Legal Job Market Report 6th September 2011
August has not been a good month for legal recruitment until the last week. Unsurprisingly, partners seem to have a lot more on their mind at this time of year, including holidays and cutting the grass. It did not help that the international money markets have decided to practice bouncing up and down at high speed and rioters ran around for a few days stopping our candidates from attending job interviews!
The first signs of September are that the market is yet again picking up and getting busy. Our £720 a year recruitment service is now quite busy with a number of firms signing up and posting a good number of vacancies. The crime market is about to take off yet again for the latest deadlines of November/December/whenever the LSC get round to deciding it.
We have had family law posts in across the country, crime (mainly South East but also the West Midlands), a few property posts, litigation (seems to be getting quite popular again) and some commercial activity. Locum assignments are now coming into us fast and furious – in fact I would say the market is the best it has been for about three years.
The CIPS Monthly Survey reports that the UK Service sector has suffered a steep slowdown of activity growth – this is blamed on a fragile economic environment undermining confidence. The Reed Employment Index shows that employer demand was maintained for August, with a 20% increase on August 2010. We have certainly noticed that more solicitors are currently employed in decent, salaried posts than there were 2 years ago. Quality candidates are getting interviews fairly regularly and the market is again getting a little tighter.
Support staff posts continue to come in steadily. Ten-Percent has been developing a niche in legal cashiers for some time and we see plenty of vacancies coming on stream.
In August the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment £720 a Year Service had over 23 vacancies registered and 81 candidate registrations (solicitors, fee earners and legal support staff candidates). The majority of our clients now interview and recruit directly (through our new service), so we no longer have an accurate record of interview numbers. A number of new firms and existing clients have now signed over to the new £60 a month scheme and we anticipate reaching 100 member firms before Christmas.
Jonathan Fagan, MD Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. T: 0207 127 4343 or email: jbfagan@ten-percent.co.uk
