Legal Recruitment News September 2017

Legal Job Market Report

Key points from 13th July to 6th September 2017 are as follows:

Permanent recruitment has decreased.
Locum recruitment has increased. Hourly rates have increased over the summer but will now decline.
Commercial and In House roles have picked up.
Wills and Probate is quieter but locum and permanent candidates remain very much in demand.
Conveyancing is getting quieter on the locum side. High seasonal demand is now ending. Permanent vacancies remain unfilled for long periods of time due to severe shortage of candidates.

Summary

For the full article please visit : https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/legal-job-market-report-dated-10th-september-2017/

Law Firms Wanted and For Sale
Ref 05090736 Buyer sought for North Midlands practice. Litigation firm. Partner happy to stay on as consultant.
Ref 08061231 Buyer looking to purchase will banks in London and Home Counties.
Ref 04071347 Buyer looking to purchase a solicitors firm with a crime or family legal aid contract in Beds, Bucks, Northants or Herts.

Hourly Rates of Pay for Locum Solicitors and Legal Executives

Although conveyancing rates increased over the last four weeks, we will now see a drop in hourly rates as we get closer to Christmas. September tends to remain fairly high as demand has traditionally still been strong. Full article – click here: https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/guide-to-locum-solicitors-hourly-rates-of-pay-september-2017/

10 Things to do before attending a Legal Job Interview

1. Review your CV. If an agent has sent it, ask them for a copy. We amend CVs nearly every time we send one out – mainly to remove any waffly bits or to present them in a better light. Get a copy, read it carefully. Remind yourself of anything you may have written 10 years ago and forgotten about.
2. Read this article in full by clicking here – https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/10-things-to-do-before-a-legal-job-interview/

Facebook Advertising – any good?

I could cut this article very short by saying no, but here is a bit extra. (read the full article here: http://legalrecruitment.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/facebook-advertising-is-it-any-good.html)

CV Blooper of the Month

Extract from Senior Solicitor’s CV – 30 years experience.

Education O Levels in English, Math’s, Geography, History

HR departments – seen any good bloopers recently? Send them over to cv@ten-percent.co.uk and if I publish them I’ll send you a £10 Waterstones voucher by way of thanks.

Top Tips for getting and not getting locum assignments

Top Tips for getting assignments
* Make sure your CV is as detailed as possible. It is no good sending us a CV that does not tell us what you have been doing for the past 20 years. Just writing “Conveyancing” does not give us anything near enough detail!
* Make sure your CV is presentable as possible. So many CVs are poorly produced, badly laid out and with multiple fonts all over the place. If this is what your CV looks like then what on earth are your files and letters going to be like?
* Be prepared to take assignments away from home to start with. Go for everything you can and if offered a post make sure you fulfil it. We rarely offer a locum a second chance if they fail to turn up or cancel at short notice. Our business depends on our reputation and locums who pull out are just about the most damaging thing to our company’s future existence that we can think of.
* Make sure you have supplied us with two references from recent employers. To whom it may concern references are best.
* Don’t get disillusioned when you miss out on an assignment. Keep trying – sooner or later one will come up and you will start getting regular bookings.

Top Tips for not getting assignments
* Be as awkward as possible when we ask you for paperwork,.
* Refuse to supply references.
* Send us a one page CV with large time gaps on.
* Not bother renewing your practising certificate.
* Reply to our updates a week later.
* Agree to cover a locum role and then not turn up.
* Sit at your locum assignment and run another business (this has happened).
* Tap up other solicitors firms you deal with whilst in your locum role and ask them for work.

Permanent Vacancies registered in the last 21 days

North, Scotland and Wales
VAC-17338 Personal Injury Solicitor Manchester
VAC-17324 Residential Conveyancing Newcastle-upon-Tyne
VAC-17321 Personal Injury Fee Earner Chester
VAC-17320 Residential Conveyancing Lawyer Cardiff
VAC-17311 Family Law Solicitor Carlisle
VAC-17299 Personal Injury Lawyer Lincoln

South and Midlands
VAC-17341 Residential Conveyancer Stevenage
VAC-17335 General Practice Solicitor Watford
VAC-17329 Commercial Property Paralegal Milton Keynes
VAC-17328 Conveyancing Paralegal Milton Keynes
VAC-17327 Legal Cashier Tunbridge Wells
VAC-17326 Costs Draftsperson South East London
VAC-17323 Legal Cashier Leicester
VAC-17322 Duty Solicitor Southall
VAC-17319 Legal Administrator South West London
VAC-17318 Private Client Lawyer Torquay
VAC-17317 Family Solicitor Milton Keynes
VAC-17316 Part-time Legal Cashier Plymouth
VAC-17315 Conveyancing Fee Earner Reading
VAC-17313 Conveyancing Solicitor Leicester
VAC-17309 NQ Family Solicitor Harrow
VAC-17308 Legal Cashier West London
VAC-17298 Conveyancing Lawyer Milton Keynes
VAC-17297 Crime Paralegal East London
VAC-17294 Conveyancing Assistant East-Central London
VAC-17290 Personal Injury Fee Earner x 3 West London
VAC-17287 Commercial Property Solicitor Stevenage

Any interest in getting further information? Please email cv@ten-percent.co.uk and we’ll get back with firm names etc..

Ask a Recruitment Consultant – questions this month on our chat bot

Questions sent to us via our new Chat service online, together with general career questions emailed across. We do our best to answer all queries, sometimes after a fairly lengthy delay if we are busy! – Read them here: https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/ask-a-legal-recruitment-consultant/

 

Low Cost Recruitment for Solicitors – Ten Percent Unlimited

Ten-Percent Unlimited is a service offering unlimited recruitment for a set monthly fee. It was set up by us back in 2011 with the aim of making the use of a recruitment agency cost-effective in a time of great financial difficulties for all in the profession. It is still going strong – we have had over 100 members to date – most of whom have been sole practitioners or smaller sized law firms.

The Unlimited Recruitment service offers law firms the chance to recruit as many permanent or locum candidates as needed over a period of 5 years in return for a monthly payment. There are no restrictions on numbers (although vacancies have to exist and we do operate a fair usage policy – so far never used) and no other costs. No other similar services exist in the recruitment industry.

For example in a 5 year period you may recruit a few locums for cover each year, a replacement conveyancing solicitor, a couple of legal secretaries, possibly a paralegal or two and have a look to expand the firm into a new area of law with an additional fee earner. All of this would cost considerable amounts in advertising and/or recruitment agency fees. However with Ten Percent Unlimited you simply pay a monthly fee for 60 months.

One of our recruitment consultants works full time on our Ten Percent Unlimited member firms’ recruitment needs and is always happy to talk about the service. If you would like a chat with Clare Fagan, please give her a ring on 0207 127 4343 or email clare.fagan@ten-percent.co.uk. www.tenpercentunlimited.co.uk.

How to be a Locum – pdf guide

We have produced a guide on how to be a locum. This includes sections on getting work, realistic expectations, hourly rates, popular fields of law, payment, insurance, umbrella companies and much more. Available for download at no charge from www.interimlawyers.co.uk – click the link on the left hand side of the page.

About Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment

We are a specialist legal recruiter, covering both permanent and locum roles across the whole of the UK. Over 11,000 lawyers are registered with us and we have access to a range of external and internal job boards and websites where we do not have candidates available ourselves. We also assist with recruitment advice and assistance, regularly advising partners and practice managers on suitable salary and package levels.

Our company is unique for a number of reasons, including the fact that we are not shy to publish our fee structure and also donate a chunk of our profits to charity each year. We offer unlimited permanent and locum recruitment for a fixed monthly fee or one-off fees depending on the job. We donate 10% of our profits annually to charity, hence our name.

We have three recruitment consultants, Jonathan Fagan, Clare Fagan and Pete Gresty, together with our finance director Pearl McNamara. As a team we have over 40 years of experience in the legal profession.

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment also owns Interim Lawyers, a specialist locum service. We operate an outsourced UK based typing service as well – www.tptranscription.co.uk and are preferred suppliers to a number of institutional clients and law firms across the UK and overseas.

The Ten-Percent Group of Legal Recruitment websites gives 10% of annual profits to charity. We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 15 years ago. So far over £90k has been donated to charities in the UK and Africa including LawCare, Unlock and Reprieve.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter and look forward to hearing from you if we can assist further.

Warm regards

Jonathan Fagan
Director

E: jbfagan@tenpercentgroup.com
T: 0207 127 4343

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited
20-22 Wenlock Road
London
N1 7GU

Jonathan Fagan is a solicitor, qualified recruitment consultant and Managing Director of Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here – www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan

Legal Recruitment News is produced by TP Legal Recruitment – you can view all versions of the e-newsletter at www.legal-recruitment.co.uk.

Ten Percent Group – www.tenpercentgroup.com
Interim Lawyers – www.interimlawyers.co.uk
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – www.ten-percent.co.uk
Legal Recruitment Newsletter – www.legal-recruitment.co.uk