitment was taking place. This could not be further from the truth – we have had a very busy period of six weeks, which is partly why this monthly report is about two weeks late. Legal recruitment has changed and there is no denying that, but there are certainly opportunities coming in that result in our caseload being quite busy. We have seen a large number of vacancies posted with us during the January and early February periods. The difference is that quite a few are difficult vacancies to fill in that the firms want something that does not necessarily exist or is close to impossible to achieve. More on this in a bit. We have seen a marked change in the quality of vacancies and firms recruiting. The small to medium sized firms who have been well established for a good number of years with quality work and well paid positions are simply not recruiting at present. They are probably the ones who are hardest hit by the credit crunch as they have been paying their staff reasonable wages and offering good conditions which does not necessarily result in increased productivity. The firms that are benefiting are those who have offered low salaries and now have staff working on these with no prospects of changing position simply because there are no positions to change into that offer any more. There has also been a marked change in the standard of firms who are recruiting and LSC funded work has come to the fore again. There has been a marked increase in the amount of interest shown in LSC funded work and in positions coming up in firms doing predominantly LSC or litigation work. In brief, litigation and insolvency positions are up and non-contentious positions are down, if not gone for the time being. The outlook is far from rosy but we expect all markets to pick up in the next three to four months. There are certainly signs of this as more and more jobs get posted by firms as new areas of law are explored. High Street The high street on the non-contentious side has been decimated. We have gone from 800 conveyancing vacancies down to no conveyancing vacancies. I can repeat that confidently that there are no conveyancing vacancies registered with Ten Percent Legal Recruitment or any of its websites at present. However, we did get a vacancy registered last night for a conveyancing solicitor to undertake conveyancing work and get paid 40 percent of the profits. If you read this, please do not telephone us about this post as there is nothing else to tell you except the name of the firm and it will simply be a case of needing to get a CV in so best to email! Wills and probate has not performed as expected. We predicted last year that wills and probate would be a boom area and most firms would expand rapidly on the wills and probate side and cut the conveyancing side. The problem has been that although firms are picking up wills and probate work, it is being done by the lawyers who were conveyancing solicitors and have moved over. This in turn has meant that there are no jobs for wills and probate solicitors and again, although we have a few registered with us, most are not recruiting unless you have something to bring to the table (i.e. the mysterious following). On the contentious side, there seem to be openings just about everywhere, although again, firms are still very, very reluctant to commit to anything and salaries are stunted. Firms almost put out as a matter of course that they are looking for candidates with a following even though they must know that on the whole, such candidates simply do not exist and the chance of finding one with a following in the current climate is nothing short of a miracle. We are seeing new patterns starting to emerge and payment protection insurance misselling is going to hit our doorsteps very shortly as firms start opening departments dealing with this. Similarly everybody seems to be interested in insolvency work at present and there is certainly plenty of interest in insolvency solicitors from various sources. Crime, mental health, family, housing, social welfare and employment from an LSC funded perspective are all very busy and firms are extremely interested in recruiting in these areas. The majority of the posts that we are picking up come in these fields. In summary, the high street is buoyant if you are not a conveyancer or wills and probate lawyer, but if you are one of those, then it is still pretty terrible. Commercial Commercial law has been pretty much decimated by the recent events of the credit crunch. It almost appears that legal recruitment in the city and the larger commercial practices has disappeared as large corporations cut back on just about everything. The redundancies that have been reported in the press are a very good example of just lazy reporting by journalists who can’t be bothered to go out and research a story as the figures put out for firms like Baker and McKenzie and Linklaters are pretty much dwarfed by the number of redundancies being made in the high street, except the number of redundancies being made in the high street cannot be put in a press release and sent to journalists simply to copy out. We have seen vacancies dry up quite considerably on all fronts, but there are certainly still posts out there in the regions. We are currently interviewing with a large national firm on a whole host of posts, but nearly all of them are linked to litigation fields, that have some element of high street work in them, albeit from a defence side. Not a good time to be looking for work especially if you’re a newly qualified and I am not sure that the market will pick up on the commercial side for at least another three to four months. I could be mistaken, but that is the feeling I get on this. Other Fields Support work is also very difficult and the number of secretaries being laid off is probably similar to the number of solicitors, especially when secretaries in some firms are paid almost as much as the solicitors and firms are realising that they can actually do without them when they haven’t got any work for them. We’ve seen a large number of secretaries who have been with firms for 20 years +, being made redundant and their salary levels are simply unsupportable in other firms, where the new firm had no loyalty to them. It is becoming a new world out there for everyone, and this does include support workers in the legal profession. Ten Percent Legal Recruitment also has divisions in architecture, financial services and tax and from these the financial services sector is very busy for independent financial advisors. If anyone is thinking of cross qualifying as a financial advisor (I did it myself some years ago), it may be a good idea to start looking into this as there is certainly a gap in the market opening up. On recent flyers out to financial advisor firms, we have had a very high take up of enquiries, although most are only interested on a self employed basis. In summary, things are not as bad as the press make out in some aspects, but in other aspects, they are not particularly healthy and the press are correct. If you are a conveyancer who has been made redundant and want further advice, please have a look at the Law Care website (www.lawcare.org.uk) or read our recruitment blog http://www.legalrecruitment.blogspot.com
Ten Percent Legal Job Market report, December 7th 2008Outline Things have picked up. Well, you would expect us to say this as our whole livelihood depends on the legal recruitment market and it is in our interests to promote its well being to encourage others to recruit. However it is it is correct to say that we have more vacancies this month than last, and interviews are starting to be arranged again. The only difference is that the market has changed quite dramatically, and instead of us scraping around for one or two candidates to send through for referral we suddenly have a whole choice of candidates and are finding this very interesting from a recruitment point of view as in the past it has always been to determine whether or not a particular candidate is suitable and then to work on that candidate and their CV to get them in to the firm in the best possible light. With there being so many candidates to choose from for every post it has become more of a case of filtering the candidates to send the best couple through. It is clear that the litigation side of things is starting to pick up and we are starting to get requests for litigators which have been forecast and expected for quite some time. We think that over the past few months there has been a great reluctance on the part of firms to request CVs of litigation solicitors when they are busy making redundancies on the long contentious side in conveyancing and commercial prompting. However I think that reluctance has now gone and firms are starting to recruit litigators to bolster their income at the expense of non-contentious fields. I have come across some candidates who have indicated to me that they are experiencing pressure at work from non-contentious colleagues and almost bullying from the partners in the non-contentious side keen to see the contentious side make considerable amounts of money to support them whilst the market on the non-contentious side is flat. There is a lot of pressure in the work place at the moment to keep firms going and this is only one example. This week I have also heard of two market firms who have taken a collective decision as a firm to share the burden of the crash in the property market and have reduced their working week to four days from five. I clearly commend these firms as it means the staff that is with them will be impressed by the loyalty shown by the partners to them and it should ensure a good and stable working environment once the market picks up. Those firms who ditch staff at the first opportunity without really thinking through the consequences are usually those firms who have a fairly rapid turnover of staff unless of course there are financial issues of a pressing nature to bear in mind, such as the firm going bust very rapidly. So to break down the market report in to sections we’ll start with conveyancing. Conveyancing At present the market remains dreadful. There are very few conveyancing vacancies out there but we have noticed a few creeping in in recent weeks in the back of the Law Society Gazette I commend those firms who are looking to recruit as they are very brave to put an advert in the gazette – I suspect they have been thoroughly inundated with CVs from redundant conveyancing solicitors looking for work. I’ve also noticed a couple of firms advertising for commission based conveyancing posts which are becoming increasingly common across the legal profession but difficult to make money in at the high street end. We have picked up a couple of locum conveyancing positions in recent weeks as well as a couple of commission based posts. Our most recent full time position was in Cornwall and the firm recruiting very honestly told us that they had had so many applications directly it was unlikely they would take an agency candidate which was understandable, bearing in mind the number of conveyancing solicitors currently looking for work. So in summary the conveyancing market does not really exist at present and our predictions are now for late spring, early summer for the market to pick up at all. For conveyancers wanting to know what other property lawyers are doing who have been made redundant I have heard of a large number who are out of the profession at present in temporary work waiting for the market to pick up so that they can come back in again. Activities have included working at their local supermarket, taking local authority work or looking at managerial posts in either companies or organisations. Commercial Property Commercial property posts have suffered a similar fate and it is only in recent weeks that we are getting CVs through from top London and larger legal 500 firms who are shedding staff in their property departments. This is a good indication that the market will not pick up for a good few months yet although we have picked up a couple of commercial property posts in recent weeks so there is certainly some scope for optimism that the marketing is still there to a certain degree but just not in the same capacity that existed a few months or years ago. Family Law Family law posts are coming in fairly continually but usually from firms looking for family law supervisors or senior family lawyers. There are very few posts out there at newly qualified level and our advice to any newly qualified solicitors looking for family law posts is to stay put for as long as you can as even if you were to join another firm, you probably run the risk of being last in first out which is not a good position to be in at all. Salaries of these are stunted because firms know that if you are looking for work you will be fairly desperate and so they will use this to exploit your situation. Wills and Probate This was the great hope we think of a lot of firms that the wills and probate sections in their firms would pick up and support the property side of the practice in the difficult times. However we are now seeing quite a few redundancies on the wills and probate side because the property lawyers in firms are starting to take over some of the wills and probate work and there is no longer the need for as many wills and probate lawyers in those particular firms. The market as a result is fairly stunted and there are not that many wills and probate posts around at present. Litigation Civil and commercial litigation posts are fairly common and there is certainly recruitment going on on this side now after recent weeks of reluctance on firms to recruit. It is likely that this will continue for quite some time and we expect to see more posts coming up as the weeks progress. This is because firms need a new area to focus work on and it looks as if it is the litigation side that they hope will take them through difficult times. I have heard from firms to say that their litigation departments are quite busy and expect to carry on being busy and pick up in the New Year. Crime Crime has been a funny market for quite some time and there are certainly vacancies out there but the whole nature of the market has completely changed. It used to be that if you got a crime solicitor for a particular area there would be a couple of firms interested in seeing a CV for a salary post that would be reasonably paid. That has now gone, and firms try basic plus commission, commission only and insist on freelancing in order to recruit duty solicitors, thanks to the LSC's reluctance to pay reasonable rates for the work that crime solicitors do. However we are still seeing some movement in the market, just not a lot. Corporate Fields & Company Commercial There seems to be quite a lot of commercial posts coming in, but they are usually very senior corporate posts or specifically compliance, regulatory, insolvency and commercial litigation work. We are hearing of redundancies in the banking sector and also from solicitors in corporate finance but it does not seem to be overly effective at present. There are also a good number of posts coming up on the corporate side overseas in the Middle East, although the couple of times we have dealt with recruitment in the past few months in Dubai and Abi Dhabi the companies have taken CVs and then said they are putting the vacancy on hold as there are concerns about the state of the market over there. However for the past few weeks we have registered about thirty new positions, although some of these are not exclusive to Ten Percent Legal Recruitment. Summary In summary the market is not good, but there are signs that things are starting to pick up and recruitment will begin in earnest in the spring and early summer of next year. Quite how many law firms and recruitment agencies will be left by then is another matter entirely, but there is no reason for any firm to, or recruitment consultant to disappear at present unless they are reliant on bank loans or finance to continue. It was estimated in the last recession that forty per cent of recruitment agencies disappeared as market conditions got harder, and I have heard evidence that the same may happen to solicitors firms this time. I sincerely hope it doesn’t as there is no reason for firms to disappear unless they are struggling to get professional indemnity insurance or there are big banking issues relating to that particular firm. Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten Percent Legal Recruitment and can be contacted for press comment at CV@ten-percent.co.uk or telephone 02071274343.
02/11/08 Legal Job Market Report from Ten Percent Legal Recruitment ConsultantsSummary | Outlook | Company News In October 2008, 19 job vacancies were registered with our main legal recruitment site and reflects the legal jobs registered with the Ten-Percent group. 66 job vacancies were also registered with our specialist legal job board, ChanceryLane by other agencies, organisations and law firms. In the same time, over 200 solicitors registered with us and another 70 with ChanceryLane (plus an additional 30-40 via our other websites). 91% of our work last year involved permanent or long term contract placements, and this year, the figure has dropped to about 75%. Out of all the candidates registering in October, at least 60% were conveyancing solicitors, and we have still got a backlog of about 100 to filter and enter before including them in the above statistics. To put this into perspective, in October 2007 57 vacancies were registered by law firms and in house legal departments, and 74 solicitors registered. We have gone from over 700 conveyancing positions to a grand total of 4 (check out our vacancy database - enter 'any' for location). Two of these posts are with firms looking for solicitors prepared to take a commission. In the same time, just above 50% of vacancies registered are for posts involving LSC funded work. We have had a post registered for Dubai (company secretary), and a few of the vacancies have been for solicitors being paid by commission in some format. I should add that this does not include low quality candidates (LPC graduates, students and applicants with no experience), but does include legal executives and licensed conveyancers. Over 35% of our posts were for commercial posts including commercial litigation and senior management positions in law firms. The legal job market has continued to alter considerably as time progresses, and we have watched as a couple of longstanding clients have disappeared without a trace almost overnight. Other firms have indicated that they are closing down, and others have said that they are reducing their hours and those of their staff. At least 50% of candidates registering with us do so at present as a result of redundancy, or because a firm have reduced their hours or their salary in view of the downturn. The report in the Law Society Gazette indicating that the Law Society were aware of 700 solicitors who have been made redundant since the start of 2008 is probably just the tip of the iceberg, as we are getting reports of redundancies across the profession that must be at least 10 times that figure. If the Law Society are correct, all of these solicitors are registered with us...! However, it is not all bad news. I am hearing reports of firms where the work is continuing to come in, and recruitment remains the same as pre-credit crunch times. Vacancies are still being registered, and recruitment continues. LSC funded work has not been affected, and Ten-Percent is very busy handling housing law vacancies, LSC and privately funded family work, crime (especially duty solicitors), immigration and other litigation fields. NGOs, charities and local authorities are all carrying on, and there is little sign of much impact there. It appears that the main part of the market to have been affected is anything linked to the property market or firms who have invested heavily in any related fields. Other firms have not been faced with the same drop in business, and start up firms appear to be doing quite well out of the situation as they have no overheads to carry into the new scenario. The credit crunch is going to have an effect on the recruitment market for some time. It is estimated by commentators (most recently in The Recruiter magazine) that it will drop off further and 25% of recruitment agencies will close in the next 6 months. A large number of agencies who specialise in temporary recruitment are dependent on continued finance to foot the wage bill every week, and will be watching the banks very nervously over the next few months. On the legal recruitment side a lot depends on the property market, both for commercial and residential work. It is still going to be very hard to predict when the conveyancing market will pick up, but anecdotal evidence suggests that there are still houses being bought and sold and there are still plenty of sales and purchases for the conveyancing firms to deal with. We have already seen vacancies come in again for conveyancing, and as the buying and selling of houses picks up after Christmas and in the Spring, the market will slowly start to recover I think. The conveyancing job market is unlikely to move much before the Summer of 2009 however, because of the sheer number of firms making redundancies across the UK. This will continue to have an ongoing effect on other areas, but as soon as the markets start becoming fairly buoyant, the other areas will no longer be affected by conveyancers trying to get out. For advice on how to deal with issues of recruitment during the recession, please visit our website and download our free advice booklet. You can also read our blog, which contains lots of advice and information on being made redundant, looking for legal jobs and advice for law firms. You can also register for our monthly newsletters and details are at the top of the page. Ten-Percent has a range of services offered to law firms, but in the last few months we have also opened new divisions in Architect Recruitment, and we have been quietly operating IFA recruitment (which has involved some crossover with the legal division) for the last 12 months. We are also offering our Outplacement Service to all firms with Employment Law departments. There is an opportunity to utilise our Redundancy Support Service with Career Coaching, Skill Testing and Job Application/Interview Training either as your own service or on a fee/commission basis. Please visit www.jbfagan.co.uk for details. This legal job market report is prepared by Jonathan Fagan, Managing Director of Ten Percent Legal Recruitment and specialist recruiter for law firms up and down the UK and overseas. He also coaches lawyers and law graduates at all levels, writes the award-winning Legal Recruitment blog, and is a recognised expert in the field of legal recruitment. If you would like to contact him, please email cv@ten-percent.co.uk
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..
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. Jonathan Fagan, MREC Cert RP LLM Managing Director & Solicitor (non-practising), Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited. Visit my blog Legal Recruitment 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 |
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