Legal Recruitment Blog

New Candidate Update just out on the Ten-Percent Legal site - http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/legal-solicitors-update-may-18th-2016/ Includes Solicitors, Legal Executives, Legal Secretaries, Office Managers, Paralegals and Legal Cashiers. Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and a non-practising Solicitor. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment provides online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals . Visit our Website to search our Vacancy Database. 

Locum hourly rate payment varies widely according to the demand, length of assignment, level of experience and advance notice available. NB: These rates are intended as a guide only. Hourly rates can vary according to the location, duration and level of expertise. April 2016 Private Practice Law Firm Locum Rates: * Conveyancing Locum Solicitors – 1-3 years PQE, handling residential standard sale price only – £28-30 per hour (variation for central London – £29-33 per hour). * Conveyancing Locum Solicitors & ILEX – 5-35 years PQE, handling all levels of conveyancing including managing a department – £30-£40 per hour, including central London. * Commercial Property Solicitors – 1-40 years PQE - £35-45 per hour. * Wills & Probate Solicitors and Executives – 3-35 years PQE – £35-40 per hour. * Family Solicitors – 4-40 years PQE – £25-30 per hour. Occasionally this goes up to £35 per hour for short notice or a few days cover. * Civil Litigation – 1-35 years PQE. £25-35 per hour. The...

New analysis, reported in the Gazette this week, has shown that almost 5,000 students started the course between 2012 and 2014, 72% of these have passed so far, and 35% of BPTC graduates have gained pupillage since completing the course between 2011 and 2013. This means that 2/3 of graduates do not get pupillage despite spending the equivalent of a house deposit on a course that has essentially failed to progress their professional careers. With the cost ranging from £12,500 up to £18,000 (mostly at the upper end), this means that in two years the course generated up to £90 million in course fees for the various providers and from this only roughly 1,500 are likely to actually have succeeded in gaining pupillage and as a result succeeding with the aim of the course. The Bar course (and the LPC) should both carry large warnings in any literature - if you spend £10-18k on this course there is a very good chance you will not progress your legal career any further than i...

Locum hourly rate payment varies widely according to the demand, length of assignment, level of experience and advance notice available. NB: These rates are intended as a guide only. Hourly rates can vary according to the location, duration and level of expertise. They are sourced from our work through www.interimlawyers.co.uk and www.ten-percent.co.uk dealing with a range of locum assignments across the UK. April 2016 Private Practice Law Firm Locum Rates:   * Conveyancing Locum Solicitors – 1-3 years PQE, handling residential standard sale price only – £28-30 per hour (variation for central London – £29-33 per hour). * Conveyancing Locum Solicitors & ILEX – 5-35 years PQE, handling all levels of conveyancing including managing a department – £30-£40 per hour, including central London. * Commercial Property Solicitors – 1-40 years PQE - £35-45 per hour. * Wills & Probate Solicitors and Executives – 3-35 years PQE – £35-40 per hour. * Family Solicitors – 4-4...

Recently the BBC did a study on salaries to be expected by graduates entering the different professions ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34475955 ) - this was in the context of analysing how much junior doctors were paid. Lawyers came out top and the BBC gave an average starting salary of £37k. This week the Law Society Gazette have given exposure to a pretty obvious press release from an investment company, Bower Cotton, who had done a far reaching study of c.100 lawyers to determine that over 40% were going to rely on property to fund their retirement. I suspect that the press release has been copied word for word into the Gazette! The article also refers to it being possible for lawyers to be 'amongst the top earners' and having a good amount to invest. Both of these are strong evidence of either a high level of ignorance or a total lack of interest in checking facts before producing articles. Quite how the BBC got to the average they did in their article is not clear. Wo...

The Co-operative Bank, Co-operative Legal Services - an amazing demonstration of subliminal referrals An elderly relative has recently died in our family and I rang the Co-operative Bank to ask them what information they required from the family in order to remove a name from a joint account. I called the main bank number and explained I was simply making an enquiry about name removal. The operative asked me for the bank account number in question and a bit more information about the deceased. I gave them this and was advised that I would be put through to the probate team who would be able to advise me. After waiting for about 5 minutes I spoke to someone I thought was in the bank's probate department who advised me that I simply needed to take a certified copy of the death certificate into a local branch or post it to head office. He then advised me that he just needed to take a few more details from me for their "Bank Notification Scheme" and that it shouldn...

Hmm. Slater & Gordon are struggling - job losses, share value dropping, company turnover plummeting.. Our local radio station seems to have stopped playing adverts mentioning the local law firm brand aged 100 years+ with the added catchphrase "part of Slater & Gordon". Is this going to be a new competition? Guess how long the new legal market entrant is going to last? When are large multinationals and organisations going to realise that high street law is profitable to a certain degree but seemingly very dependent on a relatively small scale operation? Anyone remember the bulk conveyancing operations of the 1990s and 2000s? Barnetts in Southport is a good example. The senior partner there seemed to be the Law Society Gazette favourite whenever a quote was needed on modernising the way high street law firms worked. He was forever commenting on how profitable everyone could be if only they looked to the future. Now look at them - RIchard Barnett was struck off for u...