Legal Recruitment News

April 2015 Newsletter

Welcome to the April 2015 edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market 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
March was busy. This is quite normal as we get near to Easter and the end of the financial year for a lot of firms. The locum market picks up with a good number of short term assignments coming in as well as more summer bookings. Permanent vacancies also increase annually at this time as partners have time to reflect on staffing levels and make plans for the coming months.

Permanent vacancies have been of good quality – the average job strength has increased to 3.5 for March and this is a good sign of a healthy recruitment market.

We still think that in 2015 we will be seeing salary levels going up, although a number of firms seem to be living in the 1980s at times when it comes to job offers and hourly rates. Last week we received a telephone call from a law firm based at a home office in a London house worth £3 million looking to avoid paying £35 an hour for a locum to cover for a few weeks.

Conveyancing has gone a bit quieter although still made up 33% of our vacancies for March. Locum roles were busy for a week or two before Easter but have now dropped off again. Locum availability is currently quite good although we expect this to change as the month progresses.

Wills & Probate is a difficult area to recruit for on the permanent side unless at NQ level. On the locum side we have seen an increase in availability from consultants, which is the first time this has happened since 2012.

Commercial property is very similar. I sense a growing number of vacancies going unfilled as there is such a dearth of candidates for them. In particular there is a dearth of applicants prepared to work for the wages being offered. We have seen some availability increases on the locum side.

Family law remains quiet for permanent roles. Locum work has increased a little bit in the last few months.

Crime is almost non-existent. However this month we have a two year contract just in for the Falkland Islands, starting in September. A few brave firms have registered requirements for duty solicitors before the next rota deadline (May 1st) but not much movement at the moment.

Litigation – both civil and commercial still very quiet. The same applies for corporate commercial.

Employment law work has picked up a little. A few vacancies have trickled in but sitll not much.

March 2015 – Summary:
* Permanent vacancies up
* Locum assignments up

* Conveyancing vacancies busy, Commercial Property vacancies very busy
* Wills & Probate vacancies up
* Commercial and Civil Litigation vacancies – still very few
* Family vacancies – up
* Market outlook – increasing.

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 562
New permanent vacancies added last month: 39
New locum vacancies added last month: 36
New candidates registering: 129
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies last month: 3.5 (strong)
Increase/Decrease in new vacancies from previous month: +50%
Increase/Decrease in new candidates from previous month: +33%

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 niche 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

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.

March 2015 Private Practice Law Firm Rates:
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors – 1-5 years PQE, handling residential standard sale price only – £25-28 per hour (slight variation for central London – £25-30 per hour).
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors & ILEX – 5-35 years PQE, handling all levels of conveyancing including managing a department – £30-37 per hour, including central London.
* Commercial Property Solicitors – 1-40 years PQE – usually mainly light commercial conveyancing rather than light and heavyweight. £35-48 per hour.
* Wills & Probate Solicitors and Executives – 3-35 years PQE – £30-42 per hour.
* Family Solicitors – 4-40 years PQE – £24-30 per hour. Very occasionally this goes up to £35 per hour for short notice or a few days cover.
* Civil Litigation – 1-35 years PQE. £25-35 per hour. These rates cover mainstream litigation – eg county court and small claims matters. Rates considerably higher for high court work.

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 10,500 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

Mothers returning to work – a missed opportunity?
The legal profession very often lags behind other sectors for recruitment practices and HR trends. Firms have tended to be inflexible about hours, reluctant to recruit part time staff and hesitant to offer alternatives to salary increases.

It is not surprising therefore that parents returning to work have traditionally found it difficult to get a suitable position and in a good number of cases have given up trying. Over the past 15 years we have seen a thawing in attitudes towards anyone who has a gap on their CV, but it
will still count against a job applicant regardless of the circumstances. For example, quite a few conveyancers have gaps or alternative work on their CVs between 2008 and 2011. Time and again this comes up as a reason for rejecting them for posts, even though it is pretty obvious to all concerned that the candidate was simply trying to survive at a time when conveyancing jobs were virtually inexistent.

Parents returning to work have an even harder job persuading firms to take them back on after a break. Quite often an absence will be about 5-7 years, and at this point mothers (for the purposes of this article assume I am referring to both mothers and fathers!) will still be looking for part time work or flexible hours to enable child care issues to be overcome. Collecting or dropping children off at school is inevitable for most parents and tends to weigh heavily on the mind of candidates at job interviews. More so when the candidate is a returner to work. Mothers are very often nervous about getting back into a job; can they still do the work after all this time out and how will they juggle the work/life balance? This often makes them seem more nervous at job interviews and more particular in their requirements than someone moving straight from one role to the next.

So why is it a missed opportunity? Perhaps it isn’t, but I have noticed the following trend amongst mothers who have gone back to work:

1. They very often do not seem as concerned about salary levels as those who have had a consistent career to date.
2. Benefit packages tend to be considered more carefully, particularly flexible hours and annual leave.
3. Loyalty levels are higher. The returner to work tends to be grateful for the opportunity to get back in again.
4. Levels of experience and ability are quite often higher for a lower salary than another fee earner at the same PQE level. The returner to work will be older (and hopefully that bit wiser!).
5. Returners to work have significant commitments to a particular geographical area and are less likely to be able to relocate to work. This ties them to firms in specific areas and reduces their opportunities to move.
6. Returners to work have strong networks in the areas they are based in which can lead to increased business development potential.
7. Part time and flexible hours returners to work do not seem to do that much less work than full time staff – very often they just cram the same amount of work into a shorter period of time. Think about the time you spend between 3pm and 5pm each day. Is it as productive as 10am to 1pm or considerably less so?

Naturally these are extremely subjective and based on our own experiences. It is true that some parents returning to work have such specific criteria that they will have persuaded any potential employer not to consider them even before they get to interview. Generally however we think that parents returning to work offer significant economic benefits for their firms in the medium-long term.

(New for April 2015 – there is a legal career coach based in London and Manchester specialising in parents returning to work in the legal profession. For details please contact us).

The Second Most Unusual Locum Vacancy in 2015 – Crime Solicitor in the Falkland Islands
A new vacancy has arisen with a small solicitors firm based in Stanley in the Falkland Islands. They seek a crime solicitor to join them for a 2 year contract from September 2015. Very similar to the family role we have just been working on, you fly from the UK to Stanley on an RAF flight (I think it was from Brize Norton last time), work in Stanley before flying home again the same way at the end of the assignment. It is a long journey and for anyone not aware of where the Falklands are it is worth looking before expressing an interest… If you are interested please send me your most recent CV to forward across to the firm. The firm will want to Skype interview you and a partner from the firm may also be available in the next 2 months to meet face to face as well.

We have over 10,500 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

The Death of 20 days Annual Leave
There are still a number of law firms out there who offer 20 days annual leave. Occasionally this crops up and it is probably useful to know that by offering 20 days annual leave you are risking losing staff to the competition and not being able to recruit in the first place.

20 days annual leave has been the standard in the legal profession on the high street for many years. However rapidly increasing numbers of firms now offer 25 days annual leave (plus statutory) and it has become a pre-requisite for many applicants when looking for a new role.

After all salaries have not really moved upwards for a long time and annual leave increases are an alternative option. A 25% increase in annual leave from 20 to 25 days can actually cost you very little indeed.

Lets look at the figures. Say for example you employ someone at £35k per annum. Assuming they work 47 weeks of the year (20 days annual leave plus an additional 5 days statutory), you will be paying them £745 a week before tax. If you increase your annual leave allowance to 25 days, the cost will be £745.

£745 represents a 2.13% pay rise, but a 25% increase in annual leave. If you had to employ a locum to cover the extra week, the cost would be around £1,400, assuming a £35 an hour rate.

A lot of candidates value annual leave increases more than they do salary increases, mainly because so much of the salary increase disappears in tax. Annual leave increases are much easier to see and extremely cost effective for smaller law firms.

Happy and content staff make productive and profitable businesses, something a lot of firms forget…

We have over 10,500 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Further Information on the 2015 10% Donations
We now have further information from some of the charities we have donated to this year.
* Unicef – £100. Hopefully not used to help pay the salary of their rather expensive Chief Executive!
* Chester Zoo – £60. Supporting their work with Red Pandas.
* LawCare – £1,000. Money to be used in support of their provision of support for bullying in the workplace and disciplinary issues.
* Y Care International – £300. The money has been used to support vulnerable young people in Guatemala.
* British Stammering Association – £500. Money used to develop their provision to young people who stammer.
* Standalone – £200. Money used to create a support group in the Newcastle area. The charity support estranged family members.
* Hughes Syndrome Foundation – £100. The money was used to help in creating a GP learning module.
* Time Out Group – £200. (suggested by Chafes). Money used to help fund a holiday for adults with learning disabilities.
* St Johns Seminary, Tanzania (providing the funding for 5 students to attend school) – £2,200. We are hoping to develop a strong link with this school and support 5 children aged 14-18 with the costs of their education.

Total amount donated so far in 2015 – £6,460. We have a good chunk of money still in the bank and we plan to work out expenditure of this in mid-Summer 2015. Some of the above charities have been suggested by candidates and clients. Others are linked to our trustees’ own interests.

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 the whole of the UK. A large proportion of our vacancies are based in London and the South East, but we do assist firms elsewhere on a very regular basis. Over 10,500 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.

At present 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 (hence our name). We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 14 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

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

 Legal Recruitment News – March 4th 2015

Contents
▪ Legal Job Market Report
▪ Locum Hourly Rates – 2015 Guide
▪ Register Locum Jobs
▪ Unusual Family Locum Vacancy – involves a military flight offshore
▪ The Annual Maternity Phenomenon
▪ Annual donations for 2015
▪ Register Permanent Jobs
▪ Legal Salary Reviews Online

Newsletter
Welcome to the March 2015 edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market 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
February has been a month of two halves as usual. 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 dropped off towards the end of the month, although we have taken a number of bookings for later in the year. Most locum assignments coming in are either firms looking to expand and take on additional fee earners whilst there is plenty of work, or alternatively it is sick leave cover. The winter season generates the largest number of sick leave assignments, although this is probably not surprising.

Permanent vacancies are up, which is always good. However this month we have seen a rise in the number of firms contacting us for self-employed consultant roles – not something that has been very common for quite some time. These tend not to be regarded as good quality vacancies by candidates.

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. If a solicitor indicates an interest in their vacancy and is the only solicitor to take an interest, salary levels are probably going to have to match the applicant’s expectations if they want to recruit. There is also still a lack of awareness that candidates do not move for the same salary or less unless they are desperate. Career moves inevitably result in a pay rise.

We think that that in 2015 we will start seeing salary levels going up, after all there haven’t really been any major increases in salaries for solicitors for a good number of years, but this is not evident at the present time in legal job vacancy advertising generally.

Most high street vacancies are still coming in at around the £30-45k mark, even though on £45k you cannot afford a mortgage on more than a single room apartment in most parts of London. We still get firms requesting locally based solicitors for central London and then offering salaries of £30k.

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. Interestingly this month we have seen a few conveyancing candidates becoming available after their firms have let them go. There is no obvious reason for this.

Wills & probate is busy but there is a discrepancy between salary expectations and salaries being offered. This may well resolve itself later in the year.

Commercial property is very similar. I sense a growing number of vacancies going unfilled as there is such a dearth of candidates for them. In particular there is a dearth of applicants prepared to work for the wages being offered.

Family law has gone extremely quiet. We have picked up a family locum assignment in the Falkland Islands for 2 months in May if anyone fancies it – you fly out on a military plane and stay in Stanley to deal with the work before flying home again 2 months later. Apparently the islands are beautiful at this time of year. See below.

Crime is almost non-existent. In some ways we enjoy this – doing crime recruitment has always been a bit adversarial – partners seem to struggle to switch off from the court room when dealing with recruiters, although I appreciate we must sometimes feel lik the enemy!

Litigation – both civil and commercial – is very quiet. Not a lot going on at all. Corporate commercial comes in bursts for us. We are never going to be the type of agency to recruit partners into city firms and we tend to do more on the high street and in house. Both are quiet at the moment.

Employment law work seems to have all but disappeared. We are starting to see solicitors at all levels of the legal profession seeking work – from partners of city firms down to high street – as the fees for employment tribunals kick in and redundancies occur. Still seems strange that in a time when the economy is picking up there are areas of law where it is a struggle to get employment.

It will be interesting to see how the new court fees for civil claims affect recruitment in this area, although surely the future now has to be alternative dispute resolution for claims over £20k, avoiding the courts at all costs? I seem to recall fee hikes in the 1990s, with warnings of impending collapse of all litigation work, but that never happened.

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 presumably fairly busy eating Easter Eggs…

March 2015 – Summary:
* Permanent vacancies up
* Locum assignments down
* Conveyancing vacancies busy, Commercial Property vacancies very busy
* Wills & Probate vacancies up
* Commercial and Civil Litigation vacancies – still very few
* Family vacancies – down
* Commercial Property Solicitors now very difficult to source. Experienced and reliable conveyancers difficult to find for permanent roles. Locums still available in all fields, although getting harder to source for Wills & Probate.

* Market outlook – increasing.

Recently agreed hourly rates:
* London – Litigation Locum – £25 per hour
* Surrey – Conveyancing Locum – £28 per hour
* Leeds – Property Locum – £30 per hour
* Surrey – Conveyancing Locum Ongoing – £30 per hour

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 546
New permanent vacancies added last month: 26
New candidates registering: 97
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies last month: 3
Increase/Decrease in new vacancies from previous month: +1.9%
Increase/Decrease in new candidates from previous month: -20%

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 niche 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 10,500 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

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.

March 2015 Private Practice Law Firm Rates:
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors – 1-5 years PQE, handling residential standard sale price only – £20-28 per hour (slight variation for central London – £25-28 per hour).
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors & ILEX – 5-35 years PQE, handling all levels of conveyancing including managing a department – £26-35 per hour, including central London.
* Commercial Property Solicitors – 1-40 years PQE – usually mainly light commercial conveyancing rather than light and heavyweight. £29-40 per hour. Occasionally in the past we have had candidates up to £46 per hour.
* Wills & Probate Solicitors and Executives – 3-35 years PQE – £30-40 per hour. Add on an extra 20% to the price for a STEP member. For a lawyer experienced in tax and trusts add an additional 20%.
* Family Solicitors – 4-40 years PQE – £22-30 per hour. Very occasionally this goes up to £35 per hour for short notice or a few days cover. Family locums tend to be LSC supervisors and/or panel members.
* Civil Litigation – 1-35 years PQE. £25-35 per hour. Really depends on the type of litigation you have – these rates cover mainstream litigation – eg county court and small claims matters. Rates considerably higher for high court work.

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 10,500 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

The Most Unusual Locum Vacancy in 2015 – Family Law in the Falkland Islands

A new vacancy has arisen with a small solicitors firm based in Stanley in the Falkland Islands.

They seek a family solicitor to join them from May 10th to the 17th July. This may be extended by an additional month but at present this is unclear.

We have worked with the firm before a few years ago. Basically you fly from the UK to Stanley on an RAF flight (I think it was from Brize Norton last time), work in Port Stanley before flying home again the same way at the end of the assignment. It is a long journey and for anyone not aware of where the Falklands are it is worth looking before expressing an interest…

The firm have used us before and last time they paid for flights and accomodation. I understand that the Islands are particularly nice at this time of year and you are there before the winter sets in.

If you are interested please send me your most recent CV to forward across to the firm.

We have over 10,500 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

The Annual Baby Boom Phenomenon and Locum Cover

Every year we see a surge in maternity leave cover and requests for locums. This is known as the ‘Baby Boom’ time slot. For 6 weeks in March and April we go through a time when partners and HR managers call us to enquire about cover. It seems there is a peak time for fee earners giving notice of their intentions to go off on maternity leave in July or August. There is no need for us to go into specifics – one of my children was born in September (!) – but the Baby Boom time slot and subsequent maternity leave always follow the New Year and the Christmas breaks. The colder the winter, the higher the number of pregnancies, or so the theory goes.

The initial maternity cover telephone calls usually sound quite panicky. Partners or Practice Managers tend to instantly pick up the phone to book a locum and seem to think the sky is about to fall on their heads. Quite often we get demands for locums to start immediately even though the maternity cover is not needed for another 3-4 months. Partners panic and think that a pregnant solicitor is instantly going to disappear forever and not return.

So a lot of pressure can be put on us as recruiters to source a locum to start almost immediately and the firm will call us incessantly until we supply a CV.

In about 50% of cases, as soon as we send a CV the partners seem to take a step back from the recruitment (usually when they have had sight of the hourly rates) and decide to put the process on hold. Others will try and get salaried (and hence cheaper) cover, which is very difficult. Some firms actually tell us they are thinking things over but others will simply ignore us for a few months.

By mid-April everything gets back to normal. We enjoy the calm before the storm…

However we then get to June/July time. The phone call at this time of year tends to again by quite panicked. The maternity leave is happening and the partners have become aware that they are going to have to cover the work of the fee earner off ‘enjoying’ themselves on maternity!

We get asked to supply a locum urgently for 9 months starting a week on Monday (in July). This is a nightmare scenario because most professional locums will have annual leave cover already booked in for weeks here and there and most locums remaining are either new to the business or quite junior. Firms always seem surprised when we struggle to source anyone (after all a few months earlier we may have had 3-4 locums available to cover), and hourly rates go higher. This is the 2nd phase of the Baby Boom timeframe and thankfully the end of it until the following March/April.

Are there any lessons to be learnt? Yes.
1. Maternity leave is not the end of the world. It usually lasts 9 months.
2. Admittedly some lawyers will not come back to work, but most seem to.
3. Locums are much better booked in advance.
4. Salaried temporary staff do not really exist unless you are very lucky.
5. Don’t leave arranging cover until a week before maternity leave is due to start.

We have over 10,500 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Our 10% Donations for February 2015
The trustees of the Ten-Percent Foundation (a charitable trust) have met and decided on the following donations for Spring 2015:

Knowsley Domestic Violence Service – £1,000.
Centre 63, Merseyside – £300.
Unicef – £100.
Chester Zoo – £60.
LawCare – £1,000.
Y Care International – £300.
British Stammering Association – £500.
Ace of Clubs – £500 (suggested by Hanne & Co)
Standalone – £200.
Hughes Syndrome Foundation – £100
Time Out Group – £200. (suggested by Chafes)
St Johns Seminary, Tanzania (providing the funding for 5 students to attend school) – £2,200.

Total amount donated so far in 2015 – £6,460. We have a good chunk of money still in the bank and we plan to work out expenditure of this in mid-Summer 2015.

We will get details of how the money has been used by each charity and send out details in the next newsletter. Some of the above charities have been suggested by candidates and clients. Others are linked to our trustees’ own interests.

About Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment
We are a specialist legal recruiter, covering the whole of the UK. A large proportion of our vacancies are based in London and the South East, but we do assist firms elsewhere on a very regular basis. Over 10,500 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.

At present 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 (hence our name). We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 14 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

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

T: 0207 127 4343

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

Legal Recruitment News – February 4th 2015

Contents
▪ Legal Job Market Report
▪ Locum Hourly Rates – 2015 Guide
▪ Register Locum Jobs
▪ Paralegals – a nightmare to recruit
▪ Checking and Verifying Candidates
▪ Our 10% donation to charity – trustees meeting 6th February
▪ Register Permanent Jobs
▪ Legal Salary Reviews Online

Newsletter
Welcome to the February 2015 edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, locum hourly rates and articles on recruiting paralegals and candidate checks. 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
Comments on the current market from Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment:
“Since Christmas we have seen a resumption of the recruitment demand that has not really slowed down since the market picked up in 2012. Firms are still recruiting, candidates are out looking for permanent posts and locum assignments have been the busiest for January we have ever seen. The Law Society Gazette has seen an increase in job postings since the New Year and so have we. Locum demand is up (although you would expect this as it really drops off over Christmas), permanent vacancies have been posted in increasing numbers, but interestingly we have also seen a number of redundancies occurring in law firms around Christmas in the Midlands and North West. Family law and support staff seem to have been two main areas for this.”

February 2015 – Summary:
* Permanent vacancies up
* Locum assignments up
* Conveyancing vacancies still busy, Commercial Property vacancies busy
* Wills & Probate vacancies down
* Commercial and Civil Litigation vacancies – still very few
* Family vacancies – down
* Commercial Property Solicitors difficult to source. Experienced conveyancers difficult to find for permanent roles. Locums currently readily available in all fields.
* Market outlook – increasing.

Recently agreed hourly rates and salaries:
* South Coast – Conveyancing Locum – £30 per hour
* London (not central) – Property Solicitor – £35k.
* London (not central) – Conveyancing Locum – £30 per hour
* Wiltshire – Conveyancing Locum – £35 per hour
* North West – Commercial Property P/T – £33k
* Thames Valley – Locum Legal Cashier – £40 per hour
* Anglia – Conveyancing Locum – £28 per hour
* Home Counties – Family Locum – £25 per hour

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 536
New permanent vacancies added last month: 60
New candidates registering: 121
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies last month: 3.1
Increase/Decrease in new vacancies from previous month: +25%
Increase/Decrease in new candidates from previous month: +133%

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 niche 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.

Key points from the Markit/CIPS UK services survey for February 2015 are as follows:
* Activity and new business both register stronger rises in January
* Employment rises at near-survey record pace
* Prices pressures dissipate
The UK service sector started 2015 in a strong fashion as activity and new business both increased at accelerated and above survey average rates. Companies were suitably encouraged by these trends to hire additional staff at the joint second-fastest rate in the survey history, using their additional capacity to try and clear backlogs and prepare for further business expansion in the coming months.

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 10,500 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Hourly Rates of Pay for Locum Solicitors and Legal Executives 2015
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) and at times when there is an increase in maternity leave cover, which in our experience is usually April/May and October/November.

NB: These rates are intended as a guide only. Hourly rates can vary according to the location, duration and level of expertise, but the figures quoted are quite accurate for the majority of short to medium term locum assignments across the UK. There has been an annual increase in hourly rates since 2011.

2015 Private Practice Law Firm Rates:
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors – 1-5 years PQE, handling residential standard sale price only – £20-28 per hour (slight variation for central London – £25-28 per hour).
* Conveyancing Locum Solicitors & ILEX – 5-35 years PQE, handling all levels of conveyancing including managing a department – £28-37 per hour, including central London.
* Commercial Property Solicitors – 1-40 years PQE – usually mainly light commercial conveyancing rather than light and heavyweight. £29-40 per hour. Occasionally in the past we have had candidates up to £46 per hour.
* Wills & Probate Solicitors and Executives – 3-35 years PQE – £30-40 per hour. Add on an extra 20% to the price for a STEP member. For a lawyer experienced in tax and trusts add an additional 20%.
* Family Solicitors – 4-40 years PQE – £22-30 per hour. Very occasionally this goes up to £35 per hour for short notice or a few days cover. Family locums tend to be LSC supervisors and/or panel members.
* Civil Litigation – 1-35 years PQE. £25-35 per hour. Really depends on the type of litigation you have – these rates cover mainstream litigation – eg county court and small claims matters. Rates considerably higher for high court work.

Local Authority Hourly Rates
For all areas of law tend to be around £35-55 per hour (£45 per hour salary equivalent to £81,000 per annum). In recent times local authority lawyer locum recruitment has been outpricing the general market due to the questionable practice of using an interim management company to control and restrict the agencies who have access to that particular local authority law department. Hourly rates are preset and those we have seen tend to be well above the levels elsewhere in the profession for the same level of locum. The agencies pay the candidate through interim management software (eg Matrix and Comensura) and get a percentage cut per hour. The interim management company also takes an hourly cut.
Presumably this system is used because the local authorities are paying for the interim management company to do the work they used to do themselves (after all how long does it really take a HR Manager to call round 5-6 specialist agencies to get a locum booked for the following week), but there we go!

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 10,500 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 – www.interimlawyers.co.uk

Paralegals are a Nightmare to Recruit
We have always charged flat rates regardless of salary, as for some reason it is usually easier dealing with senior solicitors and executives than it is sorting out paralegals. In fact after our last two experiences on paralegal roles I am wondering about turning our fee structure around and charging more to source paralegals and less to recruit solicitors and senior staff.

Some recruitment agencies (well most actually) charge increased fee structures for higher level appointments. So for example Randstad charge 17% for salaries of less than £20k, 20% for salaries of £30-40k and 25% for salaries of £40k+.

Paralegals are a nightmare.

Every time we get a vacancy in for a paralegal I involuntarily shudder.

Applicants for paralegal roles can be the most wishy-washy, non-committal, half-hearted, barely-interested candidates we have the pleasure to work with. Don’t get me wrong. I know the fun and games of being a paralegal – low pay, debts to service, constant eye out for training contracts and unkept promises of future promotion that rarely materialises. However the vast majority of paralegal applicants are absolutely dire and it is not surprising they do not progress any further in their careers.

Take a recent role we have had with an in house legal department. I should start by saying that they are not particularly going out of their way to be accommodating and offers have been on the lower side, but that is by the by. Looking back at my own legal career, if someone had offered me the chance to interview for a role like this one, I would have been there like a shot.

We take instructions from the client. They are a service company with an in house legal department and looking for a litigation paralegal with at least 6 months experience in defendant civil litigation and good knowledge of CPR rules and the small claims track. Salary levels are up to the mid £20ks depending on experience.

Incidentally the word ‘paralegal’ is defined in general terms as anyone who isn’t a qualified solicitor, barrister or legal executive but who does fee earning work in a law firm. Forget the claims about qualified paralegals and paralegal qualifications – someone will be making money out of it somewhere…

We post the vacancy across our system and email our registered candidates.

Within a few hours – success! Our first applicant. He lives in South London and the post is about 70 miles away. We ask him to doublecheck the location (confirmed OK), we check his salary requirements (fine) and also get further details about his litigation experience. A CV is forwarded across to the client, who immediately gets back to ask us whether the candidate is going to relocate to work. We email the candidate to check on this point – 5 weeks and lots of chasing up – no response.

The second applicant comes from a job board. She is a hairdresser who lives locally to the client. The third is a welder, the fourth works in a conveyancing department and fancies a change into litigation. And so on. In fact I think to date we have had to filter about 50 CVs from candidates who do not have any legal experience at all but thought they would apply nonetheless.

Candidate number 52 looks good. She lives within an hour’s commute, does not have a job after being made redundant and is available immediately. We get her salary expectations and send a CV over. The client immediately interviews and makes an offer at the level requested. The candidate turns them down. Firstly she has decided they are further away than she thought and secondly she has other job interviews to attend and for posts where she may get paid a lot more. Not job offers – just job interviews.

Back to the drawing board.

We send over another 3 or 4 CVs and arrange interviews. Another candidate goes for the post – indicates his salary – looking to return to a litigation role from administrative work. The firm offer him his current salary after interview and indicate that there is future promotion possible. The candidate turns them down. Wants more money and not prepared to give up administrative work for the opportunity to return to a fee earning role.

Back to the drawing board again.

Finally a candidate who had an interview arranged with the client, but then cancelled with 3 hours to spare because her firm offered her a promotion to stay, has got back in touch. She thinks she may have made a mistake – the opportunity may benefit her career more than her current role – and now wants to attend an interview. Can we set one up? The client was slightly hesitant, understandably so, but has agreed to meet. Another candidate also waits in the wings.

I don’t think this attitude is prevalent in many other professional industries, but every time someone posts paralegal vacancies with us this is a fairly common process. Half-hearted applications (so many CVs have spelling mistakes or just miss out basic information – name, current role, qualifications etc..), half-hearted commitment to attend interviews, a complete lack of interest in career progression or planning and no recognition of the need for professionalism. There also seems to be a lot of interest in what employers can do for candidates, but not vice versa. Are graduates encouraged to only think about themselves so much that they fail to appreciate jobs are not offered to them solely for their benefit and not the employers?

Perhaps one of the problems is the general lack of a decent level of salary to justify the expenditure on training? Who knows. I do know that very often there is a reason why some people remain paralegals for a long time and are unable to get a training contract. It involves the words ‘commitment’ and ‘lack of’.

We have over 10,500 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Checking and Verifying Candidates
How do we check and verify candidates?
Firstly, the Law Society maintain an online directory of all solicitors with current practising certificates. This means that a solicitor can instantly be identified and confirmed to be holding a practising certificate covering them for the time of either the introduction for permanent vacancies and for assignments on a locum basis. This is a very easy check, and although our terms of business for both permanent and temporary work put the onus of checking onto our clients we do make sure that solicitors have practising certificates in place.

Secondly, because solicitors with practising certificates have had their identity checked, or right of residence and also for proof of identity, we do not need to undertake additional identity checks on solicitor candidates for permanent vacancies. Again the onus is on clients to double check everything, but a practising certificate is usually evidence in itself of identity and residence. Problems can arise with non-solicitor candidates or solicitors working on a non-practising basis.

Are there Dodgy Locums?
There are at least two locums out there who purport to be lawyers/legal executives/executives/legal advisers who have convictions and long spells of detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Both are struck-off solicitors and both are still doing the rounds and trying to obtain legal work. One has covered his tracks so well that it is difficult to work out from his CV that he has ever been a solicitor and spent a number of years in prison having committed a multi-million pound fraud. The other one is easier to spot because the CV does not make sense, but both have altered their names slightly to avoid detection from background searches. We only discovered one after a client tipped us off having received the CV. The other one keeps submitting a CV for various vacancies we advertise from time to time and also calls firms directly on a speculative basis. Because there is no central register for non-qualified lawyers, these types of candidate require us to be a little bit more careful with background checks.

Permanent candidates are very different, basically because there is always time between job offer and a start date to do any background checks or searches, but for locums we have a system in place to try and pick up any issues.

The Locum Verification Process
When a locum registers with us we do a Google search of their name and a few variations – this applies for solicitors, legal executives and licensed conveyancers, as well as non-qualified staff. The Institute of Legal Executives maintains a register of legal executives who have been reprimanded and we consult this from time to time. For solicitors we also telephone the SRA and ask for disclosure of any practising certificate conditions or issues that have arisen. Although the SRA do not keep any records after a certain time, which cleans any solicitor’s record, there is a website that collects the data and keeps publishing the fact that a solicitor has been before the SDT or had sanctions applied by the SRA although they do not appear to be able to give any details anymore. The SRA information online is not always as thorough as one would expect. For example they seem to take a considerable time to publish decisions and also neglect to give information on certain types of sanctions that have been applied.

Every locum is expected to provide us with proof of ID and proof of residence. This is usually undertaken prior to the commencement of an assignment, but in some cases where the placement is urgent we have to source this detail whilst the assignment is ongoing.

References are also obtained or at least set in motion. We usually have at least one reference on file for each locum and we usually get these wherever possible from a recent locum assignment. Again if we have a new candidate then our efforts to obtain a reference can be ongoing at the start of the assignment. A lot of locums keep a ‘to whom it may concern’ reference which makes life a lot easier.

Could we be more thorough?
There are recruitment agencies out there who go through every piece of employment by a candidate over the last 10-15 years. We decided a long time ago that we did not think this necessary and presented more problems than it solved. Firstly a lot of law firms change hands, close down, open up, move on and tracing staff can be difficult. Secondly the administrative burden of doing this would require a considerably higher fee for any placement. Thirdly if you were approached by a recruitment agency about a member of staff you employed 15 years ago would you ever get round to replying to them? I certainly wouldn’t.

We have a system in place whereby a further check is done by way of background check every 12 months on each locum to make sure nothing has arisen in the meantime.

What information do we disclose to our clients?
Everything. Absolutely everything we find. The last thing we want to occur is for one of our clients to discover something about a candidate and call us with the detail. Its embarrassing to say the least. We disclose any practising certificate conditions, details of any bankruptcies, details of any appearances before the SDT or investigations by the SRA. We do not withhold any information, although we do have to find it out first in order to disclose it!

For locums we make our clients aware of anything we come across that might affect their decision to take that candidate on. If a check throws anything up we pass it across to our clients. Sometimes this is easier said than done.

For example one of our locums had an issue occur after our initial check was undertaken and before we conducted our first annual check 12 months later. It was only by coincidence that we happened to look into their background in the interim and discovered something we felt needed to be disclosed. This we did immediately, even though it threatened to scupper a long term assignment. Our reputation as a straight-talking legal recruitment agency is more important to us than short term profit (although it is of course tempting at times to cross over to the dark side and put this first!).

The best type of locum candidate is one who has a wealth of repeat bookings to their name, and the sign of a good permanent candidate is one who has not moved very often in their career. Naturally it is rarely as simple as this, but a few simple checks at our end can really make the difference in ensuring candidates are who they say they are.

We have over 10,500 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Our 10% Donation – Friday 6th February decisions
Every year since 2000 we have committed as a company to donate a percentage of our annual profits to charity. This includes any subsidiary companies and operations. For 14 years our board of directors has agreed to 10% (after all, how on earth could we carry on with our business name?). We have now donated over £66,000 to the Ten-Percent Foundation, a small sum in the general scheme of things, but a lot of money for a company of our size. Our trustee meeting is set for Friday February 6th. If you have any suggestions to add to those already put forward by our clients, law firms and candidates, please please feel free to email them across to me at cv@ten-percent.co.uk. We look for small charities preferably with interesting projects we can support on an ongoing basis.

About Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment
We are a specialist legal recruiter, covering the whole of the UK. A large proportion of our vacancies are based in London and the South East, but we do assist firms elsewhere on a very regular basis. Over 10,500 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.

At present 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 (hence our name). We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 14 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

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

T: 0207 127 4343

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