Legal Recruitment News

Welcome to the March 2016 edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, new candidate & vacancy update, current locum hourly rates and articles. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers and Ten-Percent). Some of the articles below are published separately on the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment website and our Legal Recruitment blog – www.legalrecruitment.blogspot.co.uk

Legal Job Market Update
February has been a month of two halves again (I say this every year). We spend the first week watching the post-Christmas recruitment spike recede and then skiing holidays together with half term breaks kicking in. Locum work has picked up towards the end of the month.

Permanent vacancies are slightly down and salary levels are a bit mixed as well. Some firms are expecting candidates to take similar salary ranges to existing staff and are not budging at all on these, but other firms are taking a more pragmatic approach.

Conveyancing has gone a bit quieter but there is a clear lack of good candidates. By good candidates I mean those that are based locally to the firm, have a steady employment history and reasonable salary expectations.

Wills & probate is busy but there is a discrepancy between salary expectations and salaries being offered. This hasn’t yet resolved and there is a still a major demand for private client locums as a result.

Litigation – both civil and commercial – is very quiet. Not a lot going on at all. Corporate commercial work is always sporadic for us as we are not on larger firm Preferred Supplier Lists.

Work will get very busy in the next two weeks, with the lead up to Easter, but then as we go into Easter we enter the zombie phase of recruitment – this tends to be the quietest time for recruiters apart from Christmas. Firms are too busy dealing with the year end, clients are too busy dealing with the Easter break, and candidates are busy eating Easter Eggs and visiting National Trust properties (our family did 4 Easter Egg hunts at NT houses last year!)..

A summary of work we did in February is below.

February 2016 – Summary:
* Permanent vacancies down
* Locum assignments up
* Conveyancing vacancies – busy
* Commercial Property vacancies – some
* Wills & Probate vacancies – some
* Commercial and Civil Litigation vacancies – few
* Family vacancies – few
* Market outlook – work will be increasing into February and March 2016.

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 622
New permanent vacancies added in February: 41
New locum vacancies added in February: 30
New candidates registering: 109
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies February: 3.4 (OK)

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment publishes the number of new vacancies, new candidates and indicate the increase or decrease from the previous month. We aim to assist the legal profession by showing the market from our perspective. Our clients tend to be high street law firms and smaller sized commercial practices.
The average job strength gives a good indication of the market because:
1. A Poor Job Strength on vacancies indicates a struggling market. When trade is bad, employers seek options for increasing turnover which involve sourcing candidates with their own following and no salary.
2. A Strong Job Strength on vacancies indicates a buoyant market, particularly if it is in connection with an increase in numbers of new vacancies.
Vacancies are each graded 1-5, with 5 being a very strong vacancy and 1 being a very weak vacancy.

Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and regularly writes for the Ten-Percent website and the Legal Recruitment blog, an award-winning selection of articles and features on legal recruitment and the legal profession. You can contact Jonathan at cv@ten-percent.co.uk.

CV Writing – Tips for Getting Noticed
Here are 10 top tips from us on how to get your CV noticed by employers:

1. Make sure your CV is extremely detailed and contains all the work relevant to the application you are making. Information such as details of billing levels for the past 3 to 4 years of practice, examples of cases dealt with, details of additional work undertaken that was not just fee earning, such as supervising staff and business development, and full information on the number of files worked on at any one time are all useful.
2. Include testimonials from former clients giving details of where they met you, how you obtained their business and their thoughts on you as a practitioner.
3. Put together a draft business plan demonstrating how and where you would be looking to obtain work both for yourself and the firm you are trying to join (only really relevant for senior roles).
4. Include references from recent former employers and a solicitor who knows you in practice.
5. Include your last staff appraisal (if fairly brief and very positive).
6. Telephone or email the recruiter or firm before making the application to discuss the role; then send over the CV and the extra information (together with proof of ID and residence) and then follow this up with an additional email to check that it had all arrived safely.
7. Be more interested in telling the employer what you can offer them. So many candidates get this confused. Job applications are not there for you to tell somebody all about yourself, but rather to tell somebody or indicate to them what you can do for them by providing evidence. Without doing this, job applications can be very poor indeed.
8. Send the CV as a Word document, not pdf.
9. Do not attach a covering letter by email but put this in the email body.
10. Don’t delay on applying and sending over a CV, particularly if applying via agents.

Independent Schools, Solicitors and Manipulated Statistics?
The Sutton Trust, a foundation with the aim of encouraging more state educated school children to attend better quality universities and reach the higher echelons of society, has published a report in the last few days. It has concluded that 74% of judges, 71% of barristers and 51% of solicitors went to independent schools, with 78% of barristers and 55% of solicitors going to Oxbridge.

I have to pick fault with this research – when you look at the sources of information used by the Sutton Trust to determine these figures they have basically been through the Chambers Directory. Great. The report seems to have been penned by an academic, but the selective nature of the report makes wonderful headlines but is almost certainly inaccurate to a wide extreme. Damned lies and statistics and all that.

There are over 110,000 solicitors in the UK. How many of these are in the Chambers Directory? Does Chambers really list the elite solicitors in the profession? I remember being in practice and our firm being listed. This seemed to consist of a researcher calling round firms in the local area and those firms expressing an opinion on who the best firm was for a particular field of law. If they had asked me this I would have almost certainly given the name of the firm most unlikely to affect my business interests!

The real motivation behind the report seems to be to maintain funding for The Sutton Trust’s projects at getting more students from disadvantaged backgrounds into larger sized solicitors firms… However these firms traditionally select students on a range of criteria concentrating mainly on extremely high academic achievement plus a good mix of extra curricular activities/sports. Chances are that if you are likely to achieve strong academic grades you are going to be at a good university like Oxford/Cambridge and not at the Polytechnic of Westmoreland…

Large Company buys up loads of law firms, attempts to take over the high street law market – and fails. Quelle surprise?
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 using a loan to pay off his firm’s overdraft in a desperate effort to stay afloat.

So many worries about Tescos Law – Quality Solicitors setting up in WH Smiths, the Cooperative Legal Services division expanding, the AA and even Stobarts trucking have all had a go. Have they been lured in by very inaccurate media reports of fat cat solicitors raking it in from legal aid and volume conveyancing/personal injury operations?

Who is going to be next – perhaps Sainsburys could take over a large regional law firm and attempt to conquer the world?

Agency accused of inventing staff
A legal recruitment agency, Dawn Ellmore Employment (never heard of them) has been caught by RollonFriday.com inventing staff – full report at http://www.rollonfriday.com/TheNews/EuropeNews/tabid/58/Id/4434/fromTab/36/currentIndex/0/Default.aspx

This has attracted lots of comments from disgruntled lawyers about agencies faking their identities, making up staff and qualifications and pretending that they are much bigger than they are. I thought I would take the opportunity to reassure anyone the slightest bit interested of the following:

1. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment really does exist and has done so since April 2000. We have other websites linked to our main site – Interim Lawyers. JonathanFagan, HomeCountiesLegal, EastMidlandsLegal, Crime-Solicitor and many more.
2. Our MD (me) is legally qualified. I am a solicitor of the non-practising variety.
3. We have three recruitment consultants – Jonathan Fagan, Clare Fagan and Pete Gresty. We all exist.
4. We are all qualified as recruitment consultants for what its worth. Not sure it makes much difference really! Clare Fagan is also a qualified GP. Very useful when someone cuts their finger on the office printer.
5. We strive to be ethical. So much so that we have always donated 10% of our profits to charity every year.

New Vacancies
New Vacancies Registered in the last 7 days (NB: location indicated is the postcode area).
VAC-16330 Conveyancing Locum Ipswich
VAC-16329 Personal Injury Locum Solicitor Bristol
VAC-16328 Wills and Probate Locum Solicitor Kingston
VAC-16326 Conveyancing and Wills & Probate Lawyer Ipswich
VAC-16325 Commercial Property Solicitor Ipswich
VAC-16324 Personal Injury/Civil Litigation Solicitor Cardiff
VAC-16323 Conveyancing Partner Bath
VAC-16321 Conveyancing Locum West London
VAC-16320 Property Litigation Solicitor Peterborough
VAC-16319 Commercial Lawyer Southend-on-Sea
VAC-16318 Private Client Solicitor Leicester
VAC-16316 General Practitioner Southall
VAC-16315 Commercial Property Solicitor Gloucester
VAC-16314 Family Solicitor East London
VAC-16313 Conveyancing Locum Slough
VAC-16311 Family Law Solicitor West London
VAC-16310 Legal Accounts Clerk Coventry
VAC-16309 Private Client Locum Portsmouth
VAC-16308 Litigation Paralegal Peterborough
VAC-16307 Commercial Property Lawyer Peterborough
VAC-16306 Conveyancing Legal Secretary Peterborough
VAC-16305 Locum Legal Cashier East-Central London

Any interest in any of these roles please email cv@ten-percent.co.uk

New Candidates
New Candidates Registered in the last 7 days.
CAN-25473 Experienced legal cashier looking for a suitable post in the Greater London region.
CAN-25476 February 2005 qualified FILEX legal executive specialising in residential conveyancing. Looking for locum roles in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and the East Midlands.
CAN-25477 2004 qualified family law solicitor and family law panel member with supervisory status. Looking for a post in Middlesex or West London.
CAN-25478 Senior company commercial legal counsel with experience in commercial contracts, commercial litigation and IP. Looking for locum company commercial or commercial litigation posts ideally working from home.
CAN-25480 October 2015 qualified litigation solicitor dealing with civil litigation, debt recovery and costs. East Midlands.
CAN-25483 2014 qualified solicitor and in house legal advisor with experience from 2013 onwards. Dealing with company commercial law, commercial contracts, M&A, employment law and regulatory law. Looking for in house or company commercial posts in Surrey, South West or Central London.
CAN-25484 1992 qualified FILEX legal executive specialising in personal injury and industrial disease and working at Head of Department level. Looking for an industrial disease post in the North West.
CAN-25485 1979 qualified conveyancing solicitor looking for residential conveyancing locum posts around Bedfordshire and North London.
CAN-25487 Fee earner specialising in personal injury including catastrophic injury, wills & probate including LPA and judicial review. Looking for personal injury posts in South Wales.
CAN-25488 Paralegal with experience in residential and commercial conveyancing, company commercial law and civil and commercial litigation. Looking for a post in London. Speaks French. Locum or permanent.
CAN-25490 2012 qualified Licenced Conveyancer looking for a suitable role in the Greater Manchester region.
CAN-25492 Legal executive specialising in housing law and civil litigation. Looking for locum posts in the South West.
CAN-25495 Qualified paralegal and legal secretary with high street legal experience. Looking for a paralegal or legal support role in East London.
CAN-25496 May 2015 qualified property solicitor handling a caseload of residential and commercial conveyancing. Looking for a post in Surrey or SW London.
CAN-25502 Legal secretary and legal administrator with experience in conveyancing, family law and wills & probate. Looking for a post in Hertfordshire and N London.
CAN-25503 1982 qualified Scottish lawyer specialising in in house company commercial law and compliance.
CAN-25504 March 2009 qualified personal injury solicitor, looking for locum roles in London and the South East.
CAN-25505 December 2015 qualified litigation solicitor dealing with personal injury and professional negligence with further experience in costs, general civil litigation and debt recovery. Looking for a post in Manchester, Greater Manchester and the North West.

Hourly Rates of Pay for Locum Solicitors and Legal Executives
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.

Feb 2016 Private Practice Law Firm Locum Rates:
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors – 1-5 years PQE, handling residential standard sale price only – £25-30 per hour (slight variation for central London – £29-35 per hour).
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors & ILEX – 5-35 years PQE, handling all levels of conveyancing including managing a department – £25-£35 per hour, including central London.
* Commercial Property Solicitors – 1-40 years PQE – £30-45 per hour.
* Wills & Probate Solicitors and Executives – 3-35 years PQE – £30-40 per hour.
* Family Solicitors – 4-40 years PQE – £24-28 per hour. Occasionally this goes up to £35 per hour for short notice or a few days cover.
* Civil Litigation – 1-35 years PQE. £25-33 per hour. These rates cover mainstream litigation – eg county court and small claims matters.

Hourly Rate, Weekly Rate and Salary Equivalents:
£20 per hour = £750 per week or £36,000 per annum (assuming a 7.5 hour day and a 48 week year).
£25 per hour = £937.50 per week or £45,000 per annum.
£30 per hour = £1,125 per week or £54,000 per annum.

We have over 11,000 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Locums Available Immediately
We have over 700 candidates registered for locum work. Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

How to be a Locum – pdf guide
We have produced a guide on how to be a locum. This includes sections on getting work, realistic expectations, hourly rates, popular fields of law, payment, insurance, umbrella companies and much more. Available for download at no charge from www.interimlawyers.co.uk – click the link on the left hand side of the page.

About Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment
We are a specialist legal recruiter, covering both permanent and locum roles across the whole of the UK. Over 11,000 lawyers are registered with us and we have access to a range of external and internal job boards and websites where we do not have candidates available ourselves. We also assist with recruitment advice and assistance, regularly advising partners and practice managers on suitable salary and package levels.

Our company is unique for a number of reasons, including the fact that we are not shy to publish our fee structure and also donate a chunk of our profits to charity each year. We offer unlimited permanent and locum recruitment for a fixed monthly fee or one-off fees depending on the job. We donate 10% of our profits annually to charity, hence our name.

We have three recruitment consultants, Jonathan Fagan, Clare Fagan and Pete Gresty, together with our finance director Pearl McNamara. Together we have over 40 years of experience in the legal profession.

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment also owns Interim Lawyers, a specialist locum service. We operate an outsourced UK based typing service as well – www.uk-transcription.co.uk and are preferred suppliers to a number of institutional clients and law firms across the UK and overseas.

The Ten-Percent Group of Legal Recruitment websites gives 10% of annual profits to charity. We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 15 years ago. So far about £80,000 has been donated to charities in the UK and Africa including LawCare.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter and look forward to hearing from you if we can assist further.

Warm regards

Jonathan Fagan
Consultant

E: jbfagan@tenpercentgroup.com
T: 0207 127 4343

Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

Jonathan Fagan is a solicitor, qualified recruitment consultant and Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here – www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan

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.

Interim Lawyers – www.interimlawyers.co.uk
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – www.ten-percent.co.uk
Legal Recruitment Newsletter – www.legal-recruitment.co.uk

Interim Lawyers
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WC1N 3AX

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited
2nd Floor
145-157 St John Street
London
EC1V 4PY

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited (Head Office)
Derwen Bach, Glyndwr Road, Mold CH7 5LW

Interim Lawyers Regional Offices:
Manchester Office (North England)
83 Ducie Street, Manchester M1 2JQ
Gloucester Office (Bristol, South West England, South Wales):
5 Bridge House, Lydney, Gloucestershire GL15 5RF
Basingstoke Office (South Coast, Hampshire, Surrey, Kent, Thames Valley):
Office 6 Slington House, Rankine Road, Basingstoke RG24 8PH

Welcome to the February 2016 edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, new candidate update, current locum hourly rates and articles. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers and Ten-Percent).

Legal Job Market Update
January has been a busy month in the sense that it has included a large number of permanent vacancies posted; the usual burst of activity after Christmas.

Very often this is caused by the partners at firms having time off and the chance to think about recruitment for the coming months, and so we get a good number of vacancies from our Ten-Percent Unlimited member firms being added to the system. To give you an idea of numbers, we have had 5 commercial property roles, 23 conveyancing posts, 4 wills & probate, 9 support roles, 1 family post, 2 legal cashiers and 2 company commercial posts.

Reed and other job boards every year describe a day in January as being by far the busiest for job hunting – Blue Monday – the 3rd Monday in the month. Personally I have always thought this is just a cunning marketing ploy so this year we checked the figures out. On Monday 18th January we had 46,000 hits on our website. This is not bad, but the following Wednesday we had 48,000 hits and other days at a similar level. So not much difference really! It is a good marketing ploy though – always gets plenty of coverage in the media..

It is also the time of year when a few law firms of smaller size ‘try it out’ and call senior candidates for interview for posts advertised at specific vacancy levels, before pitching a profit share arrangement to them in the hope that someone likes them and joins with a following. One of these turned out to be a firm with links to a crime outfit and claiming to be dealing with super yacht sales! The mind boggles..

A summary of work we did in January is below.

January 2016 – Summary:
* Permanent vacancies up
* Locum assignments up
* Conveyancing vacancies – busy
* Commercial Property vacancies – some
* Wills & Probate vacancies – some
* Commercial and Civil Litigation vacancies – few
* Family vacancies – very few
* Market outlook – work will be increasing into February and March 2016.

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 612
New permanent vacancies added in December: 41
New locum vacancies added in December: 21
New candidates registering: 110
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies December: 3.2 (OK)

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment publishes the number of new vacancies, new candidates and indicate the increase or decrease from the previous month. We aim to assist the legal profession by showing the market from our perspective. Our clients tend to be high street law firms and smaller sized commercial practices.
The average job strength gives a good indication of the market because:
1. A Poor Job Strength on vacancies indicates a struggling market. When trade is bad, employers seek options for increasing turnover which involve sourcing candidates with their own following and no salary.
2. A Strong Job Strength on vacancies indicates a buoyant market, particularly if it is in connection with an increase in numbers of new vacancies.
Vacancies are each graded 1-5, with 5 being a very strong vacancy and 1 being a very weak vacancy.

Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and regularly writes for the Ten-Percent website and the Legal Recruitment blog, an award-winning selection of articles and features on legal recruitment and the legal profession. You can contact Jonathan at cv@ten-percent.co.uk.

Charity Donations – a study of the accounts
Choosing a charity to donate money to is not a particularly easy task. Every year the trustees of the Ten-Percent Foundation sit down to work out how to distribute our small funds to worthy causes. The Ten-Percent Foundation is a charitable trust linked to Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. Every year the company donates 10% of its profits to charity via the Foundation, usually to charities suggested by clients and candidates.

For donations, the Ten-Percent Foundation has preset criteria as follows:
1. The charity/organisation deals with a range of work that appeals to us.
2. The charity has no ulterior motive – eg religious teachings or political leanings.
3. The charity appears to do some good and does not just hoard money or spend it frivolously.
4. The charity pays its staff a reasonable and not excessive level of remuneration. For us the level is £75,000 as an absolute maximum. We do not believe a charity, which by definition is dependent on donations and support from the general public, should be paying staff a higher salary than this level and we would only ever expect to see 1 or 2 members of staff on salaries of more than £60,000 in very large charities.

We make decisions based on the criteria above and discount any organisations that do not fit within this. Each of the donation is restricted – so the organisation has to use the money in a specific way and report back on it to us (briefly).

I have written a full article with extracts from the registered accounts for 4 charities we decided not to donate to this year – available at http://www.legalrecruitment.blogspot.com. I have included below two of the charities by way of example in this article as they are relevant to lawyers. Neither of the charities have asked us for a donation although the SBA have been suggested to us by clients on numerous occasions. The details I have quoted come from the charity accounts lodged with the Charity Commission.

The Solicitors Benevolent Fund
The aim of the Solicitors Benevolent Fund is to provide relief and assistance for persons in need who are or who have been admitted to the Roll of Solicitors for England and Wales. Relates also to partners of solicitors. Financial assistance is via a grant or a loan.
The SBA has a partnership with LawCare, a charity we support, and also two partnerships with an employment agency specialising in CV coaching and an insolvency practice. In 2014 the employment agency appears to have provided 15 beneficiaries with careers advice and 8 received advice on insolvency. The total income was £1.95 million, with £154,700 of this being donations and subscriptions.

The charity appears to have an investment portfolio worth £14.7 million and secured loans to beneficiaries of £4.1 million.

The facts relevant to our decision as to whether to donate or not are as follows:

Ten trustees of the charity have claimed their travel costs – £6,389. It is not clear how many meetings they attended.
The work undertaken by the charity during the year appears to have been to make arrangements for grants totalling about £600k as well as referring others on to external parties.
The charity employed one person to deal with the welfare, one person to deal with fundraising and two administration and management employees. One of these was the chief executive, Tim Martin. His salary in 2014 was £76,875 with additional benefits totalling £9,297 plus a £2,000 bonus.
The vast majority of this charity’s income appears to be coming from guaranteed sources – investment income, secured loans and residual balances from client accounts.
Most high street solicitors with 10+ years experience earn about £40,000-£50,000 throughout their career. At partner level this can admittedly increase, but the partners are in business and take a risk that is rewarded by the commercial return. Charities do not have the same risk, particularly those with investments and/or external funding.
We calculate the salary of the chief executive to be 4.5% of the total income of the charity in 2014 and 57% of donations received during the year.

No doubt the SBA does extremely worthy and valuable work within the profession, but we feel that it yet again highlights an endemic problem within the charity sector – where do these salaries come from? We asked the SBA for information on how they reach a decision on pay structures for senior executive staff. We received no reply.

Amnesty International
Amnesty is a charity the trustees admire and are keen to support. In 2014 their total income was £13.6 million. Most of their income comes from donations with the remainder from legacies. Employees at the charity cost £1.382 million. Naturally the biggest part of Amnesty’s work requires a considerable amount of staffing, hence the costs. There were the equivalent of 31 full time staff at the charity in 2014.
5 of these staff received income of £352,218 excluding pension contributions, which Amnesty do not publish in their accounts. The main director receives £97k. The other 4 highest earners received £67-68k including the director of fundraising.
This means that 26 full staff equivalents were receiving £1.03 million between them, which makes the average wage at Amnesty £39,607.00.

Our decision: Reluctantly we will not donate to Amnesty International. We find that they fail on criteria 4. Not just one member of staff but five are receiving salaries at a high level. For a charity of this size it is not clear why and how salaries have got to this level.
We asked Amnesty International for information on how they reach a decision on pay structures for senior executive staff. We received no reply.

You can read our full article on the 4 charities we decided not to donate to – includes War Child and Parkinsons UK – at http://legalrecruitment.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/choosing-charities-to-donate-money-to.html

This year (2016) we have donated so far to the following charities and organisations:

£2,000 to the British Stammering Association (supporting an education advice line)
£1,000 to LawCare (promoting the awareness of bullying)
£2,200 to the Kilimatinde Trust, Tanzania (paying for 4 childrens’ education)
£1,000 to the Ace of Clubs (suggested by Hanne & Co) (maintenance of their laundry)
£2,500 to First Steps, Merseyside (domestic violence perpetrators course)
£2,500 to Centre 63, Merseyside (funding their IT equipment)
£721 to Northop Hall Girls FC, Flintshire (purchasing new equipment)
£500 to Unlock (maintaining their helpline)
£500 to Reprieve (admin costs)
£100 to Halkyn Cricket Club, Flintshire (youth cricket costs)

Total amount this year so far has been £13,021 with more to follow.

May the Farce be with you – Duty Solicitor Rotas are back!
Oh dear – yet again crime solicitors find themselves unable to work out what or where they will be in a years time. Hopefully some certainty will come into play sooner or later and the political see saw will balance in the middle for a while. We understand that the new rota deadline is 12th February 2016. If any duty solicitors want to drop us an email we will keep you posted with any vacancies coming our way. We will only process duty solicitor rota vacancies (ie those for solicitors looking to do the minimum to comply rather than full time salaried) for TenPercent Unlimited firms. If you are looking to get out of crime we wrote an article last year about ways of doing this – you can find this at http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go-updated-advice-to-criminal-duty-solicitors/

Hourly Rates of Pay for Locum Solicitors and Legal Executives
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.

Jan-Feb 2016 Private Practice Law Firm Locum Rates:
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors – 1-5 years PQE, handling residential standard sale price only – £25-30 per hour (slight variation for central London – £29-35 per hour).
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors & ILEX – 5-35 years PQE, handling all levels of conveyancing including managing a department – £25-£35 per hour, including central London.
* Commercial Property Solicitors – 1-40 years PQE – £30-45 per hour.
* Wills & Probate Solicitors and Executives – 3-35 years PQE – £30-40 per hour.
* Family Solicitors – 4-40 years PQE – £24-28 per hour. Occasionally this goes up to £35 per hour for short notice or a few days cover.
* Civil Litigation – 1-35 years PQE. £25-33 per hour. These rates cover mainstream litigation – eg county court and small claims matters.

Hourly Rate, Weekly Rate and Salary Equivalents:
£20 per hour = £750 per week or £36,000 per annum (assuming a 7.5 hour day and a 48 week year).
£25 per hour = £937.50 per week or £45,000 per annum.
£30 per hour = £1,125 per week or £54,000 per annum.

We have over 11,000 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Locums Available Immediately
We have over 700 candidates registered for locum work. Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

How to be a Locum – pdf guide
We have produced a guide on how to be a locum. This includes sections on getting work, realistic expectations, hourly rates, popular fields of law, payment, insurance, umbrella companies and much more. Available for download at no charge from www.interimlawyers.co.uk – click the link on the left hand side of the page.

About Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment
We are a specialist legal recruiter, covering both permanent and locum roles across the whole of the UK. Over 11,000 lawyers are registered with us and we have access to a range of external and internal job boards and websites where we do not have candidates available ourselves. We also assist with recruitment advice and assistance, regularly advising partners and practice managers on suitable salary and package levels.

Our company is unique for a number of reasons, including the fact that we are not shy to publish our fee structure and also donate a chunk of our profits to charity each year. We offer unlimited permanent and locum recruitment for a fixed monthly fee or one-off fees depending on the job. We donate 10% of our profits annually to charity, hence our name.

We have three recruitment consultants, Jonathan Fagan, Clare Fagan and Pete Gresty, together with our finance director Pearl McNamara. Together we have over 40 years of experience in the legal profession.

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment also owns Interim Lawyers, a specialist locum service. We operate an outsourced UK based typing service as well – www.uk-transcription.co.uk and are preferred suppliers to a number of institutional clients and law firms across the UK and overseas.

The Ten-Percent Group of Legal Recruitment websites gives 10% of annual profits to charity. We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 15 years ago. So far about £80,000 has been donated to charities in the UK and Africa including LawCare.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter and look forward to hearing from you if we can assist further.

Warm regards

Jonathan Fagan
Consultant

E: jbfagan@tenpercentgroup.com
T: 0207 127 4343

Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

Jonathan Fagan is a solicitor, qualified recruitment consultant and Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here – www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan

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.

Interim Lawyers – www.interimlawyers.co.uk
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – www.ten-percent.co.uk
Legal Recruitment Newsletter – www.legal-recruitment.co.uk

Interim Lawyers
27 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3AX

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited
2nd Floor
145-157 St John Street
London
EC1V 4PY

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited (Head Office)
Derwen Bach, Glyndwr Road, Mold CH7 5LW

Interim Lawyers Regional Offices:
Manchester Office (North England)
83 Ducie Street, Manchester M1 2JQ
Gloucester Office (Bristol, South West England, South Wales):
5 Bridge House, Lydney, Gloucestershire GL15 5RF
Basingstoke Office (South Coast, Hampshire, Surrey, Kent, Thames Valley):
Office 6 Slington House, Rankine Road, Basingstoke RG24 8PH

Welcome to the January 2016 edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, new candidate update, current locum hourly rates and articles. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers and Ten-Percent).

LOCUM BOOKING FOR 2016
If you have locum requirements in 2016 now is a good time to book – annual leave cover for the summer months is particularly worth doing as early as possible… – reply to this email with dates & types of law or visit www.interimlawyers.co.uk.

Legal Job Market Update (full list of monthly updates here)
December to January is a difficult time to give a job market update for. Basically just about everyone is off enjoying the festive season and very little happens! Locum requirements were up on previous years and some permanent recruitment occurred, but very little really to give any indication on the state of the market.. A summary of work is below.

December 2015 – Summary:
* Permanent vacancies down
* Locum assignments down
* Conveyancing vacancies – busy
* Commercial Property vacancies – some
* Wills & Probate vacancies – some
* Commercial and Civil Litigation vacancies – few
* Family vacancies – few
* Market outlook – will be increasing in January 2016.

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 571
New permanent vacancies added in December: 16
New locum vacancies added in December: 17
New candidates registering: 99
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies December: 3.3 (OK)

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment publishes the number of new vacancies, new candidates and indicate the increase or decrease from the previous month. We aim to assist the legal profession by showing the market from our perspective. Traditionally our clients have been high street law firms and smaller sized commercial practices.
The average job strength gives a good indication of the market because:
1. A Poor Job Strength on vacancies indicates a struggling market. When trade is bad, employers seek options for increasing turnover which involve sourcing candidates with their own following and no salary.
2. A Strong Job Strength on vacancies indicates a buoyant market, particularly if it is in connection with an increase in numbers of new vacancies.
Vacancies are each graded 1-5, with 5 being a very strong vacancy and 1 being a very weak vacancy.

Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and regularly writes for the Ten-Percent website and the Legal Recruitment blog, an award-winning selection of articles and features on legal recruitment and the legal profession. You can contact Jonathan at cv@ten-percent.co.uk.

A Psychic’s 2015 New Year Predictions Revisited (article published here)
Every year we carry an article in our January Newsletter about predictions for the previous year by an expert online psychic, Craig Hamilton-Parker (from www.psychics.co.uk). We have also included his 2016 predictions below to see how he does when we revisit in 2017. In 2014 Mr Hamilton-Parker scored 1 out of 16. Mr Hamilton-Parker charges £1.50 per minute for his services via telephone consultations.

Online Psychic Craig Hamilton-Parker’s Predictions and Results for 2015
1. Prince Harry will get engaged (correct)
2. Major volcanic eruptions in Japan and Hawaii (correct – although Hawaii volcanoes have been erupting constantly since 2008!)
3. National Health and Police strikes with riots in London (incorrect on all three)
4. Joan Collins dies (wrong – although Jackie Collins died)
5. Royal family death (wrong)
6. Strange fluctuations in the Earth’s Magnetic Field Detected (too vague to check!)
7. A Nuclear submarine will get into serious problems (wrong – although a UK sub did get a £500k dent in April according to the Daily Mail)
8. 2015 will be a year with a lot of Maritime problems and there could be a very serious disaster – akin to the sinking of the Titanic. (correct in a sense – migrant vessels sank in the Mediterranean in 2015 with large death toll).
9. Economically, India will rise faster than China in the coming years (too vague to check)
10. Josefina Vázquez Mota will become the first female president of Mexico. (wrong)
11. There will be a bad earthquake during 2015 in Mexico City (correct – sort of – lots of earthquakes hit Mexico City).
12. Many countries may see terrorist attacks from loan gunmen. I ‘see’ Berlin, Rome and Paris as targets but a simultaneous London attack with be thwarted. (partly correct)
13. There will be a celebrity kidnapping and an attack on a member of the Saudi Arabian Royal Family (wrong).
14. The Conservatives will win the UK election by a whisker. Cameron will be ousted just after the election despite his electoral success. (correct and wrong at the same time!).
15. During 2015 Jeb Bush will gain popularity and will win the American Election in 2016. (wrong so far – 29% and dropping).

Score: 5 out of 16, although 3 of these relate to common events occurring regularly – eg earthquakes in earthquake zones. Much better than 2014 though..

Mr Hamilton-Parker’s Psychic Predictions for 2016
1. Massive earthquake in Himalayas causes dam to burst.
2. Japanese island sinks beneath the sea – this will be a year with many sudden environmental changes. There will also be a bigger than ever disruption to the ice sheets.
3. Unprecedented rainfall disrupts some of the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
4. A comet/asteroid is missed by most astronomical observatories and comes close to Earth.
5. EU referendum brought forward and leaves EU (presumably this relates to the UK)
6. Large fire in historic Dutch building sees many masterpieces destroyed.
7. Extensive flooding in UK during winter with tidal surge causing extensive damage in Southern England. Dates to watch 11th and 29th November and February 23rd
8. New refugee wave from Ukraine and Georgia as Russia tightens its grip on dissidents.
9. Rise of right-wing politics in Spain, France and Italy sees rioting on streets and mosques burnt.
10. Turkey will invade Kurdish areas of Syria.
11. Massive increase in use of drones in Syria quell ISIS. Britain puts some troops on the ground.
12. New form of nanotechnology used to track terrorists.
13. Commonly used food additive is conclusively proven as a cause of cancer.
14. Prince Phillip is taken seriously ill and has major life and death operation.
15. There is an attempted behind-the-scenes coup in China as Chinese currency collapses.
16. An alleged naked picture of Kim Jong-un causes a political row.
17. Donald Trump’s bid for the Whitehouse if thwarted by illness. The last battle is neck and neck between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. The republicans win after a sudden last minute change of republican candidates.
18. British Labour Party splits in two with one section joining the Liberals. British Labour Party make big gains in Scotland.
19. India’s economy surges forward. New deals made between UK and India

Mr Hamilton-Parker also talks about World War III starting, although not clear what this relates to – I would have expected World War III to include the end of humanity but there we go.. Perhaps we will not be around next year to find out the results of his predictions?

SmallLaw v BigLaw – the differences (article published here)
The US has a slightly different definition of the two types of law firm operating in each jurisdiction. In the UK we call them High Street law and Commercial law firms, although the two overlap a bit. In the USA they term the two types of firm SmallLaw and BigLaw. This makes a lot of sense. The larger law firms in the UK are predominantly based in the city of London and employ literally armies upon armies of lawyers & support staff and work with huge state institutions and corporations. Billing levels for paralegals start at a rate higher than a lot of partners in high street firms. High street firms operate on tight budgets and commonly have less than 20 employees.

The difference in the approach can be demonstrated with these two examples:

The New Client
A solicitor at a law firm gets a call from a new client asking to retain him. The solicitor is over the moon. “They want to hire me,” he’s thinking. “How flattering! And the partners will be really pleased that I’ve managed to attract new business at my tender age.”

At a small firm, the partners are indeed impressed: “That’s great! Congratulations! We’re delighted to see that you have an eye for generating business..”

At a large firm, the partners may react quite differently: “What’s the matter worth? Maybe ten grand in fees? It’s not worth running a conflict check for ten grand. Call the client back and refer her to the little firm down the block.” Or, if the matter is more substantial: “That sounds like an interesting matter, but it’s a one-off situation. We don’t do any other work for that company, so this isn’t an important institutional relationship for us. And the potential new client is a big company, which implies that it will create a lot of conflicts. We can’t do one-off litigation for a big company, because that will prevent us from suing that company on behalf of our many existing clients (who are worth much more to us). You can’t take the case.”

Conflict Checks
At a small law firm, “conflict check” means a call from a long-time client in a litigation matter against a company called BigCo. The solicitor puts his client on hold, does a quick look at the firm’s client database and says “I’ve checked conflicts. We can handle your case. Feel free to tell me the details.”

In large firms the solicitor will get the call and say “Thanks for calling me about this. I’d be delighted to represent you, but I can’t commit to handling the case until I check conflicts. Please don’t tell me anything more about the case. I’ll run a conflict check and get back to you as soon as possible.” The solicitor asks a conflict-checker to do the necessary search of the conflicts database. The computer searches for “BigCo” and “Big” and “Co”; and all corporate entities that have those words (or fragments) in their names; and parents, subsidiaries, and affiliates of all those corporate entities. Two hours later, the solicitor receives a 53-page spreadsheet with the names of all current clients, former clients, and potential future clients whose names the computer generated. The list is broken down not just by client name, but also by individual matter, and many matters were handled by different “responsible partners” at the 30 offices around the globe. The solicitor dutifully sends out emails to the partners responsible for every matter that might create a conflict. A couple of those partners are in trial, and a few are on annual leave and one no longer works for the firm. The partner in the Hong Kong office naturally refuses to answer emails, despite many nudges.

Three weeks later, the solicitor returns the call to his client, happily reporting that he can take the case.

(I’ve borrowed these examples from Mark Herrmann, a US lawyer with experience in both types of law firm in the USA (see www.abovethelaw.com/2015/11/the-unspoken-differences-between-biglaw-and-small/ for the full article).

London Law firm pays NQ Solicitors £100k (article published here)
One of the US law firms in London has now decided to offer NQ solicitors £100k salaries, which is about £22k more than Clifford Chance NQ solicitors get, and about £75k more than most NQ solicitors get on the high street..

The RollonFriday.com website is a very good source of all information and data about the larger law firms in the UK, including an indication of opinions of salary levels on their forums. Apparently NQ solicitors and associates at the top UK law firms in London look enviously across at their counterparts in the US firms in London because salaries can be around 25% higher at the US firms. Naturally no thought is given to the fact that these solicitors are being paid over 3-4 times as much as their counterparts in smaller practices!

We occasionally get solicitors from Clifford Chance and other large practices wanting to return to the real world and go home at 5.30pm. They are astonished when they hear how much high street firms actually pay their staff and tend not to proceed with applications.. However they are similarly amazed at the notion of leaving the office before 7pm each day, which seems to frighten some of them! Discontent with earning huge salaries is usually caused by the billable hours required. According to the RollonFriday website, Clifford Chance expect their solicitors to bill 1800 hours a year, which according to my calculator is 37.5 hours per week billable time, or 7.5 hours per day. 50-60 hours work per week would be required as a minimum to achieve this (Yale Law School have a very good example which can be found here).

In fact what solicitors fail to realise is that the hours required at city firms are so huge that the salary levels are not that different to the high street.

Example:
Paul McCartney works in a high street conveyancing firm. He works a rigid 7.5 hours per day – 9am to 5.30pm including a 1 hour lunch break when the firm closes. His salary is £35,000. Assuming 4 weeks annual leave, his take home monthly rate of pay (net of tax) will be £2,240.60. His net hourly rate is £15.

Ringo Starr works in a large city practice. His salary is £98,500 at 3 years PQE. He works 12 hour days – from 8am to 8pm together with 2 x 8 hour Saturdays each month. Lunchbreaks are non-existent. Assuming 4 weeks annual leave and bank holidays, his take home monthly rate of pay (net of tax) will be £5,371.31. His net hourly rate is £21.

So the difference in reality, when you look at the hours worked, is somewhat negligble compared with the huge discrepancy in salary. When you factor in the fact that Ringo is probably taking twice as long to get to work as Paul (he will have to commute into central London every day and Paul probably works in the suburbs) the £98,500 really doesn’t sound as good!

Hourly Rates of Pay for Locum Solicitors and Legal Executives
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.

Dec 2015 – Jan 2016 Private Practice Law Firm Locum Rates:
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors – 1-5 years PQE, handling residential standard sale price only – £25-30 per hour (slight variation for central London – £29-35 per hour).
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors & ILEX – 5-35 years PQE, handling all levels of conveyancing including managing a department – £25-£35 per hour, including central London.
* Commercial Property Solicitors – 1-40 years PQE – £30-45 per hour.
* Wills & Probate Solicitors and Executives – 3-35 years PQE – £30-40 per hour.
* Family Solicitors – 4-40 years PQE – £24-28 per hour. Occasionally this goes up to £35 per hour for short notice or a few days cover.
* Civil Litigation – 1-35 years PQE. £25-33 per hour. These rates cover mainstream litigation – eg county court and small claims matters.

Hourly Rate, Weekly Rate and Salary Equivalents:
£20 per hour = £750 per week or £36,000 per annum (assuming a 7.5 hour day and a 48 week year).
£25 per hour = £937.50 per week or £45,000 per annum.
£30 per hour = £1,125 per week or £54,000 per annum.

We have over 11,000 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Locums Available Immediately
We have over 700 candidates registered for locum work. Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

Charity Suggestions – deadline 6th January 2016
Our trustees are meeting at lunchtime on the 7th January 2016. If anyone has any suggestions for charities we can donate to, please let me know by replying to this email. We particularly like smaller sized charities and do not, as a matter of policy, donate to charities who pay any member of staff more than £75k. Don’t worry about checking – we vet all charities to make sure!

How to be a Locum – pdf guide
We have produced a guide on how to be a locum. This includes sections on getting work, realistic expectations, hourly rates, popular fields of law, payment, insurance, umbrella companies and much more. Available for download at no charge from www.interimlawyers.co.uk – click the link on the left hand side of the page.

About Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment
We are a specialist legal recruiter, covering both permanent and locum roles across the whole of the UK. Over 11,000 lawyers are registered with us and we have access to a range of external and internal job boards and websites where we do not have candidates available ourselves. We also assist with recruitment advice and assistance, regularly advising partners and practice managers on suitable salary and package levels.

Our company is unique for a number of reasons, including the fact that we are not shy to publish our fee structure and also donate a chunk of our profits to charity each year. We offer unlimited permanent and locum recruitment for a fixed monthly fee or one-off fees depending on the job. We donate 10% of our profits annually to charity, hence our name.

We have three recruitment consultants, Jonathan Fagan, Clare Fagan and Pete Gresty, together with our finance director Pearl McNamara. Together we have over 40 years of experience in the legal profession.

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment also owns Interim Lawyers, a specialist locum service. We operate an outsourced UK based typing service as well – www.uk-transcription.co.uk and are preferred suppliers to a number of institutional clients and law firms across the UK and overseas.

The Ten-Percent Group of Legal Recruitment websites gives 10% of annual profits to charity. We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 15 years ago. So far over £66,000 has been donated to charities in the UK and Africa including LawCare and the CAB. The next round of donations are due in Jan-Feb 2016.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter and look forward to hearing from you if we can assist further.

Warm regards

Jonathan Fagan
Consultant

E: jbfagan@tenpercentgroup.com
T: 0207 127 4343

Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

Jonathan Fagan is a solicitor, qualified recruitment consultant and Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here – www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan

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.

Interim Lawyers – www.interimlawyers.co.uk
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – www.ten-percent.co.uk
Legal Recruitment Newsletter – www.legal-recruitment.co.uk

Interim Lawyers
27 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3AX

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited
2nd Floor
145-157 St John Street
London
EC1V 4PY

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited (Head Office)
Derwen Bach, Glyndwr Road, Mold CH7 5LW

Interim Lawyers Regional Offices:
Manchester Office (North England)
83 Ducie Street, Manchester M1 2JQ
Gloucester Office (Bristol, South West England, South Wales):
5 Bridge House, Lydney, Gloucestershire GL15 5RF
Basingstoke Office (South Coast, Hampshire, Surrey, Kent, Thames Valley):
Office 6 Slington House, Rankine Road, Basingstoke RG24 8PH

Welcome to the December 2015 edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, new candidate update, current locum hourly rates and articles. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers and Ten-Percent).

Legal Job Market Update
November has been a mixed month, with the usual locum assignments ending as work drops off for Christmas and permanent roles increasing. We have started to see the longer term locum roles coming through and some unexpected permanent recruitment – maternity leave cover and departing candidates contributing to this.

The demise of Blavo & Co and the sudden influx of candidates onto the market around London has been interesting, mainly because a lot of the solicitors out of work are from legal aid fields and the market is such a mess courtesy of government & LAA cuts and changes. Some candidates have experienced a reluctance by other firms to recruit them – presumably for fear of any future possible action arising from the closure – but others have found it relatively easy to get alternative work.

It will be interesting to see what happens to personal injury work with the new Small Claims limit proposals. We have seen a number of firms and companies close down in the last 6-12 months and I suspect this will continue.

Conveyancing locum work has now dropped off completely – which is quite normal – and other locum work is mainly litigation with a bit of wills & probate.

On the permanent side we have seen a few crime posts coming in as firms who have been awarded contracts are looking for supervisors (this is exactly the same pattern as occurred when the family contracts were awarded – basically a number of smaller firms who have not done much crime are now doing it and medium sized firms who were doing crime for many years are probably no longer doing it!). We have availability for conveyancing and commercial property locum work in most areas (short term easier to get than long term) but wills & probate remains difficult.

Conveyancing – still busy and difficult to source candidates for at the moment. Hopefully this will change next year, but unlikely. Salaries have still not gone up enough to lure candidates away from secure permanent roles. The Law Society have today released a report showing that the top 1,000 conveyancing firms have seen property transactions increase in the third quarter of 2015 by 20% – could this be related to pension releases and the right to buy schemes? Private Eye have compiled an interactive map of all overseas owned property in the UK – can be viewed here – http://www.private-eye.co.uk/registry – quite fascinating to look at – is it evidence of overseas investors driving the market or simply existing owners adjusting their ownership to be more tax efficient? Will the stamp duty changes on 2nd homes and buy to let properties slow the market down in 2016 or will it go completely mad in the first quarter as potential purchasers get in there quickly to avoid the additional charge?

The property market has certainly changed and now seems to operate with a London bubble at one set of prices (mostly unaffordable to anyone on an income of less than £200k) and the remainder of the country completely separate to this. In recent times we have spoken with a candidate who spends his time flying to Singapore and Shanghai to attend property investment seminars and sign up investors to purchase blocks of flats in London, with a solicitors firm linked to him undertaking the related conveyancing transactions. A good amount of work around London appears to have been with overseas investors purchasing properties and conveyancing undertaken at high speed to accomodate the demands of the investors.

Wills & Probate – still difficult to recruit for on the permanent side – salaries again are not doing enough to tempt candidates away from current roles – and locum rates are still high.

Commercial Property remains difficult although locum availability has increased. There still remains a gap between the salaries applicants seek and salaries being offered by law firms.

Family Law has been surprisingly busy on the locum side. Permanent roles not really cropping up.

Litigation – both civil and commercial still quiet but locum work has been surprisingly busy (although we have to say that some of the assignments have been poor in quality). In House roles quiet.

November 2015 – Summary:
* Permanent vacancies up
* Locum assignments up
* Conveyancing vacancies busy
* Commercial Property vacancies busy
* Wills & Probate vacancies – some
* Commercial and Civil Litigation vacancies – few
* Family vacancies – few
* Market outlook – rising (it has remained busier this year than it has been since 2006).

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 578
New permanent vacancies added in November: 46
New locum vacancies added in November: 42
New candidates registering: 100
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies November: 3.5 (OK)

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment publishes the number of new vacancies, new candidates and indicate the increase or decrease from the previous month. We aim to assist the legal profession by showing the market from our perspective. Traditionally our clients have been high street law firms and smaller sized commercial practices.
The average job strength gives a good indication of the market because:
1. A Poor Job Strength on vacancies indicates a struggling market. When trade is bad, employers seek options for increasing turnover which usually also involves contacting recruitment agencies in the hope that they have candidates with their own following and not looking for a salary.
2. A Strong Job Strength on vacancies indicates a buoyant market, particularly if it is in connection with an increase in numbers of new vacancies.
Vacancies are each graded 1-5, with 5 being a very strong vacancy and 1 being a very weak vacancy.

Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and regularly writes for the Ten-Percent website and the Legal Recruitment blog, an award-winning selection of articles and features on legal recruitment and the legal profession. You can contact Jonathan at cv@ten-percent.co.uk or visit one of our websites.

How to cope with sudden redundancy
A slightly unusual article, but a subject that crops up every year just before Christmas when firms finally get round to making a senior member of staff redundant after 20 years..

Losing your job without any notice can be one of the most stressful things you will ever experience in your working life. The thought of waking up in the morning without a job, without any money coming in at the end of the month and without anything to do can fill people with horror and cause serious damage to anyone’s mental health.

So what are the best ways of coping with the unexpected?

1) Check your finances
This may seem like common sense but so many people just panic without actually looking to see how much money they have in the bank, how much they are owed (there are various statutory obligations on the government to support you if you suddenly lose your job and have wages owing) and any likely future expenditure in the next couple of months. Work out how much you are going to need to spend to survive over a period of say three months, and calculate whether you have the money in the bank to cover these overheads. Look at any money you plan to spend in the next 3 to 6 months but are not yet obliged to spend it. For example, if you have thought about booking a holiday or planned to purchase a new car it is important to look at these costs carefully and decide whether or not you still feel able to afford them in the worst case scenario.

2) Think of the worst case scenario
Some people put their heads in the sand and do not consider what could happen in the short-term and long-term future if they do not find another job quickly. If you are highly experienced with lots of skills that other employers are going to want to see, then it shouldn’t be too much of a problem finding another job even if the pay is less. However, if you are in your late 50s, early 60s with skills and experience etc, you may find it a bit harder because of the subconscious age discrimination that will no doubt follow you around as you make job applications. Think of what would happen in 6 months if you haven’t been able to find a job and calculate what expenditure you are going to need to find in the meantime.

3) Falling into a new job by mistake.
Quite a few people take roles quickly in the same way that people have relationships after ending a previous relationship and regret it after a few weeks because they have jumped into it too quickly without thinking of the consequences. Think carefully about a job move and having calculated the financial position and thought about the worst case scenario, do you still need to jump into the first job that comes along or have you got some time to think about it first?

If at all possible try to think about it first.

4) Don’t panic!
Do not panic. This has to be the best advice to give you. People lose their jobs all the time and it is quite common. Do not think you have done anything wrong – sudden redundancy is often caused by a system failure rather than a personal failure. Try to concentrate on the positives that are going on in your life and do not think about the negatives. Although there is stigma attached to not having a job, it is so common these days for people to move jobs every few years rather than stay in them for long periods of time, that no one is going to particularly hold it against you.

Best Advice for Securing a New Role
Don’t forget to contact your ex-employer to ask one of the managers or anyone at the business if they will write a “to whom it may concern” reference for you. This reference should confirm the dates you worked for the business, the opinion of the manager or writer as to your experience & skills and whether they would be of benefit to another employer, and confirmation that they would most certainly employ you again given the opportunity. The letter should finish by explaining why the employment has been terminated suddenly and apportion no blame to you.
This one piece of advice will be very useful for you in applying for other roles as you can send the reference with the CV to anyone you are making a job application to so that they could see the circumstances surrounding your sudden departure.

Finally (and in summary) – don’t panic. Really. It is not the end of the world – it could be the start of something new and exciting…

Hourly Rates of Pay for Locum Solicitors and Legal Executives
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.

Nov-Dec 2015 Private Practice Law Firm Rates:
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors – 1-5 years PQE, handling residential standard sale price only – £25-30 per hour (slight variation for central London – £29-35 per hour).
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors & ILEX – 5-35 years PQE, handling all levels of conveyancing including managing a department – £25-£35 per hour, including central London.
* Commercial Property Solicitors – 1-40 years PQE – £30-45 per hour.
* Wills & Probate Solicitors and Executives – 3-35 years PQE – £30-40 per hour.
* Family Solicitors – 4-40 years PQE – £22-28 per hour. Occasionally this goes up to £35 per hour for short notice or a few days cover.
* Civil Litigation – 1-35 years PQE. £25-33 per hour. These rates cover mainstream litigation – eg county court and small claims matters.

Hourly Rate, Weekly Rate and Salary Equivalents:
£20 per hour = £750 per week or £36,000 per annum (assuming a 7.5 hour day and a 48 week year).
£25 per hour = £937.50 per week or £45,000 per annum.
£30 per hour = £1,125 per week or £54,000 per annum.

We have over 11,000 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Locums Available Immediately
We have over 700 candidates registered for locum work. Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

CV Writing Tips for Senior Solicitors
Senior solicitors deciding to try out locuming or looking for roles after a long time in the same post tend not to have a CV prepared. It is very easy to do, although if you want a template you can purchase one at www.legalcareercoaching.co.uk. If you want to prepare your own CV from scratch these simple guidelines ought to enable you to do it and to make sure your CV stands out and presents you in the best possible light. Each section is described in detail.

Personal Details
This section goes at the top of the CV and contains all the information the reader needs to instantly see, which includes your name, your postal address, your email address, landline phone number, mobile phone number, nationality, confirmation of a driving licence.

Summary
For a locum, it is very important to have a summary of who you are and what you are looking for and capable of offering. This is usually a very simple two or three sentence paragraph outlining what you are able to offer. A quick example of this would be :

“A conveyancing solicitor with over 30 years’ experience in a range of law firms from small to large, dealing with both residential and commercial conveyancing. Able to assist with registered and unregistered land, leaseholds, full high value property development work and most other aspects of conveyancing. Available to cover across the country for both short and long-term assignments with an hourly rate of £35”.

This summary means that the reader can instantly see what experience you have and what you are able to offer without having to read the whole of the CV.

Education
The education section comes next and this needs to be fairly brief if you are looking at locum work. The first entry needs to be the fact that you are a solicitor or legal executive and the date you were admitted to the roll or gained your legal executive certificate. Underneath this you need to have confirmation that you have completed the professional skills courses, the law society management courses if relevant together with your undergraduate university degree, legal practice course/law society finals and the CPE/GDL if relevant.

The class of your undergraduate degree can be very useful particularly if it is a 2:1 or 1st Class. Confirmation of A Level grades can also be good if you have straight As or Bs, but GCSEs or O Levels simply need to be stated and the number. Make sure this section is in reverse chronological order.

Work Experience
The next section is your work history and this needs to be in full from the moment you left school through to the present day. Professional locums will often have a list which is at the end of the CV detailing every assignment they have been on in the past 10 to 20 years. This does not always work well but it’s usually recommended by ourselves and other recruiters. Start with the most recent first and work backwards and ensure that you include plenty of detail about the work that you are actually able to do.

A good way of doing this on a locum CV is to have an extensive list of bullet points broken down into different sections covering all the different work that you have undertaken and are capable of assisting with, and then underneath this having a reverse chronological list of all the assignments you have undertaken, and permanent roles covering the whole of your career back to school years (or university).

It is an ongoing theme of recruitment that a couple of words on a CV can catch the eye of the recruiter and make the difference between you being booked for an assignment and you being ignored. Information that is of particularly interest is the number of files worked on at any time, confirmation of the different types of law within your field that you’ve covered, any evidence of other areas of law that might be of interest to a recruiter (e.g. wills and probate for a conveyancing solicitor) and exact examples of types of cases dealt with (whether contentious or non-contentious law).

Computers
The next section should be your computer and language skills which for a locum is of extreme importance. So many locum assignments now require locums to be able to handle their own IT and admin work – the CV needs to confirm that you are able to undertake your own typing or are prepared to deal with your admin work, or that you can handle a case management software system. Include the name of the CMS If you do not know your typing speed it can be worth going online to do a typing test. The easiest way of doing this is just to type “free typing test” into Google and seeing what speed you get. For a fee earner anything over 40 words per minute is quite good. A good secretary ought to be able to type at about 70 words per minute.

Activities and Interests
The next section is activities and interests and again this is not one of the most important sections on the CV when locuming but it can be of use because it identifies you as a human being rather than an automaton. A quick few bullet points detailing what you like doing in your spare time can make the world of difference.

Finally you need two references on the CV if possible. Better still is to have two “to whom it may concern” reference that you can send out in full with the CV every time it goes to a recruiter. However if you do not have these then full names, addresses and contact email/phone numbers will be very useful as well.

There is no such thing as a perfect length of a CV but we usually recommend making sure your CV is at least 3 pages long, if not longer, in order to get the information into it that we would like to see.

Finally always send the CV as a word document and not a PDF. PDFs cause terrible problems despite looking more professional than a word document, but considerably harder to use across differing systems.

How to be a Locum – pdf guide
We have produced a guide on how to be a locum. This includes sections on getting work, realistic expectations, hourly rates, popular fields of law, payment, insurance, umbrella companies and much more. Available for download at no charge from www.interimlawyers.co.uk – click the link on the left hand side of the page.

About Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment
We are a specialist legal recruiter, covering both permanent and locum roles across the whole of the UK. Over 11,000 lawyers are registered with us and we have access to a range of external and internal job boards and websites where we do not have candidates available ourselves. We also assist with recruitment advice and assistance, regularly advising partners and practice managers on suitable salary and package levels.

Our company is unique for a number of reasons, including the fact that we are not shy to publish our fee structure and also donate a chunk of our profits to charity each year. We offer unlimited permanent and locum recruitment for a fixed monthly fee or one-off fees depending on the job. We donate 10% of our profits annually to charity, hence our name.

We have three recruitment consultants, Jonathan Fagan, Clare Fagan and Pete Gresty, together with our finance director Pearl McNamara. Together we have over 40 years of experience in the legal profession.

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment also owns Interim Lawyers, a specialist locum service. We operate an outsourced UK based typing service as well – www.uk-transcription.co.uk and are preferred suppliers to a number of institutional clients and law firms across the UK and overseas.

The Ten-Percent Group of Legal Recruitment websites gives 10% of annual profits to charity. We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 15 years ago. So far over £66,000 has been donated to charities in the UK and Africa including LawCare and the CAB. The next round of donations are due in Jan-Feb 2016.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter and look forward to hearing from you if we can assist further.

Warm regards

Jonathan Fagan
Consultant

E: jbfagan@tenpercentgroup.com
T: 0207 127 4343

Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

Jonathan Fagan is a solicitor, qualified recruitment consultant and Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here – www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan

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.

Interim Lawyers – www.interimlawyers.co.uk
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – www.ten-percent.co.uk
Legal Recruitment Newsletter – www.legal-recruitment.co.uk

Interim Lawyers
27 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3AX

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited
2nd Floor
145-157 St John Street
London
EC1V 4PY

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited (Head Office)
Derwen Bach, Glyndwr Road, Mold CH7 5LW

Interim Lawyers Regional Offices:
Manchester Office (North England)
83 Ducie Street, Manchester M1 2JQ
Gloucester Office (Bristol, South West England, South Wales):
5 Bridge House, Lydney, Gloucestershire GL15 5RF
Basingstoke Office (South Coast, Hampshire, Surrey, Kent, Thames Valley):
Office 6 Slington House, Rankine Road, Basingstoke RG24 8PH

Welcome to the October 2015 edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, new candidate update, current locum hourly rates and articles. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers and Ten-Percent).

Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

Legal Job Market Update
September has been a busy month, much busier than expected, particularly on legal support roles. The Rugby World Cup has not had the same impact that Football tournaments have on recruitment business (the FIFA World Cup virtually puts a hold on permanent recruitment for 2-3 weeks!). Still a good number of locum roles came in, particularly in conveyancing, and a mass of permanent positions registered in the last 10 days. It is still a busy legal job market although we have availability in most areas of the UK for conveyancing locums now after a shortage over the summer.

Conveyancing – still busy. Some firms still do not bother trying to recruit, although in other areas we are seeing a trickle of new conveyancing candidates looking for permanent work. Salaries have started to increase as firms accept the new realities of the market.

Wills & Probate gone quieter now – still difficult to recruit for on the permanent side and locum rates are still high – a number of candidates are now commanding hourly rates that are usually beyond the budgets of most smaller firms.

Commercial Property remains difficult although locum availability increased. There still remains a gap between the salaries applicants seek and salaries being offered by law firms.

Family Law has picked up a bit but remains fairly quiet for permanent roles. Locum work has been busy in September, although locum rates seem to have put a number of firms off.

Litigation – both civil and commercial still quiet. Employment picked up briefly but then dropped off again without much happening – firms may have been testing the water I think! The same applies for corporate commercial – this has never been our specialism but we do often see a steady stream of vacancies. In House roles have picked up but there still seems to be a fairly high level of uncertainty with jobs being posted but then changing or being withdrawn.

September 2015 – Summary:
* Permanent vacancies up
* Locum assignments static
* Conveyancing vacancies busy
* Commercial Property vacancies busy
* Wills & Probate vacancies – some
* Commercial and Civil Litigation vacancies – few
* Family vacancies – few
* Market outlook – stable.

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 537
New permanent vacancies added in September: 47
New locum vacancies added in August: 56
New candidates registering: 83
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies August: 3.5 (OK)

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment publishes the number of new vacancies, new candidates and indicate the increase or decrease from the previous month. We aim to assist the legal profession by showing the market from our perspective. Traditionally our clients have been high street law firms and smaller sized commercial practices.
The average job strength gives a good indication of the market because:
1. A Poor Job Strength on vacancies indicates a struggling market. When trade is bad, employers seek options for increasing turnover which usually also involves contacting recruitment agencies in the hope that they have candidates with their own following and not looking for a salary.
2. A Strong Job Strength on vacancies indicates a buoyant market, particularly if it is in connection with an increase in numbers of new vacancies.
Vacancies are each graded 1-5, with 5 being a very strong vacancy and 1 being a very weak vacancy.

Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and regularly writes for the Ten-Percent website and the Legal Recruitment blog, an award-winning selection of articles and features on legal recruitment and the legal profession. You can contact Jonathan at cv@ten-percent.co.uk or visit one of our websites.

We have over 11,000 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Candidates Registered in the last 7 days
06101228 Part Time Conveyancing Solicitor looking for permanent roles in Ilford, East and Central London.
30091226 Commercial Property and Development Locum available on the South Coast for locum work. Nov onwards.
06101414 Legal Admin Assistant with 3 years experience looking in London.
06101327 Litigation Solicitor 20 years PQE available for work in London and South. Locum.
06101142 NQ Solicitor with Real Estate, Planning, Pensions and Regulation experience looking for locum roles in London.
05101510 PI Solicitor – Defendant – looking for locum work in North West.
05101258 Commercial Litigation Solicitor with Construction looking around London. Permanent.
04102139 Legal Secretary looking in Hull. Permanent.
04101709 Family Legal Secretary looking in London, West London and Berkshire.
04101344 Conveyancing Solicitor looking for a new post around Slough. 5 years PQE. Permanent.

Things not to take to Job Interviews
As legal recruiters, we regularly hear of interviews that have gone badly wrong and these are some of the things that people have turned up with that have seriously affected their chances of success.

1) Their Mother
We have actually had instances of candidates turning up to job interviews with their mother in tow and both sitting in the reception area of the company or firm they are interviewing with and becoming the source of great fascination amongst the staff. Why on earth would anyone take their mother to a job interview? But it happens. One to be avoided like the plague.

2) A Carrier Bag
Can the choice of a carrier bag really affect the outcome of a job interview? Feedback from an interview in recent times has been that the firm liked the candidate and thought they were very friendly but their appearance was awful. This included the Lidl carrier bag they were carrying their stuff in.

3) Odd socks
Feedback from one interview a few years ago was that the candidate came across well, until he crossed his legs. Odd socks were on show. The firm were not impressed.. Similarly, wearing jeans and a t-shirt to an office based interview is definitely not a good idea, neither is turning up in a cap. However we have had feedback from firms about candidates being overdressed – turning up in a waistcoat, bow-tie and a cumberband.

4) Tattoos
It will probably pain a lot of people to hear this but there are still considerable numbers of employers out there who are very unlikely to employ a candidate if they spot a tattoo. It is understandable that if you have ‘Kill’ tattooed across your knuckles or a picture of an angel tattooed across your forehead it is not going to be very easy to inspire confidence from a lot of clients! However feedback in the past has commented on a tattoo of Popeye on the forearm. No doubt in time this taboo will end – the vast majority of people under the age of 25 seem to have a tattoo somewhere on their person – and employers will have to move with the times.

5) A Big Mac Happy Meal from McDonalds.
When candidates attend a job interview it is more than understandable that they will want to make sure they have got plenty of energy to stay alert & awake and keep focused. But whilst eating a Big Mac meal from McDonalds is probably not going to give you the same boost as a banana & a bag of nuts; there are those who would find this a comfort before attending a job interview. However, walking into the buildings of the company who are interviewing you and asking if there is somewhere you can put your half-eaten Big Mac is not to be recommended.

Possibly the worst thing ever reported (even worse than the Big Mac) as feedback was a candidate who asked for the interview to be paused for a moment whilst they took a call on their mobile.

Hourly Rates of Pay for Locum Solicitors and Legal Executives
Locum hourly rate payment varies widely according to the demand, length of assignment, level of experience and advance notice available. Hourly rates go up during the summer (June-September). NB: These rates are intended as a guide only. Hourly rates can vary according to the location, duration and level of expertise.

September 2015 Private Practice Law Firm Rates:
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors – 1-5 years PQE, handling residential standard sale price only – £25-30 per hour (slight variation for central London – £29-35 per hour).
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors & ILEX – 5-35 years PQE, handling all levels of conveyancing including managing a department – £27-£35 per hour, including central London.
* Commercial Property Solicitors – 1-40 years PQE – £30-45 per hour.
* Wills & Probate Solicitors and Executives – 3-35 years PQE – £30-40 per hour.
* Family Solicitors – 4-40 years PQE – £22-28 per hour. Occasionally this goes up to £35 per hour for short notice or a few days cover.
* Civil Litigation – 1-35 years PQE. £27-35 per hour. These rates cover mainstream litigation – eg county court and small claims matters.

Hourly Rate, Weekly Rate and Salary Equivalents:
£20 per hour = £750 per week or £36,000 per annum (assuming a 7.5 hour day and a 48 week year).
£25 per hour = £937.50 per week or £45,000 per annum.
£30 per hour = £1,125 per week or £54,000 per annum.

We have over 11,000 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Locums Available Immediately
We have over 700 candidates registered for locum work. Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

What Makes a Good Job Reference?
What constitutes a good job reference?

A good reference will state the following :

• Confirmation of a start date and end date.
• The reason why the employment relationship ended – e.g. redundancy or end of assignment.
• The employer’s opinion of the candidate’s work.
• The employer’s opinion of the candidate’s ability to get on as part of a team.
• Confirmation that the employer would use the candidate in future should the need arise.

This applies for both types of reference, locum and permanent.

Locum References
For locums, the best references are those where a client emails us as the agents (we run our locum service via www.interimlawyers.co.uk) to say what a fantastic job the locum is doing and how pleased they are that they took them on.

The reference provided can be the start of lots of work or the end of any work because most agencies have a similar policy to us in that we do not put forward locums to roles if we have had more than one negative reference in the past. Whilst it is quite obvious that there will always be personality issues between employers and locums, and that these can impact on opinions expressed in references, there are only so many times we can allow a locum to go for roles before we have to make a judgement as to whether it was just a personality issue or whether there is something wrong with that locum. As company policy, we are very strict that two bad references spells the end of a locum’s work with us.

Sometimes, we pick up references from our clients’ to tell us about a locum they currently have from another agency. For example, we have recently had an occasion when a client telephoned us to say that their current locum was busy trying to syphon off their clients and was spending the vast majority of his time phoning round other agencies to try and get work and claiming that he had a following of clients to come with him. Naturally, we made a note not to work with this locum in the future!

Permanent Job References
For permanent candidates, the reference serves a different purpose. Firstly, if a firm is LEXCEL accredited then every member of staff, as we understand it, has to have at least one reference, if not two. One of these references has to be a recent employer although not necessarily the most recent.

We have had instances where firms have insisted on a reference from the most recent employer. However the candidate has refused to allow them access to the most recent employer because they have either fallen out with them or the candidate is very aware that the reference is not going to be very good, especially when their most recent employer finds out they are leaving.

We do not recommend that employers force the issue because very often it
a) creates bad will for the new employee just about to start with the firm but already in conflict with their new employer; and
b) such a reference is very unlikely to be either truthful, accurate or objective.

The most recent employer will always feel that the candidate has been disloyal to them and as a result will be reluctant to provide an objective reference.

It is often better to ask a candidate for either a recent employer, someone who has worked with them or seen their work in the past 2 to 3 years. These types of references can be much more useful than one from a bitter former employer. The sole purpose of a permanent reference is really to confirm dates of employment and that there have been no recent issues in the workplace over the past 4 to 5 years.

If the candidate has been with a larger employer then it is fairly common for the reference to confirm dates of employment. Larger employers and more cautious employers will often refuse to give anything other than this and claim it is company policy not to provide anything else. Ironically the same employers will often ask for detailed references from other employers and be quite surprised when they don’t get one!

The best form of reference for a new employer is simply to telephone the reference and have an off-the-record chat with them. This usually results in a straightforward reference being provided and information given that would not necessarily be in writing. However, again we recommend airing on the side of caution when it comes to relying on references because everyone has different reasons for the information that they give when speaking to potential new employers. Former employers may want to be rid of someone and give a fantastic reference knowing that the person is really not a good prospect at all. A quick example of this was a solicitors firm in Nottingham many years ago who actually telephoned round agencies putting forward one of their solicitors as a candidate. A reference was even provided, but left the agents scratching their heads as to why a law firm would want to give a good reference for someone they were trying to get rid of.

Summer 2015 10% Donations – nominations needed
It is time for us to take any nominations for our charitable trust – we were due a trustees meeting last month but it has been carried over. We hope to provide continuing support to a number of our existing charities, including the British Stammering Association, LawCare and a school in Tanzania, but apart from this we are open to suggestions. We do not, as a matter of policy, donate to any charity paying staff more than £75k. Email any suggestions to jbfagan@ten-percent.co.uk.

How to be a Locum – new pdf guide
We have produced a new guide on how to be a locum. This includes sections on getting work, realistic expectations, hourly rates, popular fields of law, payment, insurance, umbrella companies and much more. Available for download at no charge from www.interimlawyers.co.uk – click the link on the left hand side of the page.

About Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment
We are a specialist legal recruiter, covering both permanent and locum roles across the whole of the UK. Over 11,000 lawyers are registered with us and we have access to a range of external and internal job boards and websites where we do not have candidates available ourselves. We also assist with recruitment advice and assistance, regularly advising partners and practice managers on suitable salary and package levels.

Our company is unique for a number of reasons, including the fact that we are not shy to publish our fee structure and also donate a chunk of our profits to charity each year. We offer unlimited permanent and locum recruitment for a fixed monthly fee or one-off fees depending on the job. We donate 10% of our profits annually to charity, hence our name.

We have three recruitment consultants, Jonathan Fagan, Clare Fagan and Pete Gresty, together with our finance director Pearl McNamara. Together we have over 40 years of experience in the legal profession. Jonathan Fagan is a qualified solicitor and still (reluctantly!) undertakes litigation on behalf of the company when required.

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment also owns Interim Lawyers, a specialist locum service. We operate an outsourced UK based typing service as well – www.uk-transcription.co.uk and are preferred suppliers to a number of institutional clients and law firms across the UK and overseas.

The Ten-Percent Group of Legal Recruitment websites gives 10% of annual profits to charity. We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 15 years ago. So far over £66,000 has been donated to charities in the UK and Africa including LawCare and the CAB.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter and look forward to hearing from you if we can assist further.

Warm regards

Jonathan Fagan
Consultant

E: jbfagan@tenpercentgroup.com
T: 0207 127 4343

Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

Jonathan Fagan is a solicitor, qualified recruitment consultant and Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here – www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan

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.

Interim Lawyers – www.interimlawyers.co.uk
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – www.ten-percent.co.uk
Legal Recruitment Newsletter – www.legal-recruitment.co.uk

Interim Lawyers
27 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3AX

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited
2nd Floor
145-157 St John Street
London
EC1V 4PY

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited (Head Office)
Derwen Bach, Glyndwr Road, Mold CH7 5LW

Interim Lawyers Regional Offices:
Manchester Office (North England)
83 Ducie Street, Manchester M1 2JQ
Gloucester Office (Bristol, South West England, South Wales):
5 Bridge House, Lydney, Gloucestershire GL15 5RF
Basingstoke Office (South Coast, Hampshire, Surrey, Kent, Thames Valley):
Office 6 Slington House, Rankine Road, Basingstoke RG24 8PH