Legal Job Market Report

Summary

November has been a quiet month again, but this is fairly normal as we approach Christmas. We will be writing the same thing for December! Locum assignments have actually picked up a bit, which is unusual, but permanent roles remain down. The increase in conveyancing candidates last month has now ended.

Full article at https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/legal-job-market-update-dated-16th-december-2017/

Law Firms Wanted and For Sale

Ref 19101402 BVI law firm with licence for sale or rent or merger etc… Particularly topical following the recent Panorama investigation!
Ref 25101117 Birmingham law firm – immigration and family law looking for a merger, particularly with a larger practice if possible.
Ref 06111648 Reading firm looking to buy or merge with other practices. Happy to look at options. Smaller sized high street firms likely.
Ref 21090941 Leicester law firm looking for a sale. 5 staff, £150k turnover. Litigation firm, well established.
Ref 20092238 West Midlands law firm looking to buy up small practices and sole practitioners in the area. Funds in place to expand.
Ref 08061231 Buyer looking to purchase will banks in London and Home Counties.
Ref 04071347 Buyer looking to purchase a solicitors firm with a crime or family legal aid contract in Beds, Bucks, Northants or Herts.

Hourly Rates of Pay for Locum Solicitors and Legal Executives

Rates have now decreased slightly as we get closer to Christmas – we expect them to go down further still. Up to £35 per hour in Conveyancing is still the norm for most locums, although a good proportion are dropping to £28-32 per hour to get the assignments.

Full info at https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/legal-locum-hourly-rates-december-2017/

Relocating to Ireland – What’s the Craic?

A number of PR companies have identified Ten Percent Legal Recruitment as being a news provider. With this in mind we get regular press releases from law firms, universities, companies, government departments and lots more besides. Most of this is probably about as interesting as our newsletters, but occasionally it is possible to spot a trend.

The recent trend has been ‘relocating to Ireland’ to do legal work and Irish solicitors firms offering UK clients their services for future work in the EU. With reports of some larger solicitors firms recruiting large numbers of staff in Dublin, it looks likely that some movement of business over to Ireland from the UK is going to occur. I very much doubt there is a lot of Irish legal work to compete for but relocating to Ireland and then servicing UK clients seems to be the idea. Whether the whole relocation thing has any longer term effect once the whole EU departure thing is completed is another matter entirely.

So relocating to Ireland – how easy is it to open a company, get a postal address and get going in Ireland?

http://legalrecruitment.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/relocating-to-ireland-whats-craic.html

Restrictive Covenants – do they put employees off?

We have recently introduced a candidate to an employer where a restrictive covenant was used which must surely fall foul of rather a lot of employment regulations!

The role is a fairly junior fee earner position and not senior management or director level.

The restrictive covenant was actually called a “non-compete clause” and included the following:

1.	Not to directly or indirectly compete with the business of the company…during employment or for a period of 3 years after termination of employment.

2.	Not allowed to contact…any client or prospective client the employee had dealings with during employment.

“Not compete” is defined as the employee not owning, manage, operate, consult or be employed in a business similar to or competitive with the company.

Full info at https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/restrictive-covenants-do-they-put-employees-off/

Free Marketing Advice for Law Firms in January 2018

Have you got a marketing question you want answering? How much of your turnover should you spend on marketing? Is LinkedIn or Google Adwords more efficient? What keywords should I use to get the most business? How relevant is traditional marketing as opposed to digital? Is Facebook a waste of time (we think so!)?

We often get emails from Nick, a non-practising solicitor, advertising his marketing services. We have asked him to write a few articles for Legal Recruitment News and he has agreed. He will provide free marketing advice to any law firm who contact us with a specific or general question regarding law firm marketing, with publication in next month’s edition. Simply email your query to jbfagan@ten-percent.co.uk and I’ll pass it on. We get no financial benefit from this link up.

Paralegals are more likely not to turn up for Job Interviews than any other staff. Why?

Out of 5 job interviews arranged for paralegals and junior fee earners, we estimate that 1 candidate will not turn up. For solicitors and legal executives we think the figure is closer to 1 in 20. Why? Here are our top reasons.

1.	It is much easier to apply for a job than it is to explain in person why you should be given it.

2.	Paralegals lack confidence in their legal knowledge and skills. Are they going to look silly when they attend the interview?

3.	Romford to Luton as a daily commute looked fine when they applied.. Location is a key issue – paralegals don’t seem very good at identifying a reasonable distance to travel.

4.	The thought of actually going out to work is considerably harder to contemplate than staying at home.

5.	Whilst £18k sounded good when applying, the train fare will remove the first £3k of this.

6.	Qualified solicitors and legal executives have jumped through a lot of hoops, worked very hard and actually attended job interviews to get where they are. A lot of potential paralegals and junior staff fail at the first hurdle.

Full article here:https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/paralegals-are-more-likely-not-to-turn-up-for-job-interviews-than-any-other-staff-why/

Should Law Graduates Pay for Careers Advice?

Recently www.legalcheek.com (a legal blog) ran a series of articles discussing whether graduates should consider paying for training contract advice after the Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) strongly advised against it. Although we no longer provide careers advice ourselves, we were approached for comment as we still sell training contract advice packs via one of our websites. This was the comment we added:

http://legalrecruitment.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/should-law-graduates-pay-for-careers.html

Vacancies

To search our current vacancies please visit https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/vacancies/

Ask a Recruitment Consultant – questions this month on our chat bot

Questions sent to us via our Chat service online, together with general career questions emailed across. We do our best to answer all queries, sometimes after a fairly lengthy delay if we are busy!

Q: I am a New Zealand qualified solicitor looking for paralegal opportunities with an immediate start. Can you assist?

A: No – very unlikely. We have been recruiting for UK law firms since April 2000 and I can count the number of New Zealand lawyers we have successfully assisted on one finger. For some reason UK law firms want UK qualified or experienced staff. Try Hays, Michael Page or LawStaff.

Q: I am being considered for a property locum role for 6 months in -house for a housing association. It is not a transactional role. Would the fact that it is non transactional and with a housing association harm my chances of getting commercial property transactional locum work afterwards with private practices?

A: Hard to say – yes to a certain extent because your in house experience will be the last thing on your CV, and law firms tend to want locums who have private practice experience. However if you have 15 years private practice experience prior to this then you shouldn’t have a problem.

Q: How do I find work as a McKenzie Friend?

A: Not a clue – I don’t think I have ever come across anyone advertising for them! Have you tried approaching a body like the Citizens Advice Bureau to get work that way?

Q: I want to get the Legal Knowledge. Can you help me?

A: I did wonder whether this person is actually after a taxi firm. Naturally the answer is no. I have been searching for the Legal Knowledge since law school 20 years ago.