Legal Recruitment News Dec 5th 2012 – Ten-Percent Legal
Legal Job Market Report December 5th
Good morning and welcome to the December edition of Legal Recruitment News from the Ten-Percent Recruitment Group. Our websites include Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment, Interim Lawyers, Legal-Recruitment and many more.
The market report for December is fairly short. Permanent recruitment has been very quiet indeed since the traditional half term break at the end of October. We had a spurt of family and children panel member posts coming in, probably to do with yet another Legal Services Commission deadline cropping up.
The locum market has quietened down as it always does at this time of year. Locums quite often book off November and December in their diaries as they expect to be off in any event and this can make it harder to source a lawyer even with less work around.
Commercial Law Firms and In House:
Quiet still – we are getting news of redundancies here and there, but a lot of the larger law firms now have contracts tied up with larger recruitment agencies and don’t tend to put a lot through the smaller companies like ourselves. Employers seem to have been holding back in recent times still and not much activity spotted at all. We have had a few commercial litigation posts in and a couple of employment locum posts but that is about it. We do find that even with in house counsel recruitment the HR departments put out requests for CVs and then decide not to proceed.
On the High Street:
Redundancies seem to have stopped, although we are starting to notice a new pattern emerging in business of partners dismissing permanent members of staff and reverting to locums and contractors. Recently we have had a locum assignment in from a law firm in London where we knew the departing permanent member of staff. We were told by the firm that the locum was needed to cover sick leave, whereas in fact the locum had been recruited to take over the caseload of the solicitor who had been laid off.
Conveyancing, private client and commercial property temporary and contract work has been busy up until the middle of November. Conveyancing still occurring, which is a good sign that the market has now changed and property is starting to move again.
Company News
Interim Lawyers, our locum service, has now opened offices in Manchester, London, Basingstoke and Gloucester. We cover the whole of the UK, offering swift and cost effective services for any law firm looking for temporary or contract law staff at all levels. We guarantee to make a locum available for every assignment posted with us (provided the assignment is reasonable – obviously we will struggle to recruit a Welsh speaking 20 year PQE solicitor to work for £5 per hour in the Outer Hebrides!).
Ten-Percent Legal’s £3,600 for 5 years Unlimited Recruitment Service is still going strong and we are (very) gradually drawing closer to our 100th member law firm. Cost savings to our 70+ firms are already estimated to be around £275,000. Over 60% of members undertake LSC funded work in some capacity and 33% have less than 2 partners. The service is restricted to firms with less than 100 staff.
In October/November 2012 we had 143 new solicitors and legal executives register with us, together with just short of 900 paralegals and non-qualified staff (in response to specific law firm member vacancies). We restrict our own legal candidate database to ensure we only register qualified or suitably experienced staff.
Register Locum Vacancies
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£60 Per Month Recruitment Scheme
Expanding your Firm Quickly – Marketing Ideas
We have recently taken the decision to expand Interim Lawyers, our online locum recruitment service, and increase our locum offerings across the UK and overseas.
In order to do this, we researched the different options available for our marketing spend, and I thought this may be of interest to law firms thinking up ideas to expand business and increase their client base.
As a company, we have taken the following steps:
- Opened offices in Basingstoke, Gloucester, Manchester and London.
- Made sure our web presence reflects this (work in progress – more below!).
- Increased our Google Adwords account spend in the keywords we are looking to offer our increased service in – ie conveyancing locums, family locums, Manchester solicitor locums, London locum services, Hampshire locums, etc.. etc.. Our keyword list is about 150 long at the moment and it may be increased now to well over 300 with the new office addresses.
- We have added extra web pages and started to look for additional backlinks online.
- Law Society Gazette advertising for early 2013.
Opening up offices is not exactly a difficult option, although I appreciate that there will be issues with the SRA in terms of supervision for solicitors firms.
For recruitment agencies it is possible simply to purchase a virtual office address with local meeting room facilities and the cost is minimal. Our Manchester office has cost £34.99, our Basingstoke office £65 and our London office £100. Each of these means that we get extra geographical coverage in search terms whenever a law firm types in ‘Manchester solicitor locums’ or similar.
Our Adwords account costs are also fairly low cost – we pay around £5 per day for all our advertising, and this picks us up enough leads to make it worthwhile. I know of companies who spend over £75,000 a year on Google Adwords, but we are not one of these. After all, if I write an article on legal recruitment, Google very kindly publish it for me and our company picks up extra visits to our various websites as a result.
We had a think about advertising and decided the best read journal was the Gazette and if I had been looking to recruit a locum when in practice, this would have probably been the first port of call. Advertising does not need to cost the earth, although it sometimes feels like it….
I often get asked by solicitors in career coaching sessions how much should a company spend on marketing and advertising, and I think the answer remains the same – spend what you need to in order to generate enough business each month. This varies depending on your circumstances and is often very hit or miss, regardless of what the marketing experts say… Obviously if there is a magic formula I am not aware of, please let me know and I will publish it everywhere possible! .
Jonathan Fagan is MD and recruitment consultant for Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and Interim Lawyers. His blog is at www.legalrecruitment.blogspot.com and all our articles are published here and also at www.legal-recruitment.co.uk – our monthly newsletter site.
LinkedIn Offer – Backlink worth up to £250
Our Christmas offer for December 2012: Simply request a link to Jonathan Fagan – uk.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan and we will give you a backlink at http://www.businessbusstop.com/index.php/business-directory – Google Page Rank 3. These links cost around £250 on some sites. When you request the link, simply put the words ‘Link please’ in your description.
Salary Review Update
The Ten-Percent Legal Salary Survey is available online – Click the link below to view the surveys, which are broken down into geographical areas: http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/salary-reviews
Low Cost Digital Dictation Outsourcing
TP Online Transcription & Typing Service with offices in London and North Wales. We have a team of 20 UK based transcribers offering digital file and tape transcribing services worldwide. Established in 2001, the company has been handling bulk orders (including over 500 hour projects) and one-off assignments for legal and non-legal clients including a large number of UK Solicitors, B&Q, Endemol, the Office of Fair Trading, Sony, Dundee University, Cartridge World, University of Oxford, NHS Tayside, the British Medical Journal, Marie Curie and many more.
We provide ongoing typing contracts and also work on a one-off basis. Our transcribers are all based in the UK and we maintain a high standard of quality output. Our transcribers are experienced secretaries from the legal profesison, medicine or general business and some are educated to degree level and higher.
We can transcribe from all audio & digital files, whether WAV, WMA, DSS (Olympus) or MP3 (plus a host of other formats), CD or DVD, Standard Cassettes, Mini and Micro Cassettes and Video (VHS). We have FTP facilities. For legal work we are happy to take templates to transcribe into. Our main service for law firms is our capacity to free up ‘in office’ secretaries to undertake daily tasks whilst reducing the backlog of work or any large transcription jobs. For details of the service please visit http://www.tptranscription.co.uk call 01352 751945 or email pearl@uk-transcription.co.uk.
There are over 9,250 lawyers registered with us looking for permanent work and 750 locums available for assignments in all areas of the country. Register vacancies on our website, email cv@ten-percent.co.uk or call 0207 127 4343.
Selection of Candidates registered in the past 2 weeks:
21305 Legal secretary and legal practice manager with over 5 years experience within residential conveyancing. Looking for a post in Central London, Ealing, Uxbridge or Hounslow.
21304 2010 qualified solicitor with experience in civil litigation, family law and residential conveyancing. Looking for a post in Surrey and South/West London.
21303 2001 qualified commercial solicitor with experience in corporate commercial law, M&A, IT and IP. Looking for a post in London.
21302 Paralegal with over 18 months experience in commercial and some civil litigation. Looking for a post in Hertfordshire, North or Central London.
21299 1992 qualified crime and serious fraud solicitor with further experience in civil & commercial litigation. Looking for either locum litigation posts or permanent civil litigation, crime or fraud posts in Warwickshire and the West Midlands.
21298 Barristers clerk with 3 years experience. Has criminal billings experience. Looking for a crime paralegal, clerk or billings post in Kent or South East London.
21295 Legal practice manager and accountant with 3 years as a legal practice manager and a further 20 years business development experience. Looking for a post in the South West.
21294 2003 qualified accredited police station representative and crime paralegal. Looking for a post in the West Midlands.
21292 Conveyancing assistant/fee earner with over 7 years residential & commercial conveyancing experience both in private practice and in house. Looking for a conveyancing post in Berkshire, Surrey or West London.
21291 October 2008 qualified solicitor experienced in dispute resolution, crime and civil litigation. Looking for a civil litigation or dispute resolution post in North West London, Hertfordshire or Bedfordshire.
21289 October 2001 qualified solicitor, looking to return to work following a career break. Has experience in child care law, family law, crime, employment law and residential conveyancing. Looking for part-time family or child care posts in London.
21288 March 2006 qualified commercial property solicitor with further experience in landlord & tenant. Looking for a locum or permanent commercial property post in the East Midlands or Birmingham. Speaks Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi.
21287 Legal secretary with over 20 years experience. Looking for locum or permanent posts in London.
21286 Paralegal with around 18 months experience in corporate, company commercial law, banking & finance, energy and commercial litigation. Looking for a post in London and the South East. Speaks French and Spanish.
21285 September 2001 property solicitor with experience in commercial property, landlord & tenant and projects. Looking ideally for part time commercial property posts in Hertfordshire.
21284 1977 qualified commercial solicitor experienced in shipping, insurance, international trade and finance litigation. Looking for a long term locum or permanent post in the London or the South East.
21283 October 2012 qualified solicitor and fully accredited police station representative with experience in crime, prison law and immigration. Looking for a post in London or Hertfordshire.
21282 Fee earner with over 30 years residential conveyancing experience. Looking for a conveyancing post in the North East of England
21281 Family law paralegal with child care law experience. Looking for a post in South Wales, Bristol or Bath.
21280 Legal administrator/conveyancing assistant with over 10 years experience. Also has some wills & probate experience. Has legal secretarial skill. Looking for a post in Kent or South East London.
21279 February 2012 qualified accredited police station representative with a background of over 30 years in the police force. Looking for an accredited rep post anywhere in West London, Buckinghamshire, Middlesex or Hertfordshire
21278 Legal practice manager with 12 years experience of managing a large legal firm. Looking for a post in the South West
21277 May 2012 qualified barrister dealing with crime and mental health law. Looking for a post in the Midlands.
21276 September 1993 qualified property solicitor returning to the profession with experience in commercial & residential property. Looking for a locum or part-time permanent post within 20 miles of Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
21275 2005 qualified property solicitor, experienced in commercial and residential conveyancing. Looking for a post in the North East.
21273 Conveyancing paralegal with over 2 years experience in residential conveyancing and further experience in crime, housing and family law. Looking for a residential conveyancing post in Berkshire or Middlesex. Speaks Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi.
21272 1997 qualified barrister specilising in fraud and white collar crime. Looking for an in house or private practice post in the Midlands.
21271 Legal assistant/paralegal with 5 years experience in residential conveyancing. Looking for locum posts in the North East of England
21270 Paralegal with around 2 years legal experience in residential and commercial conveyancing, personal injury (RTA, EL, PL) and family law. Looking for a paralegal post in Buckinghamshire or Berkshire.
21268 Billings clerk/legal cashier with 12 months experience. Looking for a post in Central, North or East London or Essex.
21267 Litigation paralegal with over 5 years experience in crime and prison law, personal injury (RTA, EL, PL), clinical negligence, debt recovery, housing law and general civil litigation. Looking for a locum or permanent post in Central, West or South West London, Twickenham, Kingston or Sutton.
21266 March 2005 qualified crime and civil litigation solicitor with police station accreditation and higher rights of audience. Experienced in serious crime and fraud and member of VHCC panel. Obtained VHCC case manager status. Looking for crime or fraud posts and willing to relocate.
21265 2004 qualified criminal solicitor with police station accreditation, duty status and higher right of audience. Looking ideally for a HCA post in South London but will travel further afield.
21264 Crime and family law paralegal/fee earner and accredited police station representative with over 2 years experience. Looking for a post in the Midlands.
21263 Costs draftsperson with over 2 years experience, looking for a post in Essex, North or East London.
21262 Febrary 2011 qualified solicitor with experience in housing law, welfare benefits and debt advice and some further experience in residential conveyancing and family law. Has LSC welfare benefits supervisor status. Looking for a post in South Wales, Bath or Bristol.
21261 Paralegal with experience in residential and commercial conveyancing and a small amount of family law and wills & probate experience. Looking for a permanent or locum property post in London.
21260 2008 qualified litigation solicitor, experienced in claimant and defendant personal injury work including RTA, EL and PL. Has managerial experience. Looking for locum posts in Cheshire, Manchester, Mersyside and the North West of England.
Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent
£60 Per Month Recruitment Scheme
Legal Recruitment News is produced by Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – you can view all versions of the e-newsletter at www.legal-recruitment.co.uk. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment was established in 2000 and donates 10% of profits to charity, hence the name.
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