Legal Recruitment Blog

11.10.07 Locuming as an alternative career for solicitors Doing locum work as opposed to permanent: At some stage in a solicitors career, this conundrum will almost always arise. It usually follows the stint of a locum in a firm for a longer period of a few weeks, and someone in the firm discovering that the locum is getting paid more than one of the junior partners for doing a much lower role within the organisation. Locum work is something of a legend in law. It is said that locums can be millionaires, and that they are constantly in demand, jumping from one post to another, generating vast amounts of income on £60 per hour rate. The reality of the situation is somewhat different, although there is some truth that locum work is quite rewarding financially. Most locums I come across fall into one of the following categories: a) they want to find a permanent job, but havent been able to. b) they are professional locums, just taking assignments to book up their year as wanted. c) they h...

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 ...