All firms cry out to hire young corporate lawyers

RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION: IT legal skills lacking

Law firms in the City and the provinces have the same problem - recruiting experienced corporate lawyers, a survey has shown.

The survey for recruitment consultancies Hughes Castell and Legal Opportunities revealed that City firms' number one recruitment priority is hiring corporate lawyers, followed by IT and intellectual property lawyers.

Banking and finance is the third most demanded skill in the City.

Provincial firms are also after corporate lawyers, but general practitioners and commercial solicitors feature next on their wish list.

The survey confirmed that the shortage is at the lower end of the assistant scale; 88% of firms are looking for lawyers with two to four years' post-qualification experience (PQE).

However, 12% admitted they were in the market for lateral hires at partner level.

Legal Opportunities director Clio Demitrides said: 'There is a real chronic shortage of IT lawyers with five years' PQE.

Contracts available five years ago did not address the issue of IT.

We have now been beaten by the fact that we were training inadequately for the future.

The emphasis was on the short-term.'

The recruiters' first annual survey revealed that 80% of a cross-section of 65 provincial firms named recruitment as their number one area of staffing concern, while 20% were most worried about retention.

Nine out of ten plan to hire more lawyers in the next year.

Anne Mizzi