Legal Recruitment Blog

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...