Legal Recruitment Blog

We have yet another LSC family supervisor deadline almost upon us - the 20th December - although quite why this has happened when so many firms were working to the 5th December is beyond me. The LSC are a law unto themselves when it comes to deadlines I think! If law firms miss deadlines that is one thing, whereas if the LSC miss a deadline they simply extend it by a few weeks. Anyway, anyone registered with us for family law work will be pleased to see the back of these latest deadlines because we have been bombarding them with emails about firms looking for full time salaried supervisors and consultant supervisors working through a monthly retainer system. I have heard that you can work for more than one firm, provided you are not supervising more than 4 caseworkers. This means that technically you can work for 4 firms all with one caseworker each? Who knows. There doesnt seem to be any guidance on this anywhere and I understand that if you call the LSC the accounts managers dont see...

We have started to see an influx of family and child care posts coming through from firms who have been awarded an LSC contract in the recent rounds of applications and who now need to find themselves a panel member. So far, most of these are coming from smaller sized practices around London, usually up to about 5 partners, and based outside the centre - East, South East, North and West London. This is going to move into other areas I suspect as we get closer to the deadline in two weeks for the firms to indicate who their supervisor is. If you are considering signing up for a firm as a supervisor, whether on a contractual or salaried basis, please let us know and we can keep you informed with vacancies. I understand that you do not need to live near the firm, and someone working as a locum in another area of the country could sign up to a firm as their supervisor (subject to usual LSC requirements). So far we have: Berkshire South East London East London (x2) North London West London ...

Further to the massive change that has apparently happened in the legal sector, I can say that so far we have received no indication of any vacancies being posted by new ABS law firms. We have had a request from one of the new brands to advertise on our websites (slightly surprising being that we have criticised the whole franchise concept!) but no sign as yet of any new entrants to the legal profession looking to recruit large amounts of solicitors to sweep up the business. With the amount of legislation and regulation that affects the legal profession, any cutthroat operators looking to make a quick buck by recruiting armies of paralegals to undertake work are going to have to take a considerable amount of time to plan their operation in order to make any money at all. Furthermore, with the possibility that referral fees are going to get banned very shortly, (for somewhat spurious reasons that are still not entirely clear) I would imagine a good number of companies are watching the s...

Question from Duty Solicitor: We have spoken and corresponded a number of times over the last 8 yrs or so and I wonder if you are able to help at this juncture of my career. I am interested in freelancing which would mean my duty slots to a large firm. In London I am informed a £1200 retainer is available plus an average of £50k pa working hard one week a month - sounds like a no brainer! The agency in London I have spoken to who are recruiting on behalf of 3 major London firms certainly talk the talk - but I am suspicious of how much rota work I would get given the volume of freelancers and employed solicitors on the rotas. I want some security of earnings before I commit myself. Answer from Jonathan Fagan, MD Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment Hello. If it assists, let me tell you about 2 candidates we placed last year in London as freelancers (both central London) - one with a 1 partner firm, the other with a 20 solicitor practice. The freelancer with the 1 partner firm earned about £25k...

It has become a recent trend in the legal profession for solicitors to start forming brand names and franchises. I think this can be traced back to a commentator who appears regularly in the Law Society Gazette called Neil Myerson who is a Professor at a university somewhere in the UK. Professor Myerson has warned constantly about solicitors’ firms being eaten up by large multi-nationals coming into the market when the alternative business structures start to form in October 2011. Since then we have seen Quality Solicitors, the High Street Lawyer brand and now one called Face to Face. All of these appear to charge their members considerable amounts of money, promising advertising in return and forming large groups of firms able to compete in the national marketplace. I voice a minority opinion I suspect, but I think that any firm signing up to these brands is probably flushing a rather large portion of cash straight down the to ilet. Franchising, which is what this model is, has ...

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment is slowly (very slowly!) revolutionising the way law firms recruit. In July 2011 we decided to alter our fee structure to do add contingency fee-based recruitment and ask law firms who use our services to pay a monthly subscription as an alternative to paying us a lump sum. We set the monthly subscription at a level so low (from £60) that most firms would not even notice they were paying it. We also decided to impose a 5 year membership term to stop any firms planning to take a candidate from us and then cancel within a few weeks! The responses from law firms have been fascinating. They include "what a fantastic idea. You have altered my view of recruitment agencies as being money grabbing parasites." Partner, Lincolnshire Firm, September 2011. "your service is outstanding. Within a few days of joining you had found us the candidates we had been looking to recruit for some time." Practice Manager, South East London Firm, August...

Get immediate assistance with your training contract applications. Purchase online and send over your application forms, covering letters and your CV. Each piece of work costs a certain number of credits. £25 buys 5 credits, which for most applications will cover 2 full application forms or a CV and covering letter. Full credit cost given before work undertaken. Credits can be topped up as needed. All work is undertaken by a qualified recruitment consultant and solicitor with at least five years experience working within the legal profession. http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/careersshop/product.php?id_product=37 Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - Online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals . Visit our Website to search or download our Vacancy Database or view our Candidate Database online. Our Legal Careers Shop has eBooks on CV Writing for Lawyers, Legal Job Interview Guide, Interview Answers for Lawyers, NQ Career Guide, G...

We are looking for an LPC student, graduate or LLB graduate to attend at Dudley County Court for us on Friday 17th June at 10am to deal with a Charging Order application. Very straightforward, documentation all ready to go, just can't get there ourselves! Will pay travel expenses plus an hourly rate. Contact us urgently if you would like to be considered. 0207 127 4343. Jonathan Fagan, MD, Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - Online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals . Visit our Website to search or download our Vacancy Database or view our Candidate Database online. Our Legal Careers Shop has eBooks on CV Writing for Lawyers, Legal Job Interview Guide, Interview Answers for Lawyers, NQ Career Guide, Guide to Finding Work Experience or a Training Contract and the Entrants Guide to the Legal Profession. To visit our Sale/Clearance section please click here . www.ten-percent.co.uk/careers...

I was wondering if maybe you could help me! I am currently a trainee solicitor and looking to transfer my training contract.... Could you recommend any routes? I am applying via the conventional route. Very difficult! There is no route as such - the way most people transfer is simply to identify potential firms who may be interested and write to them. Alternatively apply for an advertised training contract in a smaller sized practice and indicate that it will take you x amount of time shorter than any other trainees because of your existing experience. Make sure that your existing firm does not find out. This is very important. After all you will want something to fall back on if everything else fails.... If you are experiencing problems at work speak to the Trainee Solicitors Group - most solicitors have been where you are now and experienced every type of behaviour in the book - bullying, alcoholic partners, mentally unstable employers etc... Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - Online L...

Careers Enquiry: I am a trainee solicitor. I have been working in benefits, debt, housing and family. I have enjoyed these subjects, and have gained a lot of experience in the Legal Aid sector. The main problem is that I have not been able to do very much advocacy. This was something I always enjoyed throughout my degree and LPC. I also enjoyed the subject of criminal law throughout my studies and carried out a number of work experience placements in this area. I am considering transferring to Crime, but I am not sure how to make this change. I did an advanced criminal module on the LPC, but I do not have my police station accreditation. Advice: Firstly, do not jump out of the frying pan and into the fire! It appears that you have not really gained any experience in crime, and neither have you experienced advocacy and whether it is something suitable for you depends on this experience. Changing fields of law is not a decision to be taken lightly - it can come back to haunt you througho...

Query from Client: Hi Jonathan, you may recall we spoke last summer when I used your application review service (I got down to the final 5 but lost out to a much more experienced candidate from London). I'm emailing you because I've just googled "legal recruitment market 2011" and what appeared was a blog written by you in January 2011. In the blog you stated that the North West (especially Manchester) would be a recruitment "cold spot" for 2011. Can I ask (1) why this is and (2) as 2011 progresses, is re recruitment in Manchester still very quiet? My answer to this is as follows: 1. Manchester and the surrounding area have been hard in recent months by the collapse of Halliwells, the Consumer Credit Solicitor fiasco and other smaller firm closures. 2. The Manchester and North West legal markets at corporate level appear to be very dependent on the business of a couple of large companies, local authorities and government funded project work. 3. With the redu...

NQ Solicitor? Don't panic. Expect to work hard finding a suitable job Every year we get called by NQ solicitors with the following questions: 1. When should I register? 2. How much should I be paid? 3. What does NQ or PQE mean? 4. I am not sure if my current firm will be keeping me on - what should I do? Our answers depend on individual circumstances, but in a nutshell: 1. As early as you can. Unless specialist. register with a number of job boards and agencies. Very important to get wide coverage of all options. Give no-one consent to send out your CV without your permission. 2. Depends on circumstances. Visit our website for salary reviews or email to ask us. 3. Newly Qualified and Post Qualification Experience. 4. Look around as much as possible and use any job offers to lever an offer out of your existing firm if you want to stay. Visit our website at https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/newly-qualified-solicitors/ for further advice. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment ...

We have recently heard about a firm in the North of England offering training contracts for £20,000 and work experience for a lot less. I suspect the Law Society may have something to say if anyone ever reported the firm for doing this, but we were thinking about it from a moral standpoint. Many years ago we were approached by a redundant manager from a large manufacturing company who had taken an LLB and LPC in his later years. He could not get anything from any law firm, which was fairly understandable as he had no experience and academic performances were not great. This candidate came up with the idea of offering to buy the equity of a law firm. My understanding is that he was intending to purchase part of the freehold or leasehold of a law firm's building and then waive the rent over a period of time in return for the chance to do work experience and a training contract with the practice. I recall that he had a number of serious enquiries! Even if it was legal to sell training...

We received our copy of the Law Society Gazette yesterday with an advert attached for Quality Solicitors. They have teamed up with WHSmiths to offer legal services from a range of WH Smiths outlets and there appears to be a recruitment drive for more firms to join the operation in light of this and other expansion. I was thinking about the WH Smith side of things and noticed that the advert gives 2 scenarios for customers considering which solicitor to instruct - Scenario 1 - Yellow Pages, telephone quotes, internet search and then needing to book time off work to see a traditional solicitor operating during standard office hours, unfriendly receptionists giving quotes, paying up front fees, and nervousness about being in a solicitors office. Scenario 2 - go into WHSMiths and see a Quality Solicitors firm when shopping on a Saturday. From a marketing perspective, I think the approach Quality Solicitors have taken is commendable. They have obviously invested money in pushing a national ...

Career coaching is a fairly integral part of our business and something we have been doing since 2001. Quite a few of the people who come to see us are solicitors who have completed betweeen 3 and 5 years post-qualification and disillusioned. One of the most popular queries is: "surely there is something more to life than this?". Getting out of the legal profession is similarly a very popular topic that we spend some time advising on. If you are considering this yourself, please bear in mind the following quick advice. Lawyers tend to fall into two categories. 1. Those who think they want to leave the legal profession but actually have problems in their workplace. 2. Those who have no problems with the work place but actually thoroughly dislike law and the legal profession. It is important to differentiate between the two situations if you are considering your own position. Highly paid London solicitors often want to leave their jobs because although they are very well paid t...