Conveyancer with experience of Visualfiles wanted for a West London firm
Unlimited Legal Recruitment?
Ten Percent Legal Recruitment has been at the forefront of online recruitment since 2000, introducing the UK’s first online candidate database for law firms to view directly and request CVs from. We have decided for 2010 to introduce a new way of working which will suit small to medium firms who may be looking to recruit more than once within a 12 month period. For a one-off fee we will allow you to contact as many candidates as you want to through our database, whether by letter, e-mail or telephone, and to recruit without any further charge.
You can view anonymous but detailed CV’s for each candidate as well as a brief description outlining their skills and experience. You can also communicate with the candidate without them knowing who you are and vice versa. Our database covers solicitors, legal executives, licensed conveyancers and experienced fee earners. We also have details of secretaries and paralegals available as well. For further details and to request a quote please visit http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/low-cost-legal-recruitment.html
A Career Away from Law
Moving away from the legal profession is a very big decision for a lot of lawyers, and one not to be taken lightly. It is something that comes up time and time again during our private career coaching sessions with clients, usually when lawyers get to about 3-6 years PQE or more.
If you are considering your options, think about the following:
1. Is it your job or your profession that is making you consider your options? Decide very carefully indeed…
2. Have you had thoughts about something you would like to do? If not, think. It is no good leaving the legal profession without any thought as to what you can do instead.
3. Have you got your financial commitments covered for a period of time?
4. Have you been to get experience in the profession you are thinking about going into?
5. Have you sat down and thought through all the factors affecting your decision making?
More to Law is a good starting website, together with Alec for free careers tests online. Our career coaching service is available at www.ten-percent.co.uk/career.htm
Duty Solicitors – the mad rush
In the last 3 weeks we have seen an unprecedented number of duty solicitor vacancies posted by firms looking to get their CDS 12 submissions into the LSC and desperate to recruit a duty solicitor to enable them to do this. Lots of smaller start up firms as well as older established ones, together with firms where duty solicitors have given notice of their impending departure.
This has proved an impossible task for a number of firms. A large majority of duty solicitors have elected to stay put and not move, whilst others have opted to go freelance and put their slots with one firm. Most appear to have got themselves sorted out very early on, and although we were able to assist 2 firms with placements that occurred on the deadline date, we could not help a larger number at such short notice.
These are our tips for avoiding this next time (ie in 6 months time).
1. Plan ahead. At least one of our clients recruited a duty solicitor provisionally back in February, knowing that they needed someone for July. This was a new entrant firm.
2. Do not call round recruitment agencies 2 weeks beforehand, and if you have to, do not call more than 2 or 3. A few times we found some of our candidates who were actively looking were put off firms whom they thought were desperate because they had been contacted about their vacancy at least 5 times.
3. If you are within 2 weeks of the deadline, do not under any circumstances play hardball with candidates. It does not work – most candidates this time round got about 3-5 firms following them at any one time.
4. Do not make very low offers and expect to negotiate upwards. This happened with a couple of firms this time and the firms got nowhere.
5. If all else fails, consider freelancers with slots to offer. Be prepared to pay well, but bear in mind if you plan ahead next time you may be able to get someone on a permanent basis (or persuade the freelancer to stay longer term).
Please email us details of any vacancies to cv@ten-percent.co.uk or register the vacancy online by clicking this link – http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/registerer.htm
Legal Job Market Report – 10th May 2010 from Ten-Percent Legal
The election result will inevitably have an effect on the mood of recruiters – most of the time as an industry we are very susceptible to world incidents 9/11, 7/7, the Gulf Wars etc.. – as law firms and in house departments tend to have other things to think about..
April 2010 has been a very good month, mainly thanks to the Legal Services Commission and the CDS 12 deadlines we have just been through. There is a shortage of solicitors now for a range of specialist roles – family panel members, children law solicitors, duty solicitors and higher court advocates – and we are getting law firms, charities and NGOs all requesting children panel members in particular (domestic violence module holders appear to be in great demand).
In April we had 42 vacancies posted for a whole range of different areas including Conveyancing, Commercial Property, Wills & Probate, Crime (lots), Family (lots), Industrial Disease, Personal Injury, Welfare Benefits, Employment, In House, Corporate Finance, Offshore, Child Care and Civil Litigation.
Commercial is still running fairly slowly, once you take out the larger firms generic lists, and most firms seem to be avoiding too much recruitment, but the high street is busy, and will remain so, particularly with the locum season almost upon us.
The market has definitely turned, vacancies are materialising and candidates are starting to be tied up again when we send out updates.
If you are thinking of recruiting and hoping to get a bargain due to the number of redundant solicitors still looking, this is now getting considerably harder as desirable candidates are working again, and the market left is getting increasingly B List rather than A List. A number of firms have found this and have had to revise offers upwards to attract candidates into their departments.
The new tax year has kick started the next round of recruitment, and we expect to be very busy now for the next 8 weeks until July 2010 when everything will slow down again.
Recent vacancies in – Commercial Property Solicitor – Cheshire, Crime Solicitor – St Albans, Children Panel Member – Middlesex, Employment – Wiltshire, Welfare Benefits & Debt – West Midlands, Family – Plymouth, Insolvency Lawyer – London, Personal Injury – Stockport.
The ‘World’s Hardest to Fill Locum Assignment’ Winner
From time to time as recruiters, we get vacancies in that have us “biting at the bit” and almost hanging up on the telephone so that we can start work identifying the perfect candidate for our client. These tend to be positions where we know immediately that we have someone ideally suited. We took a call this week from a firm that went as follows:
Caller “We are looking for a locum lawyer to cover holiday leave.”
Ten-Percent “OK – what are the dates?”
Caller “We dont know – we will let the locum know the day before we need them.”
Ten-Percent “Hmm – thats going to be difficult”.
Caller “It will be for 3 weeks, but we want them to come in for a morning beforehand to see how we work free of charge”.
Ten-Percent “Hmm – not sure we will get anyone for you to do that..”
Caller “We want a conveyancing solicitor with 3 years minimum experience, who is able to also do family law, immigration law and a bit of civil litigation.”
Ten-Percent “Not really sure we can assist”.
Caller “We want someone under 50 but over 35 years old.”
Caller “And they have to be a woman”.
Caller “We only want them for 3 days a week.”
Caller “But they will need to be available to take calls the other 2 days.”
Caller “We can offer £15 per hour and want to negotiate your fee.”
Caller “Can you let us know in the next 2 hours at the latest who you have available and we can draw up a shortlist to interview.”
Needless to say, we politely declined to assist, recommended that the firm contact one of our rivals, but made a note of the above conversation to post in our next newsletter!
For further details of the various Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment services including locum and permanent positions for solicitors and lawyers, please visit www.ten-percent.co.uk