UK firms remain wary despite elevated recruitment figures
April 23, 2010 by Damian
The title of this post is the title of an article from the latest edition of the UK’s The Lawyer magazine which you can read here – http://www.thelawyer.com/1004112.article.
The tenor of this article sums up for me exactly the uncertainty in the recruitment market at present and the influence that the press has on people’s perception of the state of that market.
What I mean by this is that the first sentence of this article states:
“The UK’s top 25 firms are back in recruitment mode, with an estimated 2,133 people having been brought on board to UK offices in 2009-10 alone.”
I am sure that everyone reading this would think – ‘brilliant – now it’s time to dust off the CV because I’m outta here’.
Well ‘no’ I’m afraid. The next sentence states:
‘However, the total number of hires is still exceeded by the 2,370 people firms made redundant during the downturn, suggesting management caution has far from subsided.”
The article goes on to state that :
‘The highest numbers of hires were made by two firms with large volume businesses, Irwin Mitchell and Eversheds, which recruited 414 and 293 people respectively’. This sounds positive for your chances at Irwin Mitchell and Eversheds – yes? Well ‘no’, the next sentence states:
“Since late 2007 Irwin Mitchell has laid off 16, while Eversheds parted company with 735.’
So the question remains – are firms back in recruitment mode or not?
This article does not answer the question and shies away from coming to a conclusion, finishing off instead with a very bland non sequitur from the Chief Executive of DLA Piper, (incidentally a firm who made more redundancies than most). So what was the point of the article? To be honest, I am not sure as it seems to give hope to people but then tempers it with caveat upon caveat.
What this article highlights to me is that no-one knows what will happen in the coming months, not even the esteemed journos at The Lawyer. The market is still going through a lot of uncertainty and how long it will take for this uncertainty to be removed, is anyone’s guess.
As for whether I, sitting down here in NZ, am going to come to a conclusion as to the state of the recruitment market in London, well if the journos at The Lawyer aren’t going to, then neither will I!
However, if you are thinking about making the move to London or elsewhere, please get in touch with us. We would love to have a chat to you about your background and what we can do to help you over there.
To specialise or not to specialise?
December 11, 2009 by Damian
From years of experience in overseas recruitment, the main feedback that clients give me about NZ (and Australian) lawyers is that one of the main reasons that they are so employable is because of their versatility.
Due to the nature of the market down here, few practitioners are what UK lawyers would call ‘specialists’. For example, there would not be one finance lawyer in NZ who would be dedicated to only doing aviation finance. My own legal career in the UK (for what it was) was purely in tobacco litigation – I did nothing else. This degree of specialisation just does not exist in NZ firms.
Until now, allowing practitioners to specialise in London has worked. The deals are huge, sophisticated and specific so people with detailed knowledge of the subject matter are necessary. One unforeseen consequence of the GFC, if the Linklaters’ plan as laid out in The Lawyer article below works, may be that the specialist lawyer may be a thing of the past in London -
http://www.thelawyer.com/1002837.article?nl=TL-LND.
If the way of the future for London lawyers is to become generalists rather than specialists, this could have some effect on the employability of NZ lawyers in the future. If that point of difference is taken away, it will be up to NZ lawyers to come up with another selling point to differentiate themselves from the rest of the market.
Any ideas?
Only £85,000?
July 8, 2009 by Damian
I laughed when I read this story this morning on The Lawyer’s website -
http://www.thelawyer.com/1001294.article.
Doesn’t your heart just bleed?
I would also recommend having a read of some of the comments made by various posters about the issue. Thank goodness we don’t have that arrogant attitude over here!!!
UK/NZ Law Firm Mergers
June 30, 2009 by Damian
The big news this week in the legal world is the merger between UK heavyweights Norton Rose and the mid-tier Australian firm, Deacons – http://www.thelawyer.com/norton-rose-signs-tie-up-with-australias-deacons/1001147.article.
It is the first merger between a major UK law firm and a significant player in the Australian market and has provoked a lot of intense debate on websites such as The Lawyer and Legal Week, some of which has been very insightful, some of it being just downright xenophobic.
The rationale behind the merger seems to be a desire to shore up both firm’s practices in the Asian market. Only time will tell if it is successful or not but as more than one contributor to the debate has pointed out, it will definitely increase the amount of top quality Australian lawyers wanting to join Deacons as people see the inevitable secondment opportunities that the merger will bring to lawyers within the firm.
The merger has got me thinking about the possibility of a UK/NZ merger. I have never heard any talk of it, probably because the UK firms cannot see any upside to it but if it did happen, how about these potential merger partners?
If Slaughter & May merged with Russell McVeagh, the firm could be called Slaughter & McVeagh.
If Simmons & Simmons merged with Simpson Grierson, the firm could easily be called Simpson & Simmons.
Similarly, Olswang and Kensington Swan could be Olswan and AJ Park and SJ Berwin could be AJ Berwin.
It is doubtful that any of these fanciful mergers will ever happen but I am sure that the leading lights in the NZ firms, as well as the Australian firms, will be looking at the Norton Rose/Deacons merger to see how successful or not it turns out to be.