Legal Recruitment Blog

12 Months Training Contract Application Mentoring for up to 15 law graduates, paralegals and non-qualified lawyers from Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. Looking for help finding a training contract? From January 2013, Jonathan Fagan , legal career coach, author of the Legal Recruitment blog, solicitor (non-practising) and MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment is going to work with up to 15 people for 12 months at a time to help each one to find and secure a training contract and qualify as a solicitor. The assistance will be as intensive as you want it to be. You will have access to expert advice on training contracts when you need it by email and telephone, as well as face to face meetings as you progress through the process of making training contract applications. The scheme is just as relevant to those applying for Magic Circle training contracts as it is to those applying to high street law firms. If you would like to be considered for this scheme, please email us at jo...

The Ten-Percent Foundation is a charitable trust set up over 10 years ago for a whole range of purposes. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment donates 10% of annual profits to the charity, which is the only income the trust has. During the years of 2008-2010 the company struggled to meet the payments, thanks to the recession, and as a result Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment owes an amount of money to the Ten-Percent Foundation from this period. As part of our effort to reduce the deficit (we sympathise with George Osbourne on this point!), we have decided to offer the services of me,  Jonathan Fagan , for occasional free career coaching sessions to anyone in the legal profession experiencing financial hardship, in lieu of our own financial commitment. These will be available to any qualified lawyers or law students/graduates in receipt of Jobseekers Allowance (or equivalent) and usually possible at fairly short notice (4-7 days) to meet us in London and occasionally Chester for a free...

Legal CV Advice Update We have recently given CV advice to a client and thought that some of this was relevant to a wider audience of law students, graduates and solicitors. The advice relates to specific fields of the CV. 1.  Personal Profile and Details I have kept your profile very short and to the point. This is because the profile is there to instantly tell a recruiter or partner exactly who you are, coupled with the personal info at the top of the page, in less than 5 seconds. It needs tailoring to the post you are applying for on every occasion. For example if the post is for an Associate Real Estate Solicitor (ie you are applying to a larger commercial law firm who use different terminology to many others) you will need to describe yourself in this manner or at least get the keywords across in the profile. Very often the first person to see your CV will be a HR Assistant or fairly junior member of staff who will not really appreciate your worth a...

Vacancy Update for 20th October 2012 - taken from our Daily Legal Jobs Blog - if you would like to apply for any post please email a CV to Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - cv@ten-percent.co.uk and quote the reference number. 14695    Conveyancing and wills &; probate solicitor    Conveyancing and Wills & Probate Solicitor    Bristol    A conveyancing and wills & probate solicitor or legal executive is needed for a small firm in Bristol for a 6 month locum assignment for maternity cover to start ASAP. 14696    Litigation Solicitor    Civil Litigation Solicitor    Chelmsford    A mid Essex firm  is looking for a litigation solicitor or legal executive. The ideal candidate should have commercial or civil litigation experience and preferably employment law experience. The firm are looking for someone who has around 1-3 yrs PQE. 14697   ...

Interview Question & Answer – Where do you see yourself in 10 years’ time? This question is a classic example of why you should never give totally honest answers to questions during interviews. Instead you should always give answers that you think the interviewer will want to hear. The honest answer to both this question and the “Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time” question is probably that you intend to retire, work for yourself, set up a different firm or be happily plodding along in a firm trying to avoid doing very much work at all, but where you are being paid a good salary. This is not however what the employer often wants to hear. They want to hear that you would be happy to be working in the post you are currently interviewing for or possibly having done such a good job you are in line for promotion to a different position. This is because when employers recruit they do not see just the first few months or the first few years in their heads, they see the next decad...

Crime Solicitor Duty Solicitor Rota Slot Shop is open for business for November 14th 2012 CDS12 Deadline A new way of finding somewhere to lodge slots and get crime work has been introduced by Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. The agency has been working with crime firms for over 10 years on duty solicitor, higher court advocate and police station vacancies. They have set up an online Rota Slot Shop for Duty Solicitors. So many firms are now using freelancers as well as salaried staff the company has decided to dedicate a mini-site to assisting with the sale and purchase of slots as well as salaried duty solicitor roles. You can register your details for the site, or if you are already a candidate with Ten-Percent just drop an email over with your requirements. The agency will post your information onto the site (anonymously) and keep you updated with potential offers of purchase of slots, work or salaried roles in your area. To visit the Duty Solicitor Rota Slot Sh...

Interim Lawyers and Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment's Guide to Surviving as a Locum. 10 Top Tips for Lawyers and Law Firms.  Here are our ten top tips for surviving work as a locum - tips for locums and for law firms. 1. Locums - make sure you turn up.  Always useful. If you don't turn up, you may be surprised when your locum agency decides not to offer you any more assignments and in fact may even choose to ignore you.... 2. Locums - when you turn up, make sure you are smartly dressed.  Turning up to work wearing a pair of jeans and trainers can be beneficial if you are planning to work for Google, but in a law firms these items of clothing are only seen on partners at weekends, and even then only when they are mucking out their horses or wandering around Legoland. 3. Locums - be nice to the secretaries and support staff (TOP TIP) This is our top tip. Think about it. When you leave the firm after completing your assignment and your legal locum agency request...

Law Firms in the Stone Age I recently coached a solicitor who was dealing with the most unbearable conditions at work, but with a familiar story to me as I have coached may others in similar circumstances. This particular candidate works in a law firm where they have: 1) No staff perks at all. 2) No days out, meals out or any staff events. 3) No staff induction when you join the firm. 4) No words of encouragement at any time from any other member of staff during this person’s time at the firm (well over 5 years). 5) No social events at all amongst any staff whether organised by the firm or by the staff. 6) A process whereby if someone requests annual leave one of the partners grills that person to determine whether they are going for a job interview or whether they have something else planned. 7) If a complaint about someone’s behaviour is made then the person who has made the complaint is usually dismissed within 2 to 3 weeks. 8) A reasonable salary is paid in line with ...

'LLB graduates and in fact A-Level students are ripped off regularly by education providers'.  This may sound like a fairly controversial statement, which of course it is, but here are the arguments for suggesting that students are regularly ripped off by providers. Students without sufficient grades to ever qualify are allowed, if not encouraged, to take degrees that will not enable them to progress.   When students have graduated they are encouraged to take courses at Masters level and post graduate diploma but would never increase (or decrease) their career prospects. Students are encouraged to take the BPTC (Bar Professional Training Course) when they have absolutely no hope in hell of ever getting pupillage at the Bar which at best is elitist and at worst is nepotistic.   Instead of encouraging A-Level students to go and do courses that could lead into relatively secure jobs in engineering or science or indeed IT, teachers encourage them to do classics and...

County Courts – A Danger to Society? This is probably a fairly inflammatory title to have for an article but I feel very strongly about this issue and the danger that county courts offer to a society in general if they continue to be run in their current state and decline further. You may have read in my blog in recent years of our company’s frustrations at dealing with the county courts. We have seen sheer incompetence, intransigence, arcane and antiquated procedures and staff who are either so demoralised they don’t care or simply can’t be bothered in any event. Our most recent run-in with the county courts has been in a case where a law firm owed us an amount less than £5,000 which put us well and truly within the Small Claims Track, which is where we are quite happy to be. Unfortunately the law firm we were suing had worked out that the courts are so incompetent that they could simply counter-claim against us for £50,000, not pay their issuing fee, fail to pay their allo...

The Solicitors’ Regulation Authority have recommended the removal of the training contract minimum salary, something that appears to have been broadly welcomed by a large number of organisations which include a significant number of vested interests, such as LPC providers.  Is this a good thing? I don’t think so.  Probably a very controversial opinion, but I don’t think the legal profession as a whole can be trusted not to exploit potential trainee solicitors and take advantage of large numbers of desperate students and graduates who believe they need a training contract at all costs. Furthermore, what on earth is the point of permitting law firms to effectively take on large numbers of low paid workers who can then be permitted to carry on and qualify as solicitors? Where does this leave the status of a newly qualified solicitor? Already in debt to the tune of around £25,000, NQ salaries in non-commercial practices are almost certain to plummet. There are a good number...

One of the biggest areas to get hit in the recession across the UK was the property industry. This naturally included residential property, commercial property, new construction and all the related jobs in the legal profession which inevitably involved conveyancing solicitors and executives. I must have spent about 10% of my time as a legal recruitment consultant over the past 3 years talking to desperate conveyancing lawyers who have either had to fine alternative work or take drastic pay cuts in order to stay either in their posts or move to a new one. At times I have felt a little bit like a counsellor as opposed to a recruitment consultant because so many of these people have found themselves in desperate situations. If you rewind the clock back about 7-10 years conveyancers were the kings of the high street. If we got a conveyancing candidate in we would immediately market them to as many different firms as possible because so many firms were keen to take on extra staff and there...

I have just received an email from a graduate requesting advice who has been invited to attend an interview for a job as a paralegal with a firm of solicitors. The graduate has been informed that she has got to pay them £9,000 to be considered for this role. This gets her 6 months of paralegal training, a funded LPC and possible training contract. In fact it seems the firm offer access to up to 40 training contracts, although it is not clear exactly how this works. As far as I understand it, this activity is not only against employment regulations, but is also a criminal offence. It is a little too similar, in my opinion, to recruitment agencies charging candidates for their recruitment services. I have come across firms in Yorkshire charging up to £30,000 for a training contract, but I have never heard of one blatantly advertising the charges up front before an interview. Is this the new level to which the profession has stooped? Jonathan Fagan , MD, Ten-Pe...

Just released. Visit http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/legal-job-market-report-march-2012 for details. 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/careersshop