Reading Time: 3 minutesMaking a Move – how to know when it is time The autumn is traditionally a time when a number of staff at law firms start to look around for work. Our candidate registrations tend to pick up at this time of year as solicitors return from their summer holidays having had time to think…
Reading Time: 2 minutesSalary reviews – how not to approach them – a guide for employers/partners Here are our top tips for salary reviews and avoiding any increases in salary. 1. Repeatedly postpone or cancel the salary review for up to 6 months. Top tip. 2. During the salary review continue to work whilst occasionally glancing up and…
Reading Time: 3 minutesPractice Managers in a solicitor’s firm – who are they and how do you get a job as one? Practice Managers are usually the most senior administrative member of staff in a solicitors’ firm or company. In a lot of firms they are expected to have a considerable and varied amount of experience with tasks…
Reading Time: 5 minutesWhat makes a good job reference? We often get job offers for our candidates which involve a clause to say that the offer is subject to satisfactory references. A few times during the last 16 years, we have experienced difficulties getting hold of a satisfactory reference but the vast majority of references are very straightforward.…
Reading Time: 4 minutesThere are an abundance of different websites online to search for legal jobs. These include job boards, agency websites, posting boards and blogs. However, these are the best sites in our experience (apart from our own of course!): 1) Law Society Gazette Online This site, until very recently, was in our opinion absolutely dreadful. The…
Reading Time: 3 minutesWe sometimes get queries from trainee solicitors asking if it is possible to change law firms during a training contract, and whether they ought to do it. Our advice is always the same; jump through the burning hoop of the training contract with as minimal fuss as possible and only change law firm if your…
Reading Time: 3 minutesVery recently, a candidate got in touch about a vacancy, explaining quite apologetically that she was returning to work after a break and could she be considered for the post. As a recruiter, I have to be honest and say that whenever anybody tells me they are returning to work I almost involuntarily sigh because…
Reading Time: 3 minutesHow to cut a better deal with your current firm Working in a solicitors firm and getting paid the salary or package you feel you deserve are very often quite separate points. You probably accepted a salary offered when you first started with the firm some time ago and have seen little movement since. Indeed,…
Reading Time: 6 minutesShould I stay or should I go? Crime Job Market Report I hope this article assists crime solicitors and does not depress anyone too much. It is a reflection of the harsh reality of crime regardless of the latest government interference in funding. Each time we get close to new contract deadlines or the next…
Reading Time: 3 minutesHow much money can you earn as a consultant, freelancer or locum solicitor? We regularly get contacted by solicitors wanting to know how much can be made from working as a freelancer (if in crime), a consultant (if family or litigation) or a locum (if non-contentious). These include sole practitioners, senior solicitors looking to enjoy…
Reading Time: 3 minutesI want to get out of law and am completely fed up, what can I do? This relates to a number of queries that have come into the Ten Legal Careers Centre over the last six months, although the level of enquiries of this nature has dropped (excluding crime solicitors). Redundancy or threat of redundancy…
Reading Time: 5 minutes10 Ways to Get Fired Not that this comes up very often, but it is harder to get fired from a job than you would imagine. That said, a recent experience with an employer in North Wales indicates that it is possible to be fired for wearing a pink shirt, getting pregnant (the same employer…
Reading Time: 2 minutesThis is the advice I have recently given to a career coaching client looking to put together the perfect covering email or letter. It really depends on the circumstances in which you are using these, but generally you should be sending CVs as attachments and a covering email to go with the CV which should,…
Reading Time: < 1 minuteCrime Solicitor Duty Solicitor Rota Slot Shop is open for business for CDS12 Deadline Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment has been working with crime firms for over 10 years on duty solicitor, higher court advocate and police station vacancies. We have set up an online Rota Slot Shop for Duty Solicitors. So many firms are now using…
Reading Time: 3 minutesThis article is divided into three sections. The first is for law students, the second is for graduates and the third is for qualified lawyers, solicitors and legal staff. How do I Dramatically Improve my Legal Career Prospects? We often get asked this question and people are often expecting an easy answer. It depends on…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQ Why do you offer career coaching to lawyers and law students? Good question! Together with 3 other lawyers I set up Ten Percent Legal Recruitment back in April 2000. Within a few months we were being bombarded with CVs from law students and graduates desperate for training contracts and work experience. We obviously could…
Reading Time: 3 minutesA recent dilemna arose for a solicitor looking to take a fairly senior post in the North of England. He had two offers, as well as an additional firm interested. One firm were very friendly, a reasonable size, good working conditions, excellent career prospects from the outset including possible partnership. Their location was not the…
Reading Time: 2 minutesIt is apparently the case that mothers returning to work after starting a family suffer the highest employment penalty of any group (Equalities Review). Mothers with children under 11 are 37% less likely to be offered a job than equivalent males. Single mums suffer even worse figures – rising to above 40%. Firms should not…
Reading Time: 2 minutesNegotiation with some firms is like a gunfight at OK Corral! It can be great fun dealing with firms and candidates when it comes to job offers being made by firms. Some firms make good, competitive offers, which any sensible candidate would accept, and other firms make low, slave wage level offers, which only someone…
Reading Time: 2 minutesThis article also applies to recruitment consultant jobs generally. Becoming a legal recruitment consultant is a little like joining the Dark Side in Star Wars – it involves professionals giving up a well paid job with status to take on what is, in essence, a sales position, and very often viewed as a step down the…
Reading Time: 3 minutesAt some stage in a solicitors career, this conundrum will almost always arise. It usually follows the stint of a locum in a firm for a longer period of a few weeks, and someone in the firm discovering that the locum is getting paid more than one of the junior partners for doing a much…
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThis used to be fairly popular (both ways), but as more lawyers realise that life is not that rosy on the other side, we find it less common. If you are about 2 years PQE (post-qualification experience) or above, in a field of law related to in house work – employment, company commercial, conveyancing, property,…
Reading Time: 2 minutesIs it Normal to Hate Working as a Solicitor? OK – you have spent 4 years being a solicitor, and you hate it. You dislike your clients, your boss, the money, the hours, your colleagues and life in general. What do you do? Firstly, do not worry that you are unusual. This is common, and…
Reading Time: < 1 minuteA common topic with lawyers is whether they can change fields of law once qualified. Commercial Lawyers moving into the “more interesting” High Street”, and High Street lawyers looking to earn more than a Tesco shelf stacker and move into commercial law. Crime and immigration are particular fields, with a number of practitioners wanting quite…
Reading Time: 2 minutesA common question we get asked by solicitors and executives is “what should I be doing with my career”? It is very hard to give a response to this. It really depends on what you are looking for out of your career, and whether you seek a high salary, status, or you have entrepreneurial ambitions…
Reading Time: 2 minutesOnce the holy grail of career ambitions, partnership is not as important to a lot of lawyers for a number of reasons; firstly solicitors these days are often more interested in quality of life and spending time out of the office doing other things such as sleeping, eating and breathing. Secondly a increasingly larger proportion…