Haggling for the sake of it - what's your best price? I recently took a call from a senior partner of a small niche commercial practice, who rang me up because he was looking to recruit a number of senior commercial lawyers and wanted our assistance. We spent about 20 minutes on the phone with discussions around his firm, his firm’s aspirations, future plans, recruitment needs and a chat about how we could help. We went through all of this before he asked about fees. I explained to him that our fees were 18% (see our website for a full breakdown). He informed me that his firm had enjoyed a long lasting relationship with a recruiter who had charged him a lot less and that he was hoping to emulate this with a future deal. I explained that our fees were usually non-negotiable and that we worked on a set rate for everyone regardless of salary or seniority of the staff being recruited. I also suggested he stuck with the other recruiter as the rate (12%) is very good ...
Award winning blog with 100s of articles on the legal profession, legal recruitment and legal job markets by Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment, recruitment consultants based in the UK providing a full range of services for solicitors.