Legal Recruitment Blog

August 2007 - holiday season and wettest summer for years almost over 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 corporate and commercial solicitor recruitment by email). 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 promi...

Bonus Schemes - an update/recent experience Bonus schemes are either loathed or hated by solicitors. I recently read an article about recruitment consultant's salaries, which was talking about the average bonus given to consultants and the way it was done. It was surprising to find that in what is considered a sales orientated environment, most consultants were getting something lower than 20% above their basic salary as a bonus, whilst it seemed the average was closer to 5-10%. Solicitors have traditionally been very wary of such schemes, as usually they are weighted so far in favour of the employer, they are a complete waste of time. I have come across schemes that require 5 times the salary to be earned before the scheme kicks in, and then only 10% of earnings paid. I have also come across schemes where the whole firm has to earn x before one particular candidate gets any extra payment. However, a recent experience brought me in contact with what I think is the most generous bo...

15.08.07 What is PQE, and how important is it to law firms? PQE stands for 'Post-Qualified Experience', and is usually given in years or half years for solicitors and also for legal executives as well. In terms of job advertisements, it was envisaged by various experts on age discrimination that it would no longer be an accepted method of describing vacancies by law firms, as it should not matter how many years experience you have for a post, rather it should be more based on your ability. However since 2006 and the new laws, very little has changed, because in reality solicitors need certain levels of PQE before they can undertake certain tasks. For example, a 1 year PQE solicitor is legally unable to supervise an office - they have to be 3 years PQE before they are allowed to, and also have passed a management course recognised by the Law Society (some solicitors believe the latter to be a simple money spinning operation by various course providers, but I could not possibly c...

13.08.07 Advice for a Paralegal looking for a Training Contract Hi there - I would be very grateful if you could please give me so advice. I feel as my law career is going nowhere. I have nearly 3 years continuous paralegal experience which i have gained in different departments. I spent 2 and a half years with one firm and i have recently started in a new firm. I have applied for numerous TC s and don't seem to be getting anywhere. I am at the point of giving up. I was wondering whether it was my CV that was letting me down. Is it possible you could have a look at this for me please and comment on it. I have attached it for your consideration. Any advice would be gratefully received.. I have also thought about re-doing my A levels  as the results I  gained were not fantastic and again I feel these have let me down. I did discuss this with my old boss and he said that as I had done them 10 years ago and also because I have quite a lot of experience now then my A levels are not rea...

01.08.07 What is a locum Solicitor? We occasionally run series of articles on this site with a different theme, and this one is all about what different types of law actually mean... at this time of year, we get a lot of calls from would-be trainee solicitors hunting for holiday work, vacation placements and training contracts, and most probably have very little idea as to the reality of life as a solicitor in a certain field. A locum solicitor is a lawyer who works on a short term basis only - sometimes for a few hours, and other times for a few years - to cover for absent members of staff. Commonly used in local authorities, where staff always seem to require more cover than in private practice (I would imagine this has something to do with the almost impossible working conditions at times, the state of the management in some local authorities, but also the fact that government employers do tend to be slightly better at covering for absent staff than private practice, where at times ...