Hard work?

Every week lawyers seem to jump ship from one firm to another, in displays of personal choice that would have been branded disloyal 20 years ago. The legal market is just far more fluid in the 21st century, with trainees staying with one firm through to partnership being the exception rather than the rule.

Legal landscape

'Over the past five to ten years there has been more movement at senior level. There is not the same loyalty there once was '“ lawyers move on if they think they can get a better deal somewhere else,' says Andy Curtis, director of South-west legal recruiter Career Counsel. 'The golden chalice for lawyers is still partnership, but with firms increasingly focused on the bottom line, the opportunities for reaching this are far more restricted. The real challenge for law firms is to make sure their employees remain motivated, even though they won't necessarily make it to partner.'

Curtis is himself a former solicitor, he was an employment lawyer with Taylor Wessing in London, before moving into legal recruitment, so he empathises with the lack of fulfilment some lawyers are feeling in jobs that aren't panning out as expected. The good news for lawyers in this position, though, is that firms are beginning to realise that they need to try harder to retain the best talent.

'Many firms are countering the lack of partnership opportunities by creating alternative career paths for lawyers,' says Curtis. 'Titles such as 'of counsel' and 'managing associate' are being introduced for senior lawyers who have additional supervisory, marketing, or management responsibilities, but who aren't suited to or don't want partnership. It's a way of letting the lawyers know their achievements have been recognised. But it has to be more than just a label to be meaningful.'

'It is also a really buoyant market at present. There are lots of busy and ambitious law firms around trying to grow aggressively, which means lots of vacancies, but there aren't enough talented lawyers to fill them. It is definitely a candidates' market.'

Curtis says that the recruitment market really picked up at the turn of the year when there was a significant 'upturn in corporate activity'. 'This is really down to improved economic conditions; people are feeling far more confident,' he says. 'Signs are that this is set to continue, I certainly don't anticipate a calming in the market for the foreseeable future.'

Popular disciplines

Despite the general need for lots of high quality lawyers, Curtis says certain disciplines are more in demand than others. 'The biggest demand for lawyers at present is in corporate, commercial property and specialist areas such as trusts, pensions and tax,' he says. 'For us, lawyers in the two to five years' PQE range tend to be the most in-demand. They have the experience and don't need much hand-holding, but aren't yet knocking on the door of partnership.'

For companies like Career Counsel '“ described by Curtis as 'a niche, specialist legal recruiter which deals primarily with the leading commercial firms in the region' '“ the rising need for corporate lawyers is a particularly good sign. The company's geographical positioning, in Bristol, is also an advantage as the trend of lawyers looking for work outside the M25 continues. 'A key motivator in moving jobs is to strike the right work/life balance,' says Curtis. 'Lawyers work too hard and they are starting to realise it. If the partnership carrot is fast disappearing, why bust a gut? Many are now looking for a change in environment.'

Rise of the locum

A symptom of lawyers assuming this attitude has been the rise of the locum or temporary lawyer, a 'hired gun' who rides to the rescue of firms when there are gaps to be filled. Unsurprisingly, the increase on popularity of this role, which offers freedom of movement and the benefits of self-employment, has seen the locum recruitment sector grow exponentially.

Nick Brown, manager of the contract locum department at Career Legal, says: 'This year has been busier than ever, especially over the summer. It used to be the case that colleagues covered for each other when they were ill or away, but this is not always feasible any more.' Career Legal's contract locum division primarily caters for small to medium-sized firms in London and the Home Counties, and Brown says his department 'provides lawyers to give temporary cover from anything from a couple of weeks for holiday or sickness, all the way up to three to nine months for maternity leave, recruitment gaps or long-term illness'.

The growth in the number of lawyers wanting to provide their services to firms on a temporary basis has given rise to what Brown calls the'professional locum', who is typically an 'ex-partner who wants to work nine to ten months a year, and enjoys the stimulation of working in different environments and appreciates the freedom that locuming affords'.

'The typical example of this would be someone of ten to 25 years' PQE, in their early-40s to mid-50s, who is tired of the strains of partnership and wants more flexibility,' says Brown. Rather than diluting the expertise of the specialists, the influx of talent into the locum market has driven up the quality of the temporary lawyer, with healthy competition meaning the typical rate for a five-ten years' PQE solicitor is now around £850-1,000 per week. Brown says the 'standard of locums has increased tremendously' and that this, coupled with the surge in work for firms and 'hassle-free' contractual agreements with temporary workers, means that the market will continue to thrive.

Despite the differing natures of the candidates Curtis and Brown are trying to 'place', both acknowledge the ever-increasing role the internet is playing in the recruitment of legal talent.

Brown says word of mouth is still the best way to secure new clients, but that a 'fair share' of responses come through the company's online presence, while Curtis agrees it is slowly closing the gap on traditional press job advertising.

One recruiter to make the most of this development is LegalProspects, a division of the larger Jobsite online recruitment business. One obvious advantage of posting vacancies on the internet is the sheer volume of posts that can be displayed and Eric Potts, the new business development director at the company, estimates that the 250 recruitment consultancies which use the site between them post '10,000-13,000 vacancies at any one time'.

This means that the range of jobs available is also much greater and, in a reflection of the development of law firms into more business-like models, LegalProspects lists not just solicitors posts but also jobs for legal executives, paralegal, legal secretaries and in legal IT, finance, human resources and marketing departments.

'Advertising jobs online is a very cost-effective way of getting exposure,' says Potts. 'We also send out daily emails to anyone registered with us, so its a good way of hitting the passive job-hunters as well as those specifically looking.'

Potts does admit, however, that this kind of medium is used most by lawyers 'up to five years' PQE'. 'While it's very effective for solicitors at the beginning of their career, the more senior lawyers tend to get head-hunted as opposed to applying for new positions,' he says.

The explosion in the recruitment
market is the reflection of a healthy and highly competitive legal market and should be celebrated. As firm grow and prosper, new vacancies arise, good quality lawyers are needed to fill them, choices become available to the individual and they move on creating more vacancies to be filled.

Retention seems to be the difficult part of the equation for law firms and that puts the employee in the position of power. Things really have moved on and so, it increasingly seems, are lawyers.