Legal Recruitment News April 2013

Legal Recruitment News – April 2013

Welcome to the April edition of Legal Recruitment News. We have included our job market update, new candidate lists, articles on how to post an effective job ad and top interview questions for 2013.

Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers, Ten-Percent £60, Ten-Percent Legal Careers and TP Transcriptions).

Job Market Update – April 9th
The job market in March has been a game of two halves. In the run up to Easter it was rather quiet, with little going on. The Easter break seemed to have an effect on concentrating the mind a little bit and as we have returned things have got very busy. For the first time as far as I can remember we have a large number of vacancies being posted in April, which is usually one of the quietest months of the year. Conveyancing appears to be busy, wills & probate the same and we have had in house posts coming through as well.

Crime solicitors are not exactly in great demand this year and the announcement this morning that competitive tendering is coming into force this autumn will no doubt send shivers down the spine of many a defence lawyer. I must note that competitive tendering seems to have been coming into force every year since 2005 so whether it actually manages to proceed this time is another matter. It will be interesting to see if the LSC end up awarding contracts to lots of smaller new start up firms or huge operations both going for the cheapest price option. Either way it is pretty obvious anyone running a decent crime firm paying reasonable money to their solicitors is not going to be in a favourable position…

We have recently signed up for a trial with a company who scrape vacancies off law firm websites and send them through to recruiters so that we can see who is looking and for what. This has been quite interesting because it gives a cross section of the market at the moment (assuming the scraping is accurate of course!).

In the last week there have been:

7 Conveyancing Jobs
8 Corporate Commercial Jobs
7 Clinical Negligence Jobs
7 Wills & Probate Jobs
6 Construction Jobs
13 Personal Injury Jobs
4 Crime Jobs
3 Family Jobs
6 Financial Services and Tax Jobs
3 Civil and Commercial Litigation Jobs

Our own numbers have been highest in conveyancing and wills & probate. Most of the personal injury jobs appear to be with law firms with links to to the insurance industry as they presumably tighten their grip on the PI market. Interestingly firms seem to be trying to expand into clinical negligence, perhaps as a way to continue with personal injury work, but concentrating on an area seen to be more profitable with the new limits on RTA matters.

The construction increase comes as a bit of a surprise as reports have recently been bandied about indicating that the construction market is again declining after a short spurt of activity.

Locums
Getting busy as we approach the locum season. We have seen assignments both an ongoing basis as firms recruit for 1-3 days per week (locums give you the flexibility to expand and contract as work ebbs and flows) and those more urgently needed to cover annual or sick leave. Now is the time to start getting bookings in for 2013, particularly summer holiday cover. A number of our locums have their years fully booked already, but we have plenty of capacity. www.interimlawyers.co.uk is our specialist site for locum and contract assignments.

Questions
Any questions regarding the above? Contact me via LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan), Facebook, Twitter (@tenpercentlegal) or old fashioned email – jbfagan@ten-percent.co.uk

Jonathan Fagan, April 9th 2013.

Results from the KPMG Jobs Survey April 9th 2013
The KPMG survey is undertaken by asking 100s of recruitment agencies (including ourselves) to indicate generally the state of the market. This gives a broad overview of the jobs market in the UK in all sectors.

The headlines in March were:
* Permanent placements and temp billings increase, but at weaker rates
* Slowest growth of job vacancies for seven months
* IT & Computing remains most in-demand type of permanent staff
* Nursing/Medical/Care most sought-after temp category
* Availability of permanent staff down slightly; temp availability rises
* Muted pay inflation

The report also carries commentary on annual pay increases which may be of interest. For March 2013 it says:

Data from the Office for National Statistics signalled that annual growth of employee earnings (including bonuses) eased to 1.2% in the three months to January, the lowest since the three months to March 2012. Pay growth weakened in the private sector, but was unchanged in the public sector.

10 New Candidates in last 24 hours
Selection of new candidates registered in the past 24 hours. Got a permanent vacancy or locum assignment? Get in touch and we will send over CVs to assist, sometimes almost immediately. Over 10,000 solicitors and legal executives are registered with us.
E: cv@ten-percent.co.uk
Twitter: @tenpercentlegal
Tel: 0207 127 4343

09040931 Family Panel member looking around Harrow and NW London. 4 days pw.
09040039 Wills & Probate Solicitor, 10 years PQE. SE London and Kent. £40k.
08042237 In House Commercial Contracts Manager. £49k, Anywhere.
08041648 Crime Solicitor – Duty, London & SE or Manchester.
08041555 Litigation Solicitor – Civil, Commercial and Debt. 4 years PQE. London and Herts.
08041513 Crime Billing Clerk. London. 2 years experience.
08041335 Wills & Probate Locum or Permanent. 3 years PQE. Oxford graduate. London and SE.
08041208 Crime Solicitor – Duty. Glos, Bristol and Somerset. Relocating.
07042052 PI and Employment Solicitor. Own following 20 new cases per month. London. Salaried.
08041338 Family and Child Panel Locum Solicitor. Chester, Liverpool and North Wales.

Is Postgraduate Legal Education a Rip Off?
I come to this argument slightly biased in favour of saying ‘yes, definitely’. In recent years I have lectured on careers at a university in the UK and for the first few sessions 5 or 6 years ago I have to say that I was horrified at the poor standard of students doing the LPC. How could the university let them on, knowing that virtually none of them stood any chance of progressing in law? Or was it more the case of supply vs demand and this being the students’ choice rather than any fault of the university for allowing them to continue?

In recent months my Google Alerts (very useful tool for following your market – free of charge and available in your google account) have indicated that other areas of the world where cynicsm is setting in when it comes to law schools.

In the USA a book has recently been released called The Lawyer Bubble by Steven Harper – a full extract from the book can be read here: http://www.lawfuel.co.nz/news/723/the-law-school-sham

Law students are encouraged to go to law school in ever increasing numbers. Finance is available to provide the fees and living allowances, and in the USA, like the UK, the costs outweigh any future possible earnings for a good chunk of the profession.

Mr Harper quotes a figure of attending law school of around $100,000 in the USA, where the average earnings of the majority of lawyers is likely to be around $60,000. In the USA it is estimated that only half of all law graduates will ever find a job in law, and this is probably the same sort of level in the UK.

In 2011 less than 50% of law graduates found jobs in private practice. 9 months later only 55 percent held full-time, long-term positions requiring a legal degree.

I don’t think any similar figures have been produced for the UK, but there must be well over 40,000 law graduates in the UK who have completed the LPC and/or GDL and who have never made a single penny back from their investment.

Whilst it could be argued that it is their own fault – going into law without appreciating how tough it is to progress, or failing to get the right academic grades or work experience to be noticed, similarly it has to be said that the law schools must take some of the blame. Particularly so when some advertise in the Law Society Gazette with headlines about increasing job prospects by completing an LLM, which is utter and complete nonsense.

Over the years I have advised so many graduates who are convinced by their law schools that the only way to get a job is to pay £8,000 to complete an LLM which will guarantee them a good career. I have never seen anyone progress their career by completing an LLM and doubt whether anyone could ever prove any benefit at all apart from increased understanding and personal development.

So what can be done about this? I think that the best solution is to combine the LPC with the training contract. If this was the case, no student would ever have to risk paying for the LPC and not qualifying again. Law schools would cease to make huge sums out of students who would be better advised to look elsewhere. Although this would stem the flow of LPC graduates for use as paralegals, it would mean more people would work their way up through the ranks and probably use the ILEX as a much cheaper and more effective route.

I have recently released an article on E-Zine on the cheapest way to get into law, discussing some of the above points. See whether you agree with my (somewhat controversial) advice!

http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Is-the-Cheapest-Way-to-Get-Into-the-Legal-Profession?&id=7555712

Jonathan Fagan is MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – cv@ten-percent.co.uk

Charity Donations
The Ten-Percent Foundation is in the process of determining its charitable donations for 2013. We now have a pot of about £10,000 to donate. We were hoping to complete donations before the end of March but this has dragged on a little bit into April. We like giving money to legal charities or charities with links to solicitors or charities operated or established by solicitors.

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 from time to time. 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. Apart from a small blip caused by the recession in 2008 (shortly to be remedied), we have carried on with this tradition since we formed in April 2000. So far over £40,000 has been donated to charities in the UK and Africa including LawCare.

Is it Acceptable to Swear in Business?
(extracted from our blog – http://www.legalrecruitment.blogspot.co.uk)
Last week I attended the Recruitment Expo, which is a little bit like a day of CPD together with trade stands. One of the seminars was delivered by a very well-known recruitment trainer and someone highly respected within the business, particularly for his headhunting courses. As part of his quick 20 minute presentation, this trainer was giving 20 objections and how to overcome them. (i.e. when clients are prevaricating before agreeing to either speak to you or take on a member of staff through you as a recruiter).

A couple of times in the first 10 minutes he used fairly mild swear words as part of his presentation. These didn’t seem to be out of place per say although they did make me consciously aware that he had just sworn to his audience. However, when he got to his point about clients phoning and giving out vacancies he used the phrase “Well Fk Me”, not once but twice. He then went on to use the “F” word at least twice more.

What made this so unusual was the setting in which the trainer had decided it was appropriate to use such strong language. He was speaking to a room of virtually complete strangers, some of whom are high level HR Directors and recruiters working for multi-nationals. He had no idea who anyone in the room was or what their sensitivities were for use of this strong language.

I sensed that he wanted to use the language to almost stun his audience into waking up or listening more closely or to simply shock us into action.

His point was reasonable and one I had not really thought of before (going off a tangent here – stay with me!) which is that when a client phones us completely out of the blue with a permanent vacancy you can (almost) guarantee that:

  1. The vacancy is complete and utter rubbish and will involve something like a requirement for an Oxford educated solicitor speaking fluent Lithuanian solicitor who wants to work in Bognor Regis and get paid £6 an hour,
  2. The lawyer phoning us will almost certainly have called another 10 agencies who will almost immediately proceed to call the same candidates and annoy them all tremendously and
  3. Even when you find them the perfect candidate (having achieved the impossible) the firm will then decide they don’t wish to recruit because the whole thing was an exercise being run to see what would happen if they did decide to recruit.

However, personally I felt there was no need to use such strong language and although it does not offend me if somebody uses words like that, it made me feel very uncomfortable in that particular setting.

Whilst I would expect that type of language if I was playing cricket with a group of blokes in the changing rooms and after a match where we had just been slaughtered, I would not expect it as an owner manager and director of my own business sat in a room with lots of other similar people. I thought to a certain extent it showed a lack of respect for me and the remainder of the audience and I was not impressed to say the least.

So the question is, is it ever appropriate or acceptable to swear in the course of business?

I used to work as a criminal defence solicitor (when pay was just appalling rather than impossible to live on). The clients regularly sat and went through a pack of cigarettes in my presence, peppering their language with very strong “F” and “C” words every other word and I rarely felt uncomfortable with them doing this because I accepted it was part of their language and the setting we were in. Afterall if I was facing 14 years in prison for armed robbery I would probably want to smoke a pack of cigarettes and swear every other word myself.

However I don’t think I ever swore to a client because I felt (and still do feel) that if I had done this I would have been considered less of a lawyer in their eyes. They hadn’t come to me for advice because I was a friendly person who was on the same wave length as them and could get down with the boys and use as much bad language as they did, they came to see me because I was a qualified professional and respected member of society (regardless of what politicians try to paint as an alternative picture of solicitors).

The same applies when I work as a recruitment consultant. If I know a candidate well then my language may be slightly less formal, but for everyone else I deal with I try to have the same level of professionalism that I did as a solicitor.

I could only see one circumstance when it would be acceptable to swear and that would be when quoting someone else or to get over a particular point in a story. Personally I cannot see any other reason why you would want to use such strong language either with client or with professionals on a training course.

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.

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

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 for March 2013

Legal Recruitment News – March 2013

Newsletter

Welcome to the March edition of Legal Recruitment News. We have included our job market update, new candidate lists, articles on how to post an effective job ad and top interview questions for 2013.

Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers, Ten-Percent £60, Ten-Percent Legal Careers and TP Transcriptions).

Job Market Update – March 5th
The job market has been hijacked in February by outstanding skiing conditions in France. I have to confess spending a pleasant week in the Alps enjoying the steady fall of fresh powder every morning and discovering the joys of French wi-fi in the evenings to keep up with clients and work. At the same time recruitment is never helped whenever politicians talk about the prospects of a triple dip recession. I wait with great excitement for 2015 to arrive so I can hear politicians talking about a quintuplet dip recession…

This month’s market report is broken down into four sections, as there is quite a wide disparity between our various lines of work.

LSC areas of work
There are still plenty of firms out there struggling to survive on the various trainee plumber rates being paid by the LSC for highly qualified legal work (not that any bias has crept into this writing). A whole tranche of smaller firms signed up to the most latest round of family contract awards and ended up with a miniscule number of matter starts. I doubt very much whether a lot of firms will have been able to arrange for an LSC family supervisor to actually work for them in view of the small number of cases they have been given.

With redundancies in the past 6 weeks at a number of larger firms still paying salaries of £35k or more to senior crime solicitors, I suspect we may have reached the end of the line for LSC funded work to be a viable career option for more junior solicitors to even contemplate.

We have been through deadlines for LSC contracts in the past two months in family law, housing, debt and immigration. The supervisors required for immigration law contracts are virtually impossible to find (IAAS Level 3). Housing and Family supervisors still exist in good numbers, but the number of firms who can actually afford them is another matter entirely! If you have a need for a contract supervisor, let us know. We only assist members of Ten-Percent £60 with these types of vacancies – for details please visit www.ten-percent.co.uk/membership-services.

Crime is coming up again and the next CDS12 duty solicitor deadline is May 14th (as far as we know). Duty solicitors are finding it increasingly hard to get salaried posts at any firm in the country now – most firms are trying to either comply with the LSC terms for salaried duty solicitors only, or alternatively they are just ignoring the LSC and continuing with the self-employed staff on a monthly retainer plus hourly rate. I remain sceptical as to whether the LSC actually have the resources left to bother going after firms who supposedly ‘flout’ their unworkable regulation. We have a large number of duty solicitors available this year including those looking to work in other industries for the majority of the time and just do the minimum required to retain their duty status. This is almost certainly the future for most lawyers.

Property and Private Client
Finally we have seen sustained recruitment for conveyancing and wills & probate in a range of law firms across the UK. There appears to be a renewed drive to expand teams and replace departing staff at a number of law firms. Locum and permanent have yet again picked up for the third month in a row. We are noticing more firms taking increased care over employing staff who have moved around in recent times and recruitment is not (or likely to be) the free for all it was in 2006.

Corporate Commercial
The commercial arm of the industry is fairly steady. Although recent adverts have increased in number for a range of medium to larger sized firms, I would estimate that at least 75% of vacancies are being advertised across a range of employment agencies, meaning that the numbers are somewhat misleading. Redundancies are still occurring as firms offload aging staff (and better paid), still a very common practice.

Locums
Still quiet – occasionally ebbing and flowing. Now is the time to start getting bookings in for 2013, particularly summer holiday cover. A number of our locums have their years fully booked already, but we have plenty of capacity. Employing locums or contractors is a way to expand or cover busy periods without committing to a new member of staff. The only downside is that locums can be slightly more expensive. In the current market this is not so much of a problem because there are plenty of them out there, which is keeping the price down.

Questions
Any questions regarding the above? Contact me via LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan), Facebook, Twitter (@tenpercentlegal) or old fashioned email – jbfagan@ten-percent.co.uk

Jonathan Fagan, March 5th 2013.

10 New Candidates in last 24 hours
Selection of new candidates registered in the past 24 hours. Got a permanent vacancy or locum assignment? Get in touch and we will send over CVs to assist, sometimes almost immediately. Over 10,000 solicitors and legal executives are registered with us.
E: cv@ten-percent.co.uk
Twitter: @tenpercentlegal
Tel: 0207 127 4343

04031200 Conveyancing Locum – Res and Com. 9 years PQE. Permanent also. London.
04031906 Conveyancing & Wills and Probate Solicitor looking around Berkshire.
04031642 Legal Cashier – 5+ years experience. Thames Valley. Permanent.
04031525 IP/Media/Entertainment Solicitor. 15 years PQE. London. Permanent salaried roles.
03031812 Conveyancing Locum – Res and Com. Leeds/Yorkshire. 15 years PQE.
02031625 Legal Cashier – Locum and Permanent. Over 10 years experience. London and Essex.
04032327 Crime Solicitor with HR and Duty Status – 5 years PQE. Relocating to London.
04031935 Children Panel member looking in Lancashire and Manchester.
04031325 Duty Solicitor looking for freelance VHCC and Crown Court work – Manchester.
01031017 Family Solicitor, Nottingham. 15 years PQE.
01031420 Wills & Probate Locum – London and South East. 25 years PQE+.
28022150 LSC Housing Supervisor – West Midlands or London.

How to post an effective job advertisement
So many advertisements we see in the back of the Gazette are completely rubbish. So bad that most solicitors just scratch their heads when reading them. Put yourself in the shoes of a job seeker looking for a new position and try reading one.

Usually one of the following is missing:

  1. The level of experience required.
  2. Any indication on salary levels. Competitive or negotiable does not help.
  3. The location of the firm.
  4. Contact information.
  5. Anything to sell the vacancy to the candidate.
  6. A call to action other than ‘get in touch’.

The first thing to say about job advertisements is that they are advertisements. The clue is in the title…. You can’t expect a candidate to want to join your firm and be really grateful for the opportunity you are offering them. It doesn’t work like this. You have to sell to them. What have you got to offer? If all you have to offer is a 30% split of any work they bring to your firm plus office space, you are either going to end up with an alcoholic solicitor about to be struck off or some crazy person who may decide to set fire to your filing cabinets at any time. Candidates need selling to – why should they want to come and work for your firm? What have you got to offer?

Consider these two job ads:

  1. Conveyancing solicitor needed. Non-smoker who can do own typing essential. Time wasters need not apply. Must have own following and work on fee split. Apply in writing by closing date in 7 days. Letter and CV must be handwritten.
  2. Conveyancing Solicitor required by medium sized solicitors firm based near to train station, 20 mins from London Victoria. All levels considered – salary range of £30-40k. Partnership a possibility in 2-5 years time. Email bobcarolgees@smithsolicitors.com or call 02070271234 for an informal discussion.

Which one would you go for? You can leave off the salary range – not essential – but very useful at filtering candidates from the outset.

Be nice to the applicants when they apply – you can be as horrible as you usually are later but in order to recruit you must get them through the door! Do not send them abrupt emails prior to interview informing them to check the specification before continuing – ie – “you must have a following to be considered” or “please provide a copy of your practising certificate and three references.”

Are you employing a member of staff or looking to go into business with the person? It is important not to get the two mixed up. If looking for someone to go into business with (ie bringing their own sources of work) do not give them too many specifics from the start.

Charity Donations
The Ten-Percent Foundation currently has about £4,500 to donate before the end of March 2013 to a range of causes. We like giving money to legal charities or charities with links to solicitors or charities operated or established by solicitors.

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. 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. Apart from a small blip caused by the recession in 2008, we have carried on with this tradition since we formed in April 2000. So far over £35,000 has been donated to charities in the UK and Africa including LawCare.

10 Top Interview Questions for 2013
Interviews have got a lot tougher in recent times – reports of honest feedback being given (‘candidate was useless and just mumbled’ or ‘candidate was completely over the top and needs to calm down’) means that employers are being much more selective as to whom they invest in and employ.

Here are our top 10 interview questions for 2013:

  1. Outline ‘quantitive easing’ in 20 seconds.
  2. I see you have moved about a bit. Does nobody like you?
  3. Why were you made redundant in 2007?
  4. Have you used the recession as an excuse for your own poor performance?
  5. Why hasn’t your billing increased in the last 2-3 years?
  6. How do we know you will not just take a better job in 6 months?
  7. What is your ideal job and how do we differ from it?
  8. What steps have you taken to reduce your own exposure to credit?
  9. Have you paid your mortgage off yet? Why not?
  10. What would be a good hourly rate/annual salary for you at this stage in your career? What about in 3 years time?

For 300 legal job interview questions for law firms please email me – jbfagan@ten-percent.co.uk and I will send you them over in pdf format by return.

We 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

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 January 2013

Legal Recruitment News January 8th 2013

Legal Job Market Report January 8th

Good morning and a Happy New Year to you. Welcome to the January edition of Legal Recruitment News from the Ten-Percent Recruitment Group. Our newsletter includes articles on how to get rid of customers without even seeing them, candidate lists, predictions for 2013 from a psychic, common myths regarding locums and the top 10 New Year resolutions.

Our websites include
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment,
Interim Lawyers,
Legal-Recruitment.

The market report for January is extremely short.

December was possibly one of the quietest months we have ever seen in 12 years of trading. Whether this is because the staff at most law firms (and ourselves) spent half of it Christmas shopping is of course another matter entirely!

Both locum and permanent recruitment was down a very long way, although this pattern is very common for recruitment. This year the dip was bigger than usual,
although our company has relocated offices and our local electricity board decided to cut down trees for 2 days, switching us off for the day each time!

Company News
Interim Lawyers, our locum service, has now opened offices in Manchester, London, Basingstoke and Gloucester (see our last newsletter for details of our swift office opening techniques!).
We cover the whole of the UK, offering swift and cost effective services for any law firm looking for temporary or contract law staff at all levels. We guarantee to make a locum available for every assignment posted with us (provided the assignment is reasonable – obviously we will struggle to recruit a Welsh speaking 20 year PQE solicitor to work for £5 per hour in the Outer Hebrides!).

Ten-Percent Legal’s £3,600 for 5 years Unlimited Recruitment Service is still going strong and we are (very) gradually drawing closer to our 100th member law firm. Cost savings to our 70+ firms are already estimated to be around £275,000. Over 60% of members undertake LSC funded work in some capacity and 33% have less than 2 partners. The service is restricted to firms with less than 100 staff.

Candidate Update January 8th 2013
Many thanks to Dinesh Raja at Bowling & Co for suggesting we split our candidate lists up into regions.

London and Home Counties
06011836 Commercial Contracts Paralegal – 2 years exp. – London.
06011803 Private Client & Immigration Solicitor, 3 years exp. East London.
05011544 Residential and Commercial Conveyancing Locum. 20 years. Guildford.
05011511 Residential and Commercial Conveyancing Locum. 25 years. London and Surrey.
04010955 Private Immigration – part time. Level 2 & Solicitor.
03012220 Residential and Commercial Conveyancing Locum. 20 years. London and Home Counties.
03011842 Litigation Locum – available for hearings and work in London and Home Counties.
02012242 Legal Secretary and Legal Assistant – High Street, 2 years exp. Hounslow.
02011959 In House Solicitor, General Commercial and Investment Management exp. 1 year PQE.
21121034 Commercial Property Solicitor Locum, 20 years PQE. Central London.
18121728 Personal Injury Locum, 15 years experience. Essex, London and Suffolk.

14121113 Family Solicitor, LSC supervisor, Part time or full time salaried only. London, Kent and Essex.

19122302 Duty Solicitor and HRA, West London, Salaried roles sought.
07012218 Police Station Rep – East Midlands and London.
02011625 Duty Solicitor Crime, 4 years PQE. Available for temporary work until next rotas.
01011137 Housing Solicitor with LSC Supervisor status. Looking for salaried role. Sussex and London.

Kent
02011316 Employment, Wills & Probate, Litigation, Commercial Contracts Locum, Kent and London. 25 years experience.
01011233 Legal Cashier returning to profession. 10 years experience.
18121320 Legal Cashier, over 10 years experience looking for a move in Kent.

East Anglia
30122152 Wills & Probate Solicitor Locum. Over 15 years PQE. East Anglia and Hertfordshire.
27121054 Locum Secretary with experience as an ILEX in residential development and construction. Norwich and surrounds.
18121728 Personal Injury Locum, 15 years experience. Essex, London and Suffolk.

Yorkshire & Manchester
30120143 Duty Solicitor based in Sheffield but looking to relocate if needs be. 3 years PQE. £30k salary.
28121600 Practice Manager with over 15 years experience. Manchester, Yorkshire and Lancs.
17122104 Personal Injury Locum looking around the North West and Yorkshire.

Liverpool & Merseyside
07011708 Commercial Property Solicitor – locum/contract – available 2 days pw.
19121556 Personal Injury Paralegal – Team Leader and Case Handler.

South West
07011556 Locum 5 year PQE Solicitor covering Corporate Finance, IP, Commercial Property, Company Commercial and Employment.
28121848 Employment Lawyer with Conveyancing. 6 years experience. Cardiff, Somerset and Bristol.
21121132 Crime Solicitor, 1 year PQE, Hereford or Leominster.
20121314 Conveyancing and Wills & Probate Locum, 25 years PQE. Bristol and South West.
17120715 Employment Solicitor with over 10 years experience, Bristol and Somerset.

Midlands
29120223 Costs Draftsman with Personal Injury experience looking in the Midlands.
07011207 Prison Law and Police Station Rep. 3 years experience.
02011420 Competition/Regulatory Solicitor, 15 years PQE. £100k salary.
05011044 Crime Solicitor looking in Hull, North Lincs, South Yorks and Derby/Nottingham.
28121324 Personal Injury Solicitor, 1 year PQE, Claimant, East Midlands.
26121854 Duty Solicitor with slots to transfer – Birmingham rotas.

Wales
01012243 FILEX Family and Personal Injury Lawyer. Cardiff & Bristol area.

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£60 Per Month Recruitment Scheme

How to get rid of 80% of your customers without speaking to them

I recently made a number of telephone calls to businesses in the Chester area to get a quote for conveyancing services. Out of 6 solicitors firms I called, none put me through to a solicitor and all relied on their receptionists to give me a price.

Responses included:

“the solicitor has gone to the loo and he might be a while calling you back.”
“the usual price is £600 for a sale and £500 for a purchase – does that answer your question?”
“he’s busy at the moment (no mention of who ‘he’ is).”
“the person who usually deals with this is out – can he call you back (he didn’t).”
“oh, just a minute. I’ll put you on hold. (on hold for 5 minutes). Now, what did you want again?”
“£500 all in. Is that OK?”

In actual fact, my query was very specific – I needed advice on sale of part of a property, retention of agricultural land and the possible later sale of a barn for development. Not one person I spoke to was qualified to handle the query and none of them let me ask the question or were prepared to put me through to the right person. In the end I went online, found a specialist in the Legal 500 and called him directly.

How much do you throw away from not handling initial queries effectively?

Assuming your business gets 10 requests for quotations every week and you convert 2 of them into business, how much extra business would you be gaining if you could convert the remaining 8 requests into actual orders?

It doesn’t take much at times. In all the examples above, the firms in question simply needed to put me through to a solicitor who could demonstrate his or her knowledge, show me a bit of understanding and then give me a price to reflect his or her worth. What the firm did not need to do was let me speak to a secretary or receptionist who clearly didn’t care less whether I used their services or not.

So make a resolution for the new year – train the people who answer your telephone calls to sell your business to every person who makes a call.

Jonathan Fagan is MD and recruitment consultant for Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and Interim Lawyers. His blog is at www.legalrecruitment.blogspot.com and all our articles are published here and also at www.legal-recruitment.co.uk – our monthly newsletter site.

New Year Predictions
Last year we carried an article in our January Newsletter about predictions from 2011 by the experts (and ourselves) on the state of the legal profession, the economy and general life.

This year, for something different, we have included a list of predictions from a
self-professed online pyschic, Craig Hamilton-Parker (taken from www.psychics.co.uk).

  1. War in the Middle East – February. Israel will attack Iran.
  2. Terrorist attack on Chicago in the summer.
  3. Syrian uprising to continue. Iran to invade.
  4. Poor grain harvest to occur in Russia.
  5. Robert Mugabe will be assassinated in the Autumn.
  6. Revolution in China – June 2013. China to split up.
  7. Google will be attacked by terrorists.
  8. Search engine to be released in Europe – funded by the EU.
  9. Spain’s economy to fall apart.
  10. Ed Milliband to be replaced by Yvette Cooper.
  11. NIck Clegg to fight off a challenge from Vince Cable.
  12. Victoria Beckham to launch a range of maternity clothing.
  13. Kate Middleton to announce she is pregnant in May 2013.
  14. Simon Cowell to become more spiritual.

Number 13 looks as if it may have been written a little prematurely…

It would be very interesting to hear of Mr Hamilton-Parker’s methodology for predicting these events – does it involve reading tea leaves, studying the stars or simply writing random thoughts in his head after reading the newspaper?

New Year Predictions

Here are the top 5 predictions you will not keep and suggestions for making them work. Article abridged and taken from www.forbes.com.

Go on a Diet

Some weight loss experts will tell you flat out, diets don’t work. For many people, unfortunately this is very true. Diets only work for a while – usually for as long as you stick to the carefully regulated plan. And studies show, after awhile, most people get tired of following such a strict regimen and go back to eating pretty much what they ate before. Sadly, diets also make many people gain weight!

What Does Work: Making small changes to your eating habits. Here are a few small changes that pack a big calorie punch. Giving up a daily habit – eg stop drinking a latte every day at 10.30am…. Switch from whole milk to semi skimmed milk.

Stop Smoking

If you’re waiting for that perfect day when you’ll just be able to stop because you promised yourself you would, it’s not going to happen.

What Does Work: Who knows! Lots of different techniques…

Get More Exercise (Related Resolution: Join a Gym)

The problem with this one is, it’s too vague. In other words, it’s too easy to make a stab at, and then let yourself slide because it’s cold outside, or it’s too dark when you get home, or your muscles hurt, or the gym’s too crowded and the equipment smells sweaty.

What Does Work: To make a significant lifestyle change and make it stick, you need to replace an old habit (being a couch potato or workaholic) with a new one. You also need to make it pleasant, or at least not too unpleasant. A few ways to do this are to start a new sport, one you actually like, or join forces with someone else to keep you motivated.

Lose a stone

Like quitting smoking, it’s not that you shouldn’t lose weight. If your body-mass index is over 25, you qualify as overweight and you want to tip the scales downwards. But the typical promise, “I’m going to lose 20 pounds by June so I can wear a bathing suit,” is not going to be kept. Just ask anyone who made this resolution last year.

What Does Work: Not attaching a number to your goal. That’s not to say you shouldn’t watch the scale. Recent studies suggest that regular weight checks are important for keeping any weight loss program on track.

What really works: calories in < calories out.

Stop Biting My Nails, or Twirling My Hair, Or….

It’s almost impossible to break a physical habit with willpower alone, experts say. That’s because we’ve been doing it so long (hence the name habit…) that we’re no longer aware of it.

What Does Work: Becoming aware of the cues that trigger our habits, even when we’re not paying attention.

Salary Review Update
The Ten-Percent Legal Salary Survey is available online – Click the link below to view the surveys, which are broken down into geographical areas: http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/salary-reviews

Low Cost Digital Dictation Outsourcing
TP Online Transcription & Typing Service with offices in London and North Wales. We have a team of 20 UK based transcribers offering digital file and tape transcribing services worldwide. Established in 2001, the company has been handling bulk orders (including over 500 hour projects) and one-off assignments for legal and non-legal clients including a large number of UK Solicitors, B&Q, Endemol, the Office of Fair Trading, Sony, Dundee University, Cartridge World, University of Oxford, NHS Tayside, the British Medical Journal, Marie Curie and many more.

We provide ongoing typing contracts and also work on a one-off basis. Our transcribers are all based in the UK and we maintain a high standard of quality output. Our transcribers are experienced secretaries from the legal profesison, medicine or general business and some are educated to degree level and higher.

We can transcribe from all audio & digital files, whether WAV, WMA, DSS (Olympus) or MP3 (plus a host of other formats), CD or DVD, Standard Cassettes, Mini and Micro Cassettes and Video (VHS). We have FTP facilities. For legal work we are happy to take templates to transcribe into. Our main service for law firms is our capacity to free up ‘in office’ secretaries to undertake daily tasks whilst reducing the backlog of work or any large transcription jobs. For details of the service please visit http://www.tptranscription.co.uk call 01352 751945 or email pearl@uk-transcription.co.uk.

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

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

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

T: 0207 127 4343
E: jobs@ten-percent.co.uk

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

December 2012 Legal Recruitment Candidates Newsletter

Legal Job Market Report December 12th
Good afternoon and welcome to the Candidate December edition of Legal Recruitment News from the Ten-Percent Recruitment Group. Our websites include Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment, Interim Lawyers, Legal-Recruitment and many more.

The staff at Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment wish all our clients and candidates a very peaceful break and a prosperous New Year.

The market report for December is fairly short. Permanent recruitment has been very quiet indeed since the traditional half term break at the end of October. We had a spurt of family and children panel member posts coming in, probably to do with yet another Legal Services Commission deadline cropping up.

There seem to be quite a lot of Children Panel member vacancies floating around – the LSC appear to have gone through one of their contract deadlines again and a number of firms are hunting around for a supervisor.

The locum market has quietened down as it always does at this time of year. Locums quite often book off November and December in their diaries as they expect to be off in any event and this can make it harder to source a lawyer even with less work around.

Commercial Law Firms and In House:
Quiet still – we are getting news of redundancies here and there, but a lot of the larger law firms now have contracts tied up with larger recruitment agencies and don’t tend to put a lot through the smaller companies like ourselves. Employers seem to have been holding back in recent times still and not much activity spotted at all. We have had a few commercial litigation posts in and a couple of employment locum posts but that is about it. We do find that even with in house counsel recruitment the HR departments put out requests for CVs and then decide not to proceed.

On the High Street:
Redundancies seem to have stopped, although we are starting to notice a new pattern emerging in business of partners dismissing permanent members of staff and reverting to locums and contractors. Recently we have had a locum assignment in from a law firm in London where we knew the departing permanent member of staff. We were told by the firm that the locum was needed to cover sick leave, whereas in fact the locum had been recruited to take over the caseload of the solicitor who had been laid off.

Conveyancing, private client and commercial property temporary and contract work has been busy up until the middle of November. Conveyancing still occurring, which is a good sign that the market has now changed and property is starting to move again.

Company News
Interim Lawyers, our locum service, has now opened offices in Manchester, London, Basingstoke and Gloucester. We cover the whole of the UK, offering swift and cost effective services for any law firm looking for temporary or contract law staff at all levels. We guarantee to make a locum available for every assignment posted with us (provided the assignment is reasonable – obviously we will struggle to recruit a Welsh speaking 20 year PQE solicitor to work for £5 per hour in the Outer Hebrides!).

Ten-Percent Legal’s £3,600 for 5 years Unlimited Recruitment Service is still going strong and we are (very) gradually drawing closer to our 100th member law firm. Cost savings to our 70+ firms are already estimated to be around £275,000. Over 60% of members undertake LSC funded work in some capacity and 33% have less than 2 partners. The service is restricted to firms with less than 100 staff.

In October/November 2012 we had 143 new solicitors and legal executives register with us, together with just short of 900 paralegals and non-qualified staff (in response to specific law firm member vacancies). We restrict our own legal candidate database to ensure we only register qualified or suitably experienced staff.

10% CV Discount
To celebrate the fact that it is Christmas, and we are full of cheer, general excitement and near total exhaustion handling very excited children (!), we would like to offer all registered candidates a 10% discount on our CV services. If you are thinking of getting your CV revamped or checked out in the New Year, simply log onto our Legal Career Shop Site, purchase a CV service (CV Reviews and CV Preparation both included) and we will give you 10% cashback within 24 hours. Email us straight after your purchase to let us know. No catches or terms, unless you can think of any!

LinkedIn and Ten-Percent/Interim Lawyer Vacancies
From January 2013 onwards we will be posting all our vacancies directly onto LinkedIn as updates to Jonathan Fagan’s profile. To receive instant updates from us, simply request a connection from Jonathan Fagan – uk.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan and we will agree to connect. LinkedIn is a very useful source in any event, but well worth connecting to get updates from us.

Locum Q&As
We have recently put together a collection of Frequently Asked Questions and guidance on hourly rates for our locum site – www.interimlawyers.co.uk – if you would like to take a look please visit the site or click the links below:

http://www.interimlawyers.co.uk/about/faqs
http://www.interimlawyers.co.uk/about/locum-solicitor-rates-of-hourly-pay-2013

Questions answered on Locum work include:
Am I considered self-employed or as an employee?
Am I covered by Professional Indemnity Insurance if I work as a locum?
What are the rates of pay for a Locum Solicitor or Lawyer?
What are the Terms and Conditions of Employment for a Locum?
How, when and what will I be paid for my locum services?
Will I get any travelling allowance whilst working as a locum?
Will working as a locum affect my chance of permanent employment in future?
Can my locum contract be checked?
What do I do if I have had change in circumstances or a change of contact details?
How do I register for work as a locum solicitor with Interim Lawyers?
Once I am registered how do I get booked to work as a Locum?
Who do I contact if I become available for more Locum work?
How do you communicate with your locums?
Why work as a locum?
How much do I as a locum have to pay you the agency?
Who pays my tax and National Insurance?
What do I do if I can’t fulfill an assignment?
What is the cost of having a locum?
How far ahead can I plan my locum cover for holidays?
How can I be sure you will send a fully qualified Locum Solicitor?
The Locum we used was not as good as expected, what can we do?
How are locum solicitors screened – what qualifications do they have?

You can also comment on any of the answers – we will gladly publish any corrections or additions.

Salary Review Update
The Ten-Percent Legal Salary Survey is available online – Click the link below to view the surveys, which are broken down into geographical areas: http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/salary-reviews

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

T: 0207 127 4343
E: jobs@ten-percent.co.uk

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

December 2012 Employers Legal Recruitment Newsletter

Legal Recruitment News Dec 5th 2012 – Ten-Percent Legal

Legal Job Market Report December 5th
Good morning and welcome to the December edition of Legal Recruitment News from the Ten-Percent Recruitment Group. Our websites include Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment, Interim Lawyers, Legal-Recruitment and many more.

The market report for December is fairly short. Permanent recruitment has been very quiet indeed since the traditional half term break at the end of October. We had a spurt of family and children panel member posts coming in, probably to do with yet another Legal Services Commission deadline cropping up.

The locum market has quietened down as it always does at this time of year. Locums quite often book off November and December in their diaries as they expect to be off in any event and this can make it harder to source a lawyer even with less work around.

Commercial Law Firms and In House:
Quiet still – we are getting news of redundancies here and there, but a lot of the larger law firms now have contracts tied up with larger recruitment agencies and don’t tend to put a lot through the smaller companies like ourselves. Employers seem to have been holding back in recent times still and not much activity spotted at all. We have had a few commercial litigation posts in and a couple of employment locum posts but that is about it. We do find that even with in house counsel recruitment the HR departments put out requests for CVs and then decide not to proceed.

On the High Street:
Redundancies seem to have stopped, although we are starting to notice a new pattern emerging in business of partners dismissing permanent members of staff and reverting to locums and contractors. Recently we have had a locum assignment in from a law firm in London where we knew the departing permanent member of staff. We were told by the firm that the locum was needed to cover sick leave, whereas in fact the locum had been recruited to take over the caseload of the solicitor who had been laid off.

Conveyancing, private client and commercial property temporary and contract work has been busy up until the middle of November. Conveyancing still occurring, which is a good sign that the market has now changed and property is starting to move again.

Company News
Interim Lawyers, our locum service, has now opened offices in Manchester, London, Basingstoke and Gloucester. We cover the whole of the UK, offering swift and cost effective services for any law firm looking for temporary or contract law staff at all levels. We guarantee to make a locum available for every assignment posted with us (provided the assignment is reasonable – obviously we will struggle to recruit a Welsh speaking 20 year PQE solicitor to work for £5 per hour in the Outer Hebrides!).

Ten-Percent Legal’s £3,600 for 5 years Unlimited Recruitment Service is still going strong and we are (very) gradually drawing closer to our 100th member law firm. Cost savings to our 70+ firms are already estimated to be around £275,000. Over 60% of members undertake LSC funded work in some capacity and 33% have less than 2 partners. The service is restricted to firms with less than 100 staff.

In October/November 2012 we had 143 new solicitors and legal executives register with us, together with just short of 900 paralegals and non-qualified staff (in response to specific law firm member vacancies). We restrict our own legal candidate database to ensure we only register qualified or suitably experienced staff.

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

Expanding your Firm Quickly – Marketing Ideas

We have recently taken the decision to expand Interim Lawyers, our online locum recruitment service, and increase our locum offerings across the UK and overseas.

In order to do this, we researched the different options available for our marketing spend, and I thought this may be of interest to law firms thinking up ideas to expand business and increase their client base.

As a company, we have taken the following steps:

  1. Opened offices in Basingstoke, Gloucester, Manchester and London.
  2. Made sure our web presence reflects this (work in progress – more below!).
  3. Increased our Google Adwords account spend in the keywords we are looking to offer our increased service in – ie conveyancing locums, family locums, Manchester solicitor locums, London locum services, Hampshire locums, etc.. etc.. Our keyword list is about 150 long at the moment and it may be increased now to well over 300 with the new office addresses.
  4. We have added extra web pages and started to look for additional backlinks online.
  5. Law Society Gazette advertising for early 2013.

Opening up offices is not exactly a difficult option, although I appreciate that there will be issues with the SRA in terms of supervision for solicitors firms.

For recruitment agencies it is possible simply to purchase a virtual office address with local meeting room facilities and the cost is minimal. Our Manchester office has cost £34.99, our Basingstoke office £65 and our London office £100. Each of these means that we get extra geographical coverage in search terms whenever a law firm types in ‘Manchester solicitor locums’ or similar.

Our Adwords account costs are also fairly low cost – we pay around £5 per day for all our advertising, and this picks us up enough leads to make it worthwhile. I know of companies who spend over £75,000 a year on Google Adwords, but we are not one of these. After all, if I write an article on legal recruitment, Google very kindly publish it for me and our company picks up extra visits to our various websites as a result.

We had a think about advertising and decided the best read journal was the Gazette and if I had been looking to recruit a locum when in practice, this would have probably been the first port of call. Advertising does not need to cost the earth, although it sometimes feels like it….

I often get asked by solicitors in career coaching sessions how much should a company spend on marketing and advertising, and I think the answer remains the same – spend what you need to in order to generate enough business each month. This varies depending on your circumstances and is often very hit or miss, regardless of what the marketing experts say… Obviously if there is a magic formula I am not aware of, please let me know and I will publish it everywhere possible! .

Jonathan Fagan is MD and recruitment consultant for Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and Interim Lawyers. His blog is at www.legalrecruitment.blogspot.com and all our articles are published here and also at www.legal-recruitment.co.uk – our monthly newsletter site.

LinkedIn Offer – Backlink worth up to £250
Our Christmas offer for December 2012: Simply request a link to Jonathan Fagan – uk.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan and we will give you a backlink at http://www.businessbusstop.com/index.php/business-directory – Google Page Rank 3. These links cost around £250 on some sites. When you request the link, simply put the words ‘Link please’ in your description.

Click Here to Request a Link

Salary Review Update
The Ten-Percent Legal Salary Survey is available online – Click the link below to view the surveys, which are broken down into geographical areas: http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/salary-reviews

Low Cost Digital Dictation Outsourcing
TP Online Transcription & Typing Service with offices in London and North Wales. We have a team of 20 UK based transcribers offering digital file and tape transcribing services worldwide. Established in 2001, the company has been handling bulk orders (including over 500 hour projects) and one-off assignments for legal and non-legal clients including a large number of UK Solicitors, B&Q, Endemol, the Office of Fair Trading, Sony, Dundee University, Cartridge World, University of Oxford, NHS Tayside, the British Medical Journal, Marie Curie and many more.

We provide ongoing typing contracts and also work on a one-off basis. Our transcribers are all based in the UK and we maintain a high standard of quality output. Our transcribers are experienced secretaries from the legal profesison, medicine or general business and some are educated to degree level and higher.

We can transcribe from all audio & digital files, whether WAV, WMA, DSS (Olympus) or MP3 (plus a host of other formats), CD or DVD, Standard Cassettes, Mini and Micro Cassettes and Video (VHS). We have FTP facilities. For legal work we are happy to take templates to transcribe into. Our main service for law firms is our capacity to free up ‘in office’ secretaries to undertake daily tasks whilst reducing the backlog of work or any large transcription jobs. For details of the service please visit http://www.tptranscription.co.uk call 01352 751945 or email pearl@uk-transcription.co.uk.

Candidate Update 5th December

There are over 9,250 lawyers registered with us looking for permanent work and 750 locums available for assignments in all areas of the country. Register vacancies on our website, email cv@ten-percent.co.uk or call 0207 127 4343.

Selection of Candidates registered in the past 2 weeks:

21305 Legal secretary and legal practice manager with over 5 years experience within residential conveyancing. Looking for a post in Central London, Ealing, Uxbridge or Hounslow.
21304 2010 qualified solicitor with experience in civil litigation, family law and residential conveyancing. Looking for a post in Surrey and South/West London.
21303 2001 qualified commercial solicitor with experience in corporate commercial law, M&A, IT and IP. Looking for a post in London.
21302 Paralegal with over 18 months experience in commercial and some civil litigation. Looking for a post in Hertfordshire, North or Central London.
21299 1992 qualified crime and serious fraud solicitor with further experience in civil & commercial litigation. Looking for either locum litigation posts or permanent civil litigation, crime or fraud posts in Warwickshire and the West Midlands.
21298 Barristers clerk with 3 years experience. Has criminal billings experience. Looking for a crime paralegal, clerk or billings post in Kent or South East London.
21295 Legal practice manager and accountant with 3 years as a legal practice manager and a further 20 years business development experience. Looking for a post in the South West.
21294 2003 qualified accredited police station representative and crime paralegal. Looking for a post in the West Midlands.
21292 Conveyancing assistant/fee earner with over 7 years residential & commercial conveyancing experience both in private practice and in house. Looking for a conveyancing post in Berkshire, Surrey or West London.
21291 October 2008 qualified solicitor experienced in dispute resolution, crime and civil litigation. Looking for a civil litigation or dispute resolution post in North West London, Hertfordshire or Bedfordshire.
21289 October 2001 qualified solicitor, looking to return to work following a career break. Has experience in child care law, family law, crime, employment law and residential conveyancing. Looking for part-time family or child care posts in London.
21288 March 2006 qualified commercial property solicitor with further experience in landlord & tenant. Looking for a locum or permanent commercial property post in the East Midlands or Birmingham. Speaks Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi.
21287 Legal secretary with over 20 years experience. Looking for locum or permanent posts in London.
21286 Paralegal with around 18 months experience in corporate, company commercial law, banking & finance, energy and commercial litigation. Looking for a post in London and the South East. Speaks French and Spanish.
21285 September 2001 property solicitor with experience in commercial property, landlord & tenant and projects. Looking ideally for part time commercial property posts in Hertfordshire.
21284 1977 qualified commercial solicitor experienced in shipping, insurance, international trade and finance litigation. Looking for a long term locum or permanent post in the London or the South East.
21283 October 2012 qualified solicitor and fully accredited police station representative with experience in crime, prison law and immigration. Looking for a post in London or Hertfordshire.
21282 Fee earner with over 30 years residential conveyancing experience. Looking for a conveyancing post in the North East of England
21281 Family law paralegal with child care law experience. Looking for a post in South Wales, Bristol or Bath.
21280 Legal administrator/conveyancing assistant with over 10 years experience. Also has some wills & probate experience. Has legal secretarial skill. Looking for a post in Kent or South East London.
21279 February 2012 qualified accredited police station representative with a background of over 30 years in the police force. Looking for an accredited rep post anywhere in West London, Buckinghamshire, Middlesex or Hertfordshire
21278 Legal practice manager with 12 years experience of managing a large legal firm. Looking for a post in the South West
21277 May 2012 qualified barrister dealing with crime and mental health law. Looking for a post in the Midlands.
21276 September 1993 qualified property solicitor returning to the profession with experience in commercial & residential property. Looking for a locum or part-time permanent post within 20 miles of Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
21275 2005 qualified property solicitor, experienced in commercial and residential conveyancing. Looking for a post in the North East.
21273 Conveyancing paralegal with over 2 years experience in residential conveyancing and further experience in crime, housing and family law. Looking for a residential conveyancing post in Berkshire or Middlesex. Speaks Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi.
21272 1997 qualified barrister specilising in fraud and white collar crime. Looking for an in house or private practice post in the Midlands.
21271 Legal assistant/paralegal with 5 years experience in residential conveyancing. Looking for locum posts in the North East of England
21270 Paralegal with around 2 years legal experience in residential and commercial conveyancing, personal injury (RTA, EL, PL) and family law. Looking for a paralegal post in Buckinghamshire or Berkshire.
21268 Billings clerk/legal cashier with 12 months experience. Looking for a post in Central, North or East London or Essex.
21267 Litigation paralegal with over 5 years experience in crime and prison law, personal injury (RTA, EL, PL), clinical negligence, debt recovery, housing law and general civil litigation. Looking for a locum or permanent post in Central, West or South West London, Twickenham, Kingston or Sutton.
21266 March 2005 qualified crime and civil litigation solicitor with police station accreditation and higher rights of audience. Experienced in serious crime and fraud and member of VHCC panel. Obtained VHCC case manager status. Looking for crime or fraud posts and willing to relocate.
21265 2004 qualified criminal solicitor with police station accreditation, duty status and higher right of audience. Looking ideally for a HCA post in South London but will travel further afield.
21264 Crime and family law paralegal/fee earner and accredited police station representative with over 2 years experience. Looking for a post in the Midlands.
21263 Costs draftsperson with over 2 years experience, looking for a post in Essex, North or East London.
21262 Febrary 2011 qualified solicitor with experience in housing law, welfare benefits and debt advice and some further experience in residential conveyancing and family law. Has LSC welfare benefits supervisor status. Looking for a post in South Wales, Bath or Bristol.
21261 Paralegal with experience in residential and commercial conveyancing and a small amount of family law and wills & probate experience. Looking for a permanent or locum property post in London.
21260 2008 qualified litigation solicitor, experienced in claimant and defendant personal injury work including RTA, EL and PL. Has managerial experience. Looking for locum posts in Cheshire, Manchester, Mersyside and the North West of England.

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

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

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

T: 0207 127 4343
E: jobs@ten-percent.co.uk

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

Legal Candidate News October 2012

Legal Job Market Report October 2nd
Good morning and welcome to the October edition of Legal Recruitment News from the Ten-Percent Recruitment Group. Our websites include Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment, Crime Solicitor Recruitment, Interim Lawyers, Legal-Recruitment and many more.

The market report for September is a little more detailed than July/August. The locum market has quietened down – instead of the usual 10-15 new assignments we have been getting in over the summer the number has gone down to about 3 or 4. September can often either be busy because of interviews running over from the summer or very quiet as law firms get back to the day to day life after taking holidays in the summer or spending more time working out child care for the kids.

Commercial Law Firms and In House:
Quiet, very quiet would be the quick response. We have seen very little recruitment on this side of things. Employers seem to have been holding back in recent times and not much activity spotted at all. We have had a few commercial litigation posts in and a couple of employment locum posts but that is all.

On the High Street:
Redundancies are still occurring. There seems to be an increasing number of crime solicitors registering with us and currently earning £45k, looking for a move. Suspect the vast majority of these are under threat of redundancy as law firms work out the harsh economic realities of not being paid very much more than this by the LSC!

Conveyancing, private client and commercial property is busy. We keep taking locum bookings from firms taking on locums to cope with the extra demand. It seems that large amounts of buying and selling of houses is going on in some parts of the country.

Family – we are expecting a wave of new recruitment as it is almost 12 months from the last round of LSC contract signing. Private family law work seems to be very quiet, although we have recruited a few on this front in recent months.

Our £3,600 for 5 years Unlimited Recruitment Service is still going strong and we are (very) gradually drawing closer to our 100th member law firm. Cost savings to our 60+ firms are already estimated to be around £250,000. Over 60% of members undertake LSC funded work in some capacity and 33% have less than 2 partners. The service is restricted to firms with less than 100 staff. September saw our fastest ever recruitment – a firm signed up and had recruited a senior solicitor within 48 hours. Total cost to date: £60.

In September 2012 we had 99 new solicitors register with us, together with just short of 600 paralegals and non-qualified staff (in response to specific law firm member vacancies). We restrict our candidate database to ensure we only register qualified or suitably experienced staff.

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

The Legal Services Commission – are they for real?
We have recently received a very interesting letter from the LSC regarding the duty solicitor rotas. Ten-Percent Legal owns another website called Crime Solicitor Recruitment. This year we decided to incorporate a page on this where we could list all the duty solicitors and firms looking for a move, whether on a freelance or salaried basis. We used the words “duty solicitor rota slot shop” and mentioned the possibility of duty solicitors selling their slots. – see http://www.crime-solicitor.co.uk/dutysolicitorrotaslotshop.htm

Having been a crime solicitor many years ago, I was astounded at the speed the LSC moved. A director of communications sent us a letter within 3 days of the page going live, explaining that duty solicitors do not own their slots, duty solicitors cannot be under a contract of service and duty solicitors have to work for a minimum of 2 days per week for a firm in order to comply with the contract.

I have posted the letter on the website as I think it is very helpful to law firms to know how the LSC is thinking! We have since changed some of the wording on the site so as to take out the offending bits about selling rota slots, although this is of course in reality what most duty solicitors do every time they have to go through the 6 monthly CDS12 deadlines.

At the same time as this we have also recently received an email from an LSC family supervisor saying that she has recently been to a course where the LSC made clear that supervisors cannot be external and must be employed FULL TIME by the contracted firm.

I suspect the LSC really do not have a clue how firms are surviving on the hourly rates paid. The answer is that everything, particularly staff salaries, have to be shed in order to do this.

Looking at the current rates for family law, the rate for London for advocacy, attendance and preparation is £48.74 per hour. Even if a solicitor was managing to bill 7 hours per day at this rate for 48 weeks of the year, the maximum amount it is possible to earn doing LSC funded family law per solicitor is £81,883.20.

Working on the one third rule, ie 1/3 profit, 1/3 salary and 1/3 costs, the maximum salary a solicitors’ firm can possibly pay to a solicitor in London to be their LSC family supervisor is £27,294.40. This would require someone to be working 10-12 hour days due to the non-billable work, for 5 days a week, flat out.

Are the Legal Services Commission seriously suggesting that a 15 year PQE LSC Supervisor with Panel membership or Resolution accreditation is going to work a 60 hour week for £27,294.40? Apparently, according to the letter we received, the only exception to salaried status is for partners. How lucky they are!

I suspect one of the reasons the LSC is claiming they are going to crack down on consultancy arrangements (which in reality keep the whole LSC work going as solicitors go off and find better remunerated work to support them including plumbing) is that it is stopping the LSC from shifting the work over in the longer term to companies able to offer economies of scale by using vast armies of paralegals and advocates.

One of the reasons law firms and solicitors spend time trying to work out arrangements that include monthly retainers and hourly rates is so that both can survive. If the LSC were more realistic as to the rates being paid at present for legally aided work it may remove a lot of the need for lawyers to work out ways of working that legitmately fit the LSC contractual requirements.

After all, I don’t hear of many senior LSC staff working for £27,294.40…. Happy to retract this comment of course if they are all working 60 hour weeks for £25k.

Jonathan Fagan is MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and a former, fairly inept, crime solicitor with plenty of experience dealing with the LSC! Further articles on all topics available at www.legalrecruitment.blogspot.com

Document and Template Precedents Wanted
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment has a link to BusinessBusStop.com, a rapidly expanding online document store, and the site is looking for precedent legal documents and templates to add to their business shop – you can view the shop and current documents for sale at www.businessbusstop.com/shop.

Most solicitors and fee earners build up a high quality precedent bank over their careers. BusinessBusStop.com offers you the chance to make money from any documents, precedents or ebooks you may have on your computer. Each item is sold separately and commission paid to the document creators.

To make further enquiries, please email enquiries@chesterwebmarketing.co.uk or complete the form online at
http://www.businessbusstop.com/index.php/about-us/business-documents-purchased.

Locums – are you getting updates from us?
A quick note to say that if you are a locum or looking for locum work you should be getting regular updates from us. In the last month we have had family, conveyancing, wills & probate, employment, commercial litigation and civil litigation locum assignments in. All the locums on our lists should have had details of these for the relevant areas. If you have not received anything please email us at cv@ten-percent.co.uk and check that we have you listed as a locum.

Salary Review Update
The Ten-Percent Legal Salary Survey is available online – Click the link below to view the surveys, which are broken down into geographical areas: http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/salary-reviews

Our most recent Crime Solicitor salary list is available on our blog at http://www.legalrecruitment.blogspot.com/

Interview Question & Answer – Where do you see yourself in 10 years’ time?

This question is difficult to answer if you are giving honest answers in an interview.

Hopefully you will not be giving honest answers in an interview setting but rather answers that you think the interviewer wants to hear. The honest answer to both this question and the “Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time” question is probably that you either intend to retire, work for yourself, set up a different firm or be happily plodding along in a firm where you are being paid a good salary.

This is not however what the employer often wants to hear.

They want to hear that you would be happy to be working in the post you are currently interviewing for or possibly having done such a good job you are in line for promotion to a different position.

This is because when employers recruit they do not see just the first few months or the first few years in their heads, they see the next decade or so with you working in the same position.

This does change a little bit with larger employers who are naturally expectant of you to be considering promotion at some stage, but smaller employers invariably are looking for someone to be committed to their firm and the position they are applying for.

One of the main points given for feedback when somebody is unsuccessful in a job interview is either that they are too experienced or too inexperienced for the post they have applied for. The excuse is often given that the employer feels that the person will be bored in the role because it is too junior, or that they do not think the position will stimulate the person enough or vice versa.

This question of where do you see yourself in 10 years’ time is often used to determine how committed you are to this type of role.

A sample answer is:

“In 10 years’ time I would be happy to be still working in this position for your firm or in any position that you have deemed me fit for in the meantime. I am looking for stability and in return I am happy to commit to your firm for the long term”.

A sample answer for a trainee solicitor or training contact would be:

“I aim to qualify and remain with the firm I have worked with as a trainee for a considerably long time. I hope that I am able to exceed your expectations in the short term and remain with you for the long term.

(Interview Question and Answer taken from the forthcoming Ten-Percent Careers book – 100 Legal Interview Questions and Answers. Release date is Dec 1st 2012.

Vacancy Update 2nd October

New in today – Cost Draftsman (self employed) – Cardiff, Family and Housing Paralegals – Cardiff. Duty Solicitor – salaried or freelance – Woking/SW London. Monthly retainer duty solicitors – Peterborough and all areas of London.

14685 Small firm based in the Kingston upon Thames area are looking for a freelance duty solicitor, required for SW London, Surrey or Woking. Full or part time hours available. Salary available.
14683 Firm in Enfield, Greater London are looking for salaried crime solicitors with duty slots or freelance duty solicitors to work for a monthly retainer and split fee arrangement.
14682 Firm in Dorset are looking for a wills & probate solicitor for a permanent, full time post based initially in Shaftesbury and then moving on to Sturminster Newton. The firm are looking for an experienced candidate, ideally with around 4 years PQE.
14681 Highly experienced legal cashier/legal accounts person needed by established Kent firm. Initially full time but likely to become part time as role progresses
14680 Established Kent firm are looking for a crime solicitor or similar with LSC supervisory rights for a crime franchise including prision law. They must be very familiar with the contracts. Part or full time roll-option of court work and police work is available. The firm will consider salaried or freelance employees.
14679 Established firm in Reading with a number of offices in the South are looking for a duty solicitor to work on a salaried basis. Salary 35K.
14678 Established firm in South West London are looking for solicitors from any fields to join their team. The ideal candidate MUST have a client following. The firm will consider all option – salaried, fee split etc.
14677 Established firm in South West London are looking for solicitors from any fields to join their team. The ideal candidate MUST have a client following. The firm will consider all option – salaried, fee split etc.
14676 East London firm seek an immigration lawyer with supervisor status. Looking for someone who has Level 3 accreditation and hence is on the IAAS.
14675 Duty Solicitors sought – firm looking to pay Duty Solicitors a retainer of £1,300 per month plus an hourly rate. Central London – large practice.
14674 Immigration Supervisor – Level 2 or Level 3 – need to have IAAS Supervisor status. Firm are medium sized and based in South West London.
14673 West London (Hammersmith) firm interested in receiving CV’s from crime solicitors. They are looking for people who would be content to attend out of hours police station work as they are trying to reduce their reliance on outsource agencies for this work. Will of course consider all applicants as long as they are happy to be running around London in the middle of the night and at weekends. Ideally with duty solicitor status but also without considered.
The firm would also consider Police Station Reps.
14672 Legal cashier or costs draftsman sought by central London firm near to Waterloo station. Medium sized practice with both privately funded and LSC funded clients. Well regarded and fairly high profile. LSC billing is the main part of the post.
14671 Firm in Cheltenham seek a specialist child care solicitor specifically to undertake work for parents of children with Special Educational Needs primarily dealing with appeals to SENDIST (the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal). They are looking for anyone with some experience in this area, solicitor, legal executive, paralegal, locum or secretary and will look at part or full time, permanent or temporary. Generous salary.
14670 Firm in East Sussex are looking for duty solicitors to work either on a salary or for a monthly retainer and percentage fee split.
14669 Oxford firm are looking for duty solicitor to work on a salaried basis or for a monthly retainer and percentage split.
14668 Middlesex firm are looking for a crime solicitor with duty status who can also deal with another area of law – immigration, employment law, personal injury, clinical negligence, family or general civil/commercial litigation.
14667 Small, North London firm are ooking to recruit a solicitor with 1-3 year PQE who is also a qualified lawyer in India to head their India Desk. The ideal candidate should have knowledge of UK laws and Indian Laws and should be able to advice commercial laws of both jurisdictions.
The person must be willing to travel to India.
14666 A high street law firm in North West London is looking for a freelance duty solicitor to work on a monthly retainer plus percentage fee split. The firm will be responsible for the renewal of the practising certificate.
14665 Our clients, a firm of solicitors based in Skegness, handle a broad spectrum of industrial disease work including, lung conditions, noise induced hearing loss, repetitive strain injuries, asthma and dermatitis. Their team is rapidly expanding and we are looking for the right candidate with a minimum of 2 years experience of handling their own industrial disease caseload, in particular noise induced hearing loss claims.
14664 Full time duty solicitor required for specialist criminal practice in Reading. The ideal candidate must be a confident and engaging individual capable of working as a team member whilst also taking responsibility for his/her own case load. They must be willing and able to attend police station in unsocial hours. This is a salaried post.
14663 Experienced commercial and residential conveyancing solicitor needed for busy firm in Norwich to assist head of department. Partnership prospects for the right candidate. Salary based on experience.
14662 Large firm in Kent are looking for an experienced wills & probate solicitor. Ideal candidate should have at least 5 years PQE.
14660 Crime duty solicitor required for up and coming firm in Shepherds Bush, West London. Higher rights of Audience would be a distinct advantage. Either in house or on a freelance basis. Generous package offered to the right candidate.
14659 Family Solicitor or Fee Earner sought on a part time basis – looking for someone to be in the office and handle a caseload. LSC and privately funded work.
14658 Duty Solicitors sought on freelance basis by Bromley firm. Monthly retainer plus hourly rate.
14657 Family Supervisor sought by Bromley firm – on a consultancy basis. Will need to have SQM LSC Supervisor status.
14656 Children Panel member and LSC supervisor sought by SW London firm. Looking for someone urgently who complies with the SQM supervision standards for the LSC. Salaried or freelance arrangement possible.
14655 Firm in Tamworth are looking for a duty solicitor with at least 1 yrs PQE. Knowledge of francise and higher rights an advantage. The bulk of work is in the Staffordshire area (Burton, Tamworth, Lichfield, Cannock and Nuneaton). Candidate should be considering long term committment to the area and must have own vehicle. Full range of criminal work handled, never a dull moment, good career prospects for the right person.

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

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

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