Legal Recruitment News

Legal Recruitment News – September 3rd 2014

Newsletter
Welcome to the September edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, locum availabiity and new candidates. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers, Ten-Percent, Ten-Percent Legal Careers and TP Transcriptions).

Job Market Update – September 3rd
Summer 2014 – Summary:
* Permanent vacancies up
* Locum assignments up
* Conveyancing vacancies up, Commercial Property vacancies up
* Crime vacancies gone, Personal Injury vacancies disappearing
* Employment Law vacancies – non-existent
* Commercial and Civil Litigation vacancies – few here and there
* Family vacancies – up
* Further increase in proprerty vacancies attracting very few applications. Commercial property solicitors extremely difficult to source. Conveyancers difficult to find.
* Market outlook – still very buoyant. Salaries now rising.

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 593
New permanent vacancies added in August 2014: 32
New candidates registering: 91
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies in May: 3.8
Increase/Decrease in new vacancies from previous month: -8%
Increase/Decrease in new candidates from previous month: -12%

Key points from the KPMG Job Market survey for August 2014:

▪ Stronger growth of permanent and temporary staff appointments

▪ Record decline in availability of permanent candidates

▪ Starting salary growth close to June’s survey-high

Bernard Brown, Partner and Head of Business Services at KPMG, said:
“For the first time in months we are witnessing churn in the labour market. It seems that employees are finally beginning to wake up to the opportunities available to them, with the
rates of growth of both permanent and temporary placements accelerating simultaneously. Perhaps it’s true that ‘every person has their price’ because the movement in labour is
coinciding with another rise in starting salaries. Just a few months ago employers couldn’t tempt staff to switch roles, but indications are that employees’ caution over change is being
replaced with hunger for something new.”

This review is undertaken by a market research company who contact 100s of recruitment agencies across the UK to undertake a monthly questionnaire. We are part of the panel and get exclusive access to the report. KPMG report that the Midlands is the place to be for candidates moving and employers paying good money to get them, but this is far from reality for the legal profession – the Midlands is not a prime area for recruitment and never has been!

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.

Candidate Registrations in the last 3 days
28081520 1 year PQE residential and commercial conveyancing solicitor looking in London for a new post. Salary levels around £35-40k min.
27082232 Commercial Property Solicitor, 10+ years PQE, looking in Cumbria. Permanent – salary expectations high.
28081612 Conveyancing Solicitor with 2 years experience looking around East London. Permanent.
03090919 Conveyancing Solicitor, 2 years PQE, experienced working in a HNW environment, looking at central London firms. Permanent, salary £45k +.
02091214 Litigation Solicitor Locum looking in Edinburgh.
02091141 Legal Cashier seeking work in and around Kent and SE London. Permanent.
01091921 Employment Paralegal, 2 years experience, looking in London. Permanent.
01091509 Conveyancing Paralegal looking in Greater London. Permanent.
28081022 Property Solicitor looking for locum or permanent roles. 6 years PQE. London.
We have over 10,000 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 Retain Staff in a Busy Job Market
With over 11,000 solicitors and lawyers on our books, Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment is usually well placed to see when a firm is doing the right things and when it isn’t. It costs a minimum of £4,000 each time a fee earner leaves a firm and joins another one – not just in recruitment costs but also in training, fee earner hours, administration and the like. Quite a lot of job hunting is done because of current salary levels – this is why the top tip is to pay the right amount!
Here are the top 5 ways of ensuring that your key staff do not up sticks and leave whenever the recruitment wave is on the up (key times of the year are September, January and April-June).
1. Pay them the right amount.
This is the biggest bug bear amongst employees. They read the papers, they watch the news. And they know that the markets are on the up. They also know that your firm is very busy, and when a firm is very busy it means profits and turnover are going up. There is rarely any memory retained about the fact that you kept them on during extremely difficult times a few years ago. No doubt there is a vacancy somewhere on the internet offering money that is off the scale for your firm and no doubt your employees are tempted… Keep track of salaries by reading the job adverts in the back of the Gazette – this will give you a good idea of rates. Greater London levels are at the high end – the North West and North East are still pretty low.
2. Make sure you review salaries and pay.
Even if you don’t increase pay, go through the motions of ensuring that you at least consider reviewing it. Annual or 6 monthly reviews go down extremely well – this is often the only chance an employee has to discuss their income with anyone. Listen carefully, don’t judge.
3. Consider flexible working arrangements.
One of the key reasons for staff seeking a move is to try and negotiate flexibility around other interests and family life. There are some firms out there who are notoriously bad at considering altering hours, increasing annual leave or allowing work from home. You are behind the times – this is now becoming the new norm. 9am to 5pm at most small to medium firms is no longer essential. Think carefully – it doesn’t cost you anything and can score highly in the loyalty stakes.
4. Make sure you have a happy working environment.
We recently had a call from a candidate looking to make a move because the partners at their firm shout at each other (not at the staff). This was making the working environment extremely unpleasant. Listen to the way your staff speak to each other – are there obvious problems? Do team bonding – it doesn’t hurt to go for a drink or a meal every now and again on a Friday night – who knows – you may even enjoy it.
5. Make sure your office environment is nice to work in.
Have a look around your offices – are they nice for your staff to sit in for 7-10 hours a day? Do clients feel comfortable? Do you feel comfortable? When was the last time you painted the window frames? Do you need to make a trip to Ikea for some new chairs?
It doesn’t cost much to improve and just a few small and quick adjustments could save you £1000s in retaining staff.

Cut the Clutter on your Desk and save time
I recently read an article about saving time – with tips including outsourcing everything you possibly can, delegating as much work as possible and avoiding meetings. One of the tips was to reduce the clutter on your desk because looking for documents and items can take up so much of your time.
These are the three things to do with paperwork on your desk:
1. Delegate It
2. File it
3. Bin it
Apparently most of the stuff we file away never gets seen again and in fact it would have been better to bin it from the outset. There is a professor in the USA who tips all his paperwork each month into a desk drawer and at the end of the month he throws the whole lot into the bin. I think this is extremely brave and would never dare to be so bold, but it is certainly one way to get rid of stuff off your desk!
There should be no paperwork on your desk at the end of the day – instead it should be in a filing tray, an action tray or the bin. Stationery should be in a desk tidy or drawer. Go and buy some trays at lunchtime and invest in a desk tidy for your pens. It makes the world of difference turning up to work to find a blank slate rather than piles of papers.

The Easiest and Quickest Way to Grow your Business
There are 5 ways to grow your business – increase customers, get customers to buy more, increase the value of each transaction, increase prices or increase efficiency.
By far the quickest and easiest way, according to expert pricing accountant Peter Hill, is simply
to increase your prices. He issues a challenge to businesses – if you want to increase your profits in one, easy step, increase your prices by 5% immediately.
A quick example would be a conveyancing quote I recently had. We contacted three law firms to get a price on selling a field (sale transaction is less than £20k) and got quotes of £475, £400 and £200.
Thinking about it now – if the £200 quote had been £210 it still would have been the lowest price, and if I had been a bit distrustful of the low quote I still would have gone with the medium quote with a 5% increase at £420.
Applying this to our own business does not really work, because in recruitment most of our business is on a percentage basis and varies according to the salaries being paid, not the work put in. However to an hourly rate firm (ie a solicitors practice) this could make a big difference.
Assuming your firm (limited company) turned over £100k last year with £60k profits and paid corporation tax at 20% on the profits, you would have managed to make £48k after tax. If you increase your prices by 5% you would have turned over £105k, with £65k profits and made £52k after tax. The extra 5% price would have generated you £4k in net profit.
Not bad for just adjusting your prices slightly upwards.
The downside is of course the annoyed customer who wants to know why the price has just gone up. Peter Hill suggests that you should ignore them and concentrate instead on the vast majority of clients who are happy with the service and as a result will pay to stay.
Are you brave enough to try it? We are going to give it a go with one of our non-recruitment businesses. I’ll keep you posted with the results in 12 months time.

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 fee of just £60 per month (terms apply) or 15% one-off fees for permanent and 18% for locum. 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. He also provides a career coaching service to qualified lawyers and law graduates, although this is on a very selective basis.

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 £51,000 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

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
E: jobs@interimlawyers.co.uk
E: jobs@ten-percent.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

Legal Recruitment News – June 3rd 2014

Contents
▪ Legal Job Market Report
▪ New Candidate Registrations in last 3 days – click here
▪ Locums available now – click here
▪ Phantom Jobs and Rogue Recruitment Agencies
▪ Register Vacancies
▪ Legal Salary Reviews Online
▪ £60 Unlimited Recruitment

Newsletter
Welcome to the June edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, phantom jobs and rogue recruitment agents, locum availabiity and new candidates. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers, Ten-Percent, Ten-Percent Legal Careers and TP Transcriptions).

Job Market Update – June 3rd

May 2014 – summed up in a few sentences:
Permanent vacancies same
Locum vacancies up on April
Conveyancing up, Commercial Property up
Crime down, Personal Injury down
Litigation & Family up
Further increase in vacancies attracting no, poor quality or few applications. Commercial property becoming a desert. Conveyancing not far off. Conveyancing Solicitors now as rare as hens teeth.
Market outlook – still very buoyant. Salaries expected to start rising shortly.

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 588
New permanent vacancies added in May 2014: 39
New candidates registering: 113
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies in May: 3.5
Increase/Decrease in new vacancies from previous month: -5%
Increase/Decrease in new candidates from previous month: +10%

Key points from the KPMG Job Market survey for May 2014:
• Permanent placements growth accelerates, but temp billings rise at slower pace
• Decline in candidate availability intensifies
• Fastest permanent salary growth since July 2007

Bernard Brown, Partner and Head of Business Services at KPMG, said:
“With starting salaries rising at their fastest rate for almost seven years and temporary placements growth slowing down, people would be forgiven for thinking that the time is right to change jobs. Yet the truth is far different. The number of people putting themselves on the jobs market has dropped at its sharpest rate since 2004. It is this shortage of skilled labour that is forcing employers to tempt talent with improved pay, rather than new-found confidence.”

This review is undertaken by a market research company who contact 100s of recruitment agencies across the UK to undertake a monthly questionnaire. We are part of the panel and get exclusive access to the report.

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 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.

Candidate Registrations in the last 3 days

Member firms get access to full CVs for unlimited vacancies for just £60 per month – full details by email or on our website. Email us to request a CV or register vacancies
▪ 03061410 Conveyancing Executive looking specifically in Guildford and Woking. Permanent or locum.
▪ 03061127 Paralegal with Will drafting experience and some property work – 12 months in total – relocating to London.
▪ 02061646 Personal Injury Locum looking around Cardiff and Bristol for a suitable post.
▪ 02060925 Locum Conveyancing Lawyer available to cover assignments in the North West and the West Midlands. June to September.
▪ 01061306 Conveyancing Solicitor with over 20 years experience looking for long term cover in and around central London.
▪ 03061410 Family Locum looking for assignments in the West Midlands.
▪ 03061239 Conveyancing Fee Earner looking for work in the West Midlands. Over 10 years experience including extensive plot sales and new build exposure. Available immediately.
▪ 03061139 Conveyancing Paralegal looking in Birmingham City Centre for permanent posts.
▪ 03061051 Conveyancing and Commercial Property Locum Solicitor looking around central London for work.
▪ 02061426 Commercial Litigation, Construction and Reinsurance Locum looking around London.
▪ 02061359 NQ Solicitor with general practice background – litigation, employment, probate, costs experience, family, PI. London. Permanent.
▪ 02061248 Commercial Litigation Solicitor – c.1 year PQE looking around London. Permanent.

We have over 10,000 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

Phantom Jobs and Rogue Recruitment Agencies
Very recently the Law Society Gazette published an article online about phantom recruitment agents and jobs. The complaint appeared to be that candidates were attending interviews and then not hearing anything back afterwards. Another complaint appeared to be that recruitment agents were not responding to job applications with feedback.

We commented on the article, which can be found here – http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/analysis/comment-and-opinion/curse-of-phantom-recruitment-agents/5041219.article, but in relation to phantom jobs and recruitment agencies we have the following points:
1. The problems of phantom recruitment agents tend to be specifically linked to new start ups. After all, what could be easier than setting up a recruitment agency, registering for a free job board as an employer, making up 30 vacancies, sitting back to wait for the CVs to roll in and then use those CVs to promote your agency to firms in order to get vacancies posted and candidates interviews?
2. Candidates often complain that recruitment agents haven’t got back to them and as a result the recruitment agent is useless. That may be true – I am sure at times candidates find me to be pretty useless when I don’t get back to them, but unfortunately recruitment is a sales driven business. If we put a CV in for a candidate and then get no response because of the reasons below, we can only pester the firm for so long before we have to leave the vacancy and move on.
3. Very often the reason vacancies do not get filled is because the firms do not want them to be filled, not because the recruitment consultant has in any way failed in his or her job.
The recruitment agent has possibly bent over backwards to push the candidates through the process, arranged the interview, spent ages getting the firm to agree to go forward, and then the firm bolt down the hatches and refuse to speak to him/her.

Over the years I have been in recruitment we have experienced vacancies being withdrawn at all stages of the process (which is perfectly understandable) and also being altered as the recruitment process has progressed (again understandable – circumstances change).
However we have also experienced firms where partners have been unable to decide whether to recruit even after advertising, shortlisting, interviewing and second interviewing candidates and as a result the vacancy has fallen through months down the line. Firms have set up 6 first interviews and then offered the job to the first person who came along, practice managers have indicated that they have authority to recruit, gone through the motions and then pulled out because in reality there was no vacancy in the first place.

In these circumstances legal recruitment consultants are not the problem. Agencies are very good at pushing the process along – after all most companies only get paid by commission (unlike Ten-Percent Legal who offer unlimited recruitment deals on a monthly basis).
1. One of the complaints in the article was that some vacancies offer the earth and suggesting that the recruitment consultant has made up a salary range or in some way exaggerated the role. I am sure this happens to a certain extent but very often salary ranges are completely wrong because client solicitor firms do not indicate salary ranges to us when posting vacancies. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment insist that our 99 member firms do provide salary ranges, which can make some of our job advert salary levels extremely accurate, but firms using us on a one-off basis tend to just say ‘negotiable’. When posting the vacancy onto a job board such as ChanceryLane.co.uk the agency is required to enter the salary range. This is why vacancies sometimes have such a broad salary range attached to them like £25k to £60k.

Very often I think recruitment consultants are viewed in the same way as estate agents. Recruitment is considered money for old rope – so is estate agency! However both still exist and at the moment I imagine most agencies in the country are extremely busy – be it recruitment or estate.

When we started out in April 2000 it took us 8 months to make our first placement – with the Abbey National bank as it was then. Unfortunately the candidate left after a few days and it was another 2 months after this before we made our first placement and money started to come in to our bank account.

Recruitment is not as easy as you may think…

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 fee of just £60 per month (terms apply) or 15% one-off fees for permanent and 18% for locum. 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. He also provides a career coaching service to qualified lawyers and law graduates, although this is on a very selective basis.

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 £51,000 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

Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent
£60 Per Month Recruitment Scheme

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
E: jobs@interimlawyers.co.uk
E: jobs@ten-percent.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

Newsletter
Welcome to the May edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, locum availabiity and new candidates. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers, Ten-Percent, Ten-Percent Legal Careers and TP Transcriptions).

Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

Job Market Update – May 8th
April-May 2014 – summed up in a few sentences:
* Permanent vacancies up
* Locum vacancies up in April
* Conveyancing up – severe shortage of NQ-5 year PQE solicitors
* Commercial Property – severe shortage of all candidates
* Continued increase in vacancies attracting only poor quality or very few applications.
* Market outlook – still buoyant.

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 550
New permanent vacancies added in April 2014: 44
New candidates registering: 105
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies in April: 3
Increase/Decrease in new vacancies from previous month: -15%
Increase/Decrease in new candidates from previous month: -14%

CIPS UK Services Report for past 4 weeks:
* Activity and new business both increase at sharp rates
* Employment up sharply in line with positive expectations for growth
* Cost inflation continues to weaken

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 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.

4 in 10 Lawyers would not encourage anyone to follow in their footsteps

A new survey has been commissioned showing that 4 out of 10 solicitors would NOT encourage anyone to follow in their footsteps.

Wesleyan for Lawyers managed to get hold of 103 ‘lawyers’ to conduct this poll, which is pretty poor considering there are over 120,000 solicitors on the Roll in the UK and considerably more support staff and non-qualified fee earners. Very unrepresentative and a bit of a non-news story!

However I suspect the real figure is something above 60%.

Why? 7 reasons.

1. I cannot imagine anyone who deals with the Legal Aid Agency wanting to encourage anyone else to follow in their footsteps.
2. High street solicitors who have not got to partnership status are unlikely to suggest to anyone else that it really is a good idea to run up debts of £44,000 going through the education and training bits before earning a maximum salary of £40,000 for the remainder of their career.
3. City lawyers in my experience seem to hate their jobs, themselves, the long hours and the lack of much of a life, even though they are getting paid considerable sums of money. Whilst they may want to attempt to glamourise their roles in the firms and essentially call it a vocation, I suspect a lot would not suggest following them.
4. Newly qualified solicitors outside the Magic Circle firms must look at their loans and overdrafts and wonder how and why on earth they ever got to the position they are in.
5. Lawyers who have gone off to work in local authorities and as lecturers must again look at how hard they worked, what they gave up and the debts they have had to work through and pay off and wonder why they ever bothered.
6. Partners who spend about 70 hours in the office each week with work at the weekends as well catching up with paperwork are hardly likely to want to encourage anyone else to follow them.
7. Any lawyer who has the pleasure of regularly dealing with the Courts is not exactly going to speak about their experiences with any glowing reference.

So assuming there are 120,000 solicitors in England & Wales, I reckon this must surely account for over 60,000 of them. With this in mind, I think the Wesleyan survey is probably not too far away.

How many lawyers have called for a plumber or electrician to come and do some work, discovered their daily rate is not far off and sat back and wondered if only?

There again, if the same poll was undertaken with GPs and consultants, how many of them would encourage anyone to follow in their footsteps?

Are we as professionals always liable to winge about our existence, regardless of how good or bad it is?

Jonathan Fagan is a Solicitor (non-practising) and Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment.

Permanent Candidate Registrations in the last 3 days
Email us to request a CV or register vacancies by clicking here – Locum or Permanent

23057 November 1994 qualified crime solicitor with duty status and higher rights of audience. Looking for freelance duty or HCA posts in the North West.

23060 2007 qualified commercial property solicitor looking to return to the profession post career break. Looking for a part time post in North East Hampshire, Surrey or Reading. Speaks fluent German.

23061 Conveyancing paralegal with over 2 years experience. Looking for a post in Central London.

23062 September 2014 qualified solicitor with experience in family and child care law, residential property, property litigation, mental health and regulatory law. Looking for a family law post in London or Surrey.

23063 June 2014 qualified crime solicitor and accredited police station representative with further experience in VHCC work, regulatory law and family law. Looking for a crime or fraud post in London.

23064 September 2014 qualified local authority solicitor experienced in all aspects of in house local authority work including planning, commercial property, commercial contracts and commercial and civil litigation. Looking for a planning post in London and the Home Counties.

23065 1988 qualified commercial property solicitor. Looking for locum post either in house or in private practice following short career break. Looking for posts in West Yorkshire, Manchester and Derbyshire or the Midlands.

23066 Conveyancing paralegal with experience since October 2012. Looking for a post in Manchester and the North West.

23067 July 2011 qualified immigration solicitor and senior immigration caseworker with OISC Level 3 accreditation. Looking for a post in the Midlands.

23068 Highly experienced company commercial lawyer with experience dating back to 2006. Experienced in commercial contracts, IP and trademarks and commercial litigation. Looking for a company commercial or IP post in London, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

23070 Personal injury fee earner handling own caseload of RTA, EL and PL claims. Over 14 years experience. Looking for a post in South or Mid Wales or around the Bristol/Bath areas.

23071 2001 qualified wills & probate solicitor dealing with will drafting, lasting powers of attorney and probate matters. Looking for a post within a 45 minute commute of Slough.

23076 September 2006 qualified employment law solicitor experience in both contentious and non-contentious matters. Looking for a post in London, Essex or North Kent.

23077 Conveyancing paralegal with over 12 months experience looking in London.

23080 Legal assistant and legal receptionist with conveyancing and wills & probate experience. Looking for a post in Central London.

23081 Legal cashier with over 3 years experience. Looking for a post in the Midlands.

23088 Legal executive specialising in conveyancing with experience dating back to 1990 in residential, commercial and agricultural property. 5 years experience working in the property department of the LA as well as private practice experience. Looking for a post in Shropshire, West Midlands, South Cheshire or North and Mid Wales.

 

New Locums

22953 1974 qualified senior litigation solicitor, working as a professional support lawyer covering insurance law and regulatory law. Looking for similar locum post as a professional support lawyer, document reviewer and legal support. Looking for posts in London and the South East. Speaks French and some knowledge of Spanish and Italian.

22959 2009 qualified FILEX legal executive specialising in claimant personal injury, RTA, OL, EL. Looking for locum or permanent posts. Willing to travel as far as Worcester, Swansea or Cardiff for contract position or around Herefordshire for a permanent post.

22961 2003 qualified family law solicitor experienced in all aspects for family and child care law, both privately and publicly funded. Further experience in residential conveyancing. Looking for family/child care locum posts in South, North or West Yorkshire.

22962 1990 qualified corporate commercial solicitor with extensive experience in corporate finance, non contentious trademark work, compliance and company secretarial work. Looking for locum or permanent posts in the South West of England including Wiltshire or London.

22967 December 2002 qualified wills & probate solicitor. Looking for locum posts anywhere in the South East, Oxfordshire and surrounding counties.

22993 1980 qualified property solicitor with experience in both residential and commercial conveyancing. Looking for locum posts within a 40 mile radius of Northampton.

23000 1983 senior commercial litigation solicitor looking for locum posts anywhere in the UK.

23012 March 2003 qualified conveyancing solicitor with a further 16 years as a qualified FILEX legal executive Experienced in residential conveyancing, wills & probate and light commercial work. Looking for locum or permanent posts in the West Midlands.

23049 November 1999 qualified employment law solicitor with over 6 years specialist experience and a background in general civil litigation. Looking for locum posts in the North East of England.

23053 1988 qualified highly experienced commercial and residential property solicitor. Looking for locum posts in London and the South East and available immediately. Hourly rate – market rates.

 

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 fee of just £60 per month (terms apply) or 15% one-off fees for permanent and 18% for locum. 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. He also provides a career coaching service to qualified lawyers and law graduates, although this is on a very selective basis.

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment also owns Interim Lawyers, a specialist locum service, charging 18% fees for placements. We also own a further 45 domain names and websites. We operate an outsourced UK based typing service as well 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 £51,000 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

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
E: jobs@interimlawyers.co.uk
E: jobs@ten-percent.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

Legal Recruitment News – April 3rd 2014

Welcome to the April edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, becoming an expert in 10,000 hours, locum availabiity and new candidates. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers, Ten-Percent, Ten-Percent Legal Careers and TP Transcriptions).

Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

Job Market Update – April 3rd

April 2014 – summed up in a few sentences:
* Permanent vacancies up
* Locum vacancies up on March but still lower than an average month
* Conveyancing up
* Crime down
* Litigation up
* Further increase in vacancies attracting no, poor quality or few applications.
* Market outlook – still buoyant.

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 549
New permanent vacancies added in March 2014: 52
New candidates registering: 122
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies in March: 3.5
Increase/Decrease in new vacancies from previous month: +67%
Increase/Decrease in new candidates from previous month: -24%

KPMG Job Market Report for past 4 weeks:
* Faster rise in permanent placements but growth of temp billings eases
* Salaries for permanent staff increase at sharpest rate since October 2007
* Candidate availability declines at stronger pace
(this is very similar to our findings)

Comment from KPMG Partner:
“Britain appears to be suffering from a clash of confidence. With permanent appointments rising at the strongest rate for almost four years, employers appear determined to show they are secure enough to make long-term commitments. Candidates, on the other hand, are less certain, preferring to stay put than advance their careers in a new environment.

Temporary placements are falling and with starting salaries rising at their highest rate for almost seven years, all the indications are that any concerns over job security may be unwarranted. Those in the North are recruiting hardest and fastest, and even the slowest area – in London – is seeing a marked increase. The hope now must be that employees and employers rethink their approach and the clash of confidence is replaced by a meeting of minds.”

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 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.

Permanent Candidate Registrations in the last 3 days

02041613 Family Panel member with some litigation, looking around Essex.
31031442 Legal Cashier with over 10 years experience with same firm, looking in Kent.
25031449 Conveyancing Solicitor, NQ, looking in Reading.
02042245 Junior Litigation Paralegal looking around London. County Court experience.
02042127 Family Solicitor, 5 years PQE, looking around Essex.
02042030 Conveyancing Solicitor, 5 years PQE, with commercial mortgage experience as
well. High end, central London – FT or PT. £60k+ salary.
02041935 Planning Solicitor from private practice. NQ level. Midlands or London.
02041113 Wills & Probate Solicitor, PT, looking in N London or Herts. 10 years PQE.
01041336 Family Solicitor 10+ years PQE, looking around Hampshire and Dorset.
24031946 Duty Solicitor from Legal 500 firm looking around Yorkshire. Junior.

Locums Available Immediately

01041029 Locum Conveyancing Solicitor, just finished a 6 month assignment, looking around London and the South East.
21837 May 2009 qualified litigation solicitor, experience in civil and commercial litigation, dispute resolution, property litigation, employment law (contentious and non-contentious) and debt recovery.
21816 Senior solicitor, experienced in residential and commercial property and tax law. Also able to carry out wills & probate work. Looking for locum posts in London.
21807 1998 qualified commercial property solicitor working as a property consultant. Experienced in landlord & tenant as well as commercial property.
21759 November 2000 qualified litigation solicitor with experience in general civil litigation, contentious probate, insolvency & bankruptcy, debt recovery and professional negligence. Looking for locum post in London, along the M4 corridor including Reading.
21724 Litigation fee earner with over 10 years experience in personal injury, both claimant and defendent, (RTA, EL, PL).
21707 1986 qualified locum conveyancing solicitor dealing with a mix of residential and commercial conveyancing.
21690 September 2010 qualified wills & probate solicitor dealing with contentious and non-contentious wills, probate and trusts.
We have over 700 candidates registered for locum work.

Conveyancing – salary warning

In an expanding market it is quite easy to spot trends, and as of yet we have not seen any marked improvement in salary levels filtering through. Back in 2007 when the market was at its peak it was quite common for candidates to attend job interviews, indicate a salary level and then negotiate for about 1-2 weeks before agreeing to join a firm. On numerous occasions we placed conveyancing solicitors on salaries around London of c.£45-50k plus bonus and package.
These sorts of levels are yet to be seen in the current market, but I anticipate firms starting to up the ante in order to attract more applicants. We have a number of vacancies around the UK where we have simply been unable to get any applications of note at all. Conveyancers are very nervous about making moves from jobs where their salary still reflects the recession levels and it is not going to be long before more of these come back to market.
It may well be time to look at your conveyancing team’s salary levels and make sure you are paying the right amount to retain your staff. Otherwise you could start to see departures as other firms increase their offerings to recruit and expand. If you are paying a 2-3 year PQE conveyancing solicitor less than £30k anywhere in the UK, this is something to seriously consider carefully. Anything over £40k and you are probably secure for the time being.
If you still have your staff on some kind of profit share arrangement dating back to 2008/2009 in the property department it is definitely time to start thinking about moving them into salaried positions. Sooner or later they will start looking elsewhere unless they are making considerable sums of money through this type of arrangement. The market is picking up and it won’t be long before more conveyancers start to dip their toe into the market and see what else they can find.

Crime Duty Solicitors – rota deadline approaching

By way of reminder for any crime firms who are thinking of taking on duty solicitors before the next rota deadline (12th May we think), it is probably time to start putting the feelers out. We have a few firms in Kent looking for duty solicitors on a part time basis (ie the duty solicitors earn most of their income elsewhere) but not a lot else. If you want to recruit, please get in touch – there are plenty of duty solicitors out there. Please note that in order to use us to recruit duty solicitors you will need to join our £60 scheme – further details on request (reply to this email).

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 fee of just £60 per month (terms apply) or 15% one-off fees for permanent and 18% for locum. 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. He also provides a career coaching service to qualified lawyers and law graduates, although this is on a very selective basis.

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment also owns Interim Lawyers, a specialist locum service, charging 18% fees for placements. We also own a further 45 domain names and websites. 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 £51,000 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
Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent
£60 Per Month Recruitment Scheme
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
E: jobs@interimlawyers.co.uk
E: jobs@ten-percent.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

©2014 Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited | Derwen Bach, Glyndwr Road, Mold CH7 5LW

Legal Recruitment News – March 5th 2014

Welcome to the March edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, becoming an expert in 10,000 hours, locum availabiity and new candidates. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers, Ten-Percent, Ten-Percent Legal Careers and TP Transcriptions).

Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

Job Market Update – March 5th

March 2014 – summed up in a few sentences:
Locum work has dropped off. Other agencies have indicated to our candidates that they think firms are currently taking stock and that the locum market will pick up again in a few weeks. We are not entirely sure, but suspect the drop off is simply the bottom of the recruitment ‘wave’ – the job market has always had peaks and troughs and we have just been through a peak. How quickly the wave moves back up again remains to be seen. Permanent vacancies have picked up, but they do this every February/March and this year has been no exception – worryingly we have seen no applications at all for some permanent posts, which is either a sign of a return to a booming market or alternatively a lack of interest in making a move. Market outlook – still buoyant.

CIPS Report for March 2014 – Key findings:
1. Activity and new business growth rates remain sharp
2. Employment growth strongest in four months
3. Confidence in outlook highest since September 2009

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 539
New permanent vacancies added in February 2014: 17
New candidates registering: 160
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies in February: 2.5
Increase/Decrease in new vacancies from previous month: 0
Increase/Decrease in new candidates from previous month: +40%

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment will now publish 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, but we do also assist in house legal departments and occasionally larger commercial and regional firms allow us to help out! All of this means that our system will hopefully indicate a snapshot of the market across these areas each month.

A few pointers in relation to the above system:
1. New candidates registering only includes qualified or experienced staff – for example we do not register LPC graduates, secretaries without extensive experience, trainee legal executives without any experience and overseas-qualified lawyers with no UK experience.
2. Job Strength Factor is the grading scheme we use internally to note which vacancies are strong and which are weak. See article below.

Job Strength Factor.
Every month we will publish the average job strength – it 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.

Strong vacancies will have the following attributes:
1. A competitive salary.
2. Exclusive or limited access from agencies (ie the firm haven’t sent the post to 10 recruitment companies before us!).
3. Firm with good reputation – both for previous work with us and also generally.
4. Good or excellent prospects.
5. Fields of law that are stable and likely to result in a long term opportunity.
6. Good location – coupled with this our internal assessment of our ablity to fill the vacancy based on current availability from candidates.

Weak vacancies will have the following attributes:
1. Poor salary levels or estimated low salary based on previous experience working with a client.
2. Lots of other agencies involved.
3. Bad reputation on the part of the firm.
4. Poor prospects.
5. Fields of law not likely to be sustainable (consumer credit misselling posts are a good example from recent years!).
6. Poor location – ie a location that we know internally will be difficult to source candidates for.

Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and regularly writes 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.

Permanent Candidate Registrations in the last 7 days

04031401 Wills & Probate with Conveyancing Solicitor. 2 years experience. East and West Midlands. Permanent.
04031306 Commercial and Residential Property Solicitor, 20+ years experience. Available for permanent and locum work in and around London.
04031306 Duty Solicitor looking for a new home from May onwards. London and South East.
04031303 NQ Family Solicitor looking around London.
03031309 Residential and Commercial Conveyancing FILEX looking for permanent posts in East Anglia.
02031132 PI, RTA and credit hire paralegal looking for roles in the North West.
28021156 Advanced Family Panel Member looking for solicitor posts in the West Midlands.
28021022 EL, PL and OL plus lung disease solicitor looking in the North West. 7 years experience.
28020937 Conveyancing Solicitor with lease extension experience looking around Greater London. 4 years experience.
27022337 Mental Health Solicitor – accredited – looking around London. Salaried.
We have over 10,000 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Locums Available Immediately
0403141754 Property Locum Solicitor with Litigation experience. Greater London area. £30 per hour decreasing. Full availability April onwards.
04031024 Property Locum Solicitor – Residential and Commercial – available for London and Northern Home Counties from 24th March to 23rd May.
04030923 Property Locum Solicitor – Residential and Commercial – 7 years PQE – available for London and Home Counties. Immediate start.
03031319 Property Locum Executive – Residential and Commercial – 15 years experience. Available immediately nationwide.
4236 Solicitor and STEP member available for Wills & Probate assignments nationwide. Full or part time assignments accepted.
4581 Commercial Property Solicitor Locum looking around London and the Home Counties. Available from 17th March.
15966 Family Solicitor Locum. Available nationwide.
3544 Litigation Solicitor Locum – London and South East. 20 years experience.

We have over 700 candidates registered for locum work.

Become an Expert in 10,000 Hours – is it possible?
At the moment there is a journalist who is trying out the above theory – is it possible to put in 10,000 hours and turn into an expert (link to article on our website here)? The journalist has given up his day job and taken up golf, with the intention of becoming a professional by the time he has completed 10,000 hours of practising and training. At present he is on around 5,000 hours and has a handicap of 4 (he started out having never played before).

Could the same be applied to work environments? If lawyers spend 10,000 hours undertaking litigation cases or complex transactions of a particular type, are they likely to turn into experts?

I am not sure. Personally we have used the services of lawyers at both ends of their career – senior solicitors and also quite junior lawyers. With hindsight on the occasion we had a particularly complex transaction for a senior solicitor to handle, we would have been better with a more junior lawyer dealing.

Why? Because the junior lawyer would have taken more interest in the case and perhaps got the detail right. The senior lawyer, who no doubt had completed 10,000 hours on very similar cases, simply couldn’t really be bothered applying his mind to our problem and did not put the effort in. The junior lawyer may well have done so.

In terms of expertise, the senior lawyer was probably light years ahead. But his application was poorer. His ambition and drive was not there anymore. This is quite common in sportsmen and women as well. When footballers make it to the top they seem to take their foot off the pedal a bit. If a particularly tough tackle is required they sometimes take a step back and avoid it. If scoring a goal requires a head to be thrust forward in a position where the defender could take it off you can almost guarantee that a senior pro will try to protect himself, whereas a more junior player will take the risk.

I suspect the same applies to lawyers. More junior lawyers may in some circumstances be more prepared to take the risk and go the extra mile than senior solicitors who try to minimise the risk and effort required as much as possible.
In recruitment this is very true. I have been recruiting for solicitors firms for over 14 years now, and I would like to think that I can spot a poor vacancy from a rubbish firm pretty quickly. If I do spot one it is likely that I will not do very much work on it, if any. As an inexperienced recruiter starting out it is very unlikely I would have taken the same approach. I would have worked the vacancy and may have spent considerable time sourcing candidates etc.. The client would get a better service from the rookie recruiter than they would from the experienced (yet somewhat cynical) recruiter.

So whilst the 10,000 hours theory may well work – I must attempt to improve my batting performance in cricket by implementing it (not sure my wife will appreciate my efforts) – I suspect that external factors including drive, determination, passion and commitment – also play a very big part in separating out success from failure.

Jonathan Fagan is MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment, a non-practising solicitor, author and legal recruitment consultant.

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 donate a chunk of our profits to charity each year. We offer unlimited permanent and locum recruitment for a fixed fee of just £60 per month (terms apply) or 15% one-off fees for permanent and 18% for locum. 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. He also provides a career coaching service to qualified lawyers and law graduates, although this is on a very selective basis.

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment also owns Interim Lawyers, a specialist locum service, charging 18% fees for placements. We also own a further 45 domain names and websites. 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 £51,000 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

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
E: jobs@interimlawyers.co.uk
E: jobs@ten-percent.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

Legal Recruitment Newsletter

Welcome to the January edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, Latest Candidate Registrations and a revisit of psychic New Year predictions from January 2013.
Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers, Ten-Percent, Ten-Percent Legal Careers and TP Transcriptions).

Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

Job Market Update – January 14th

2013 has been one of the strongest years for growth in the recruitment market for a long time. The KPMG and Recruitment & Employment Confederation Report on Jobs dated 9th January 2014 (monthly report) had the following highlights:

1. Strongest rise in permanent placements since March 2010
2. Temp billings increase at fastest pace in over 15 years
3. Permanent salary growth highest since October 2007
4. Decline in availability of candidates – biggest decline since 2004.

A KPMG partner commented: “Combine the latest job figures with news that business confidence has reached a new high and it’s easy to share the renewed sense of optimism amongst employers. Permanent placements alone have hit a 4-year peak and with temporary hires accelerating to a 15-year high there is clearly room for…job creation. There is speculation suggesting Mark Carney might revise the unemployment benchmark at which an interest rate rise will be considered. The recovery is clearly gaining momentum…employers and individuals will be keeping an eye on interest rates and the impact any changes have on the pound in their pocket before deciding if a new job is the way to go. Some uncertainty still remains because the availability of staff to fill roles has seen a steep fall – the biggest for almost 10 years….The risk is that if it continues employers who are desperate to fill a gap could become stretched beyond their means at the same time as over-inflating the market by offering high salaries just to tempt employees to move.”

A few points here – I am not sure the high salaries issue is relevant to the legal job market – salaries have been so stunted for so long that any movement will simply be to take certain posts back up towards where they ought to be rather than over-inflating them.

Secondly, as law firms see massive increases in the property market it is likely that investment will occur in expanding operations and hence the number of conveyancing fee earners needed is set to rise. There is still a lost generation of conveyancing lawyers, some of whom are locums and others quite happy in other fields.

Incidentally if you are reading this and thinking of becoming a conveyancing locum, now would be a good time to start! Let us know – our www.interimlawyers.co.uk contains a lot of information about working as a locum including locum rates. We have managed to keep a couple of our regular property locums in constant employment since the start of the summer with short term and medium term assignments. This was until recently a very rare thing to do. One of our locums came back to the profession after a 4 year break and has not stopped working since.

Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and regularly writes 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.

Candidate Registrations in the last 7 days

140114 Residential and Commercial Conveyancing Locum Solicitor – Greater London area. Taking bookings for 2014.
130114 Residential and Commercial Conveyancing Locum Solicitor – North London and Hertfordshire. Long and short term.
1301141620 Residential Conveyancing Locum Solicitor – South and Central London – £25 per hour.
13011603 Residential & Commercial Conveyancing Locum Solicitor – West London – £25 per hour.
13011425 Business Crime Solicitor – permanent – available immediately.
13010823 Litigation Solicitor with Privy Council experience. London. General practice work. Permanent.
13011538 Conveyancing Solicitor looking for permanent or contract post in and around Exeter.
13011149 Conveyancing Locum – Res and Com – taking bookings for 2014. London and South.
13011134 Conveyancing Locum – available for East Anglia. Taking bookings for 2014.
10010843 Wills & Probate Solicitor looking for posts in and around Bedfordshire. 5 years PQE.
09012232 Commercial Property Locum Solicitor looking around West London and Middlesex.
08011216 Commercial and Residential Property Locum Solicitor available for Manchester, Midlands, London and South.

We have over 10,000 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

A Psychic’s 2013 New Year Predictions Revisited

Last year we carried an article in our January Newsletter about predictions for 2013 by an expert online psychic, Craig Hamilton-Parker (taken from www.psychics.co.uk). We have also included his 2014 predictions below to see how he does when we revisit in 2015.
Mr Hamilton-Parker charges £1.53 per minute for his services via telephone consultations.

Online Psychic Predictions for 2013 – how many did Craig get right?
1. War in the Middle East – February. Israel will attack Iran. Incorrect. Thank goodness.
2. Terrorist attack on Chicago in the summer. 1/2 marks – Boston in April.
3. Syrian uprising to continue. Iran to invade. 1/2 marks. Iran hasn’t invaded.
4. Poor grain harvest to occur in Russia. Incorrect. Up 30% on 2012.
5. Robert Mugabe will be assassinated in the Autumn. Incorrect.
6. Revolution in China – June 2013. China to split up. Incorrect.
7. Google will be attacked by terrorists. Incorrect.
8. Search engine to be released in Europe – funded by the EU. Incorrect.
9. Spain’s economy to fall apart. Incorrect.
10. Ed Milliband to be replaced by Yvette Cooper. Incorrect.
11. Nick Clegg to fight off a challenge from Vince Cable. Incorrect.
12. Victoria Beckham to launch a range of maternity clothing. Not entirely sure so half marks!
13. Kate Middleton to announce she is pregnant in May 2013. Impossible.
14. Simon Cowell to become more spiritual. Is there any way of assessing this?

Total score (allowing for the Victoria Beckham maternity wear prediction as it is not clear whether or not she has produced a range): 2 out of 14.

Craig’s predictions for 2014:

1. The Dalai Lama will be taken seriously ill.
2. Pope Francis will initiate a new spiritual mission to help the mentally ill.
3. Syria will be partitioned into Alawite and Sunni provinces. Assad will go into hiding.
4. Gunman rampage in Kansas. Similar attack on the London underground.
5. Strange luminous plankton seen under the sea that cannot be explained by scientists.
6. Remains of an ancient civilisation uncovered in Greenland.
7. Oprah Winfrey launches new spiritual chat show bringing many world religious leaders to book.
8. UK postal strikes backed by other trade unions and transport brought to a standstill.
9. Nick Clegg resigns
10. Massive fire in Mexico City
11. New Orleans flooded again
12. Factory explodes in Southern USA causing a chemical cloud.
13. Australia has biggest bush fire ever.
14. Japan builds a nuclear bomb
15. US economy soars ahead.
16. Massive riots at the Brazilian World Cup.

If you would like to make your own predictions for 2014 please visit www.legalrecruitment.blogspot.co.uk and add your comment to this article. We will then revisit them all in January 2015.

Recent Salary Levels and Hourly Rates

In case of interest, here is a selection of recent salary levels we have come across.
In House Counsel – large multi-national plc – South of England – £65k plus package.
Locum Conveyancing Solicitor – Manchester – £25 per hour.
Locum Conveyancing Solicitor – South Coast – £25 per hour.
Salaried Conveyancing Executive – South London – £30k
Salaried Conveyancing Solicitor – South London – £30k
East Midlands Conveyancing Solicitor Locum – £20 per hour
West Midlands Wills & Probate Solicitor Locum – £35 per hour
Salaried PA and Receptionist – Central London – £25k
Commercial Property Solicitor Locum – Central London – £30 per hour
Paralegal North London – £18k
East Midlands Wills & Probate Partner – Permanent – £45k
London Conveyancing Permanent – Solicitor 5 years PQE – £35k and £42k

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

Charity Donations

The Ten-Percent Foundation is still determining its charitable donations for 2013. We like giving money to legal charities or charities with links to solicitors or charities operated or established by solicitors. So far in 2013 we donated money to two Lincolnshire charities at the behest of Hodgkinsons Solicitors, Merseyside Welfare Rights and Alder Hey childrens hospital. We also expect to donate to the CAB, a new charity set up to provide dogs for injured soldiers and the British Stammering Association.

If you have any suggestions please email Jonathan Fagan at jbfagan@ten-percent.co.uk. The foundation likes to donate sums of around £500-£1,000 although we donate larger sums as well. No form filling is required and we prefer specific projects or smaller charities.

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 13 years ago. So far over £51,000 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

Legal Recruitment News is produced by Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – you can view all versions of the e-newsletter at www.legal-recruitment.co.uk. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment was established in 2000 and donates 10% of profits to charity, hence the name.

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