RECRUITMENT MARKET: THE FACTSIn January 1997 the Law Society's survey, 'Solicitors in private practice -- their work and expectations', found:-- 83% of partners and assistants expected still to be in priv ate practice in five years time and only 8% expected to have given up a career in the law.-- 4% of assistants compared with 1% of partners expected to be taking a career break, and 6% of assistants and 5% of partners expected to have given up the law.-- 38% of assistants and 46% of associates expected to be salaried partners in five years time, while 36% of assistants and 42% of associates expected to be equity partners.The Law Society's Annual Statistical Report 1997 found:-- 82% of practising certificate holders were in private practice, 6% in commerce and industry, 4% in local government and 2% in the CPS.-- 1% of solicitors younger than 30 were partners but the majority of partners (43%) were in the 40 to 49 age band.FIONA BAWDON CASTS AN EYE OVER THE CURRENT LEGAL RECRUITMENT MARKET AND FINDS A RETURN TO THE GLORY DAYS OF THE '80sThe commercial legal recruitment market is booming.

Agencies say the market is at its most buoyant since the heydays of 1988.

This time, however, they insist the good times are set to stay for some time to come.Jane Davey, recruitment consultant at Badenoch & Clark, says: 'It's buoyant and staying that way.

I can't see the trend slowing for a bit.' Graham Manley, director of Quarry Dougall Recruitment, is equally upbeat.

'Eighteen months to two years ago, when the market started to pick up, there was a degree of trepidation among firms.

People were not confident it would continue but it has been gathering momentum since then.' Mark Field, director of Kellyfield Consulting, adds that when the downturn in the economy arrives -- as it inevitably must -- there will be a time lag probably of around six months before its chill winds are felt in the legal profession.Lawyers with commercial experience of corporate banking, finance, intellectual property, information technology, construction and commercial property continue to be the most sought after.

One recruitment consultant describes good commercial lawyers as being 'like gold dust'.The shortage means firms are having to cast their nets wider than they might otherwise like, considering people slightly more junior or more senior than the two- to four-years qualified most would opt for first.

However, Graham Manley insists that it is not just a case of 'bums on seats' as it was in many areas of law, notably commercial property, in the last boom.Then, firms would ask agencies to find them ten candidates who were recognisably human and had a practising certificate, he says.

'They are more selective this time.

Law firms have reformed the way they recruit.

There is still strong demand for critical mass, but they are more specific about the types of individuals they want.'Mr Manley puts the change down to internal reforms within firms.

In the past, recruitment was often overseen by a partner, with no real personnel experience, who also had a practice to run.

Now firms tend to employ in-house professionals to organise recruitment.Not surprisingly, given the level of demand, salaries are going up.

Jane Davey says: 'A good City firm will almost certainly pay a newly-qualified solicitor £30,000.' At the more senior levels, commercial property and banking lawyers will tend to command a premium.

At the very top end, average earnings are being eased up by the arrival of predatory US firms seeking to recruit senior specialist finance and corporate lawyers.According to Stephen Rodney, director of Quarry Dougall Legal Recruitment in London, US firms are often offering salaries double that paid by home-grown firms.

Although it was partners in spec ialist areas who originally attracted the attentions of the US firms, there has now been a slight filtering down, with senior assistants being next in their sights.

According to Mr Rodney, the number of home-grown lawyers employed by US firms has increased by 50%, up from slightly more than 400 to more than 600.

Although the overall numbers remain relatively low, they are enough for the reverberations to be felt across a small community like the City.David Rance of Quarry Dougall says City firms have been prompted to look at new ways of locking people in, rather than just responding by paying 'silly money'.

For instance, firms are looking at ways to reduce excessive working hours, he says.

But the US firms are not the only interlopers to arrive waving huge salary cheques.

The big accountancy firms are also making an impact, offering inflated salaries to those with specialist expertise, in areas like tax.According to Graham Manley, firms in the provinces are waiting nervously for the accountants to ride into town and start picking off their best people.

In Leeds, where he is based, local firms are 'very alert' to the potential threat, but do not really know what to do about it.

'They are waiting for the mushroom cloud to go up.

It's clear it's going to happen but there's very little they can do until it does.' He adds: 'The problem is, the accountancy firms are so sophisticated, so large and have so much money, when they do make a move up here, it will be very difficult to counter.'The accountants are not the only traffic making the move from south to north.

According to David Rance, as regional firms get bigger, so the salaries paid and the quality of work become comparable with those on offer in the capital.

Many lawyers with roots in the north, originally lured south, are now making the trek back again, he says.

Mr Manley agrees.

It is now possible for solicitors to work for local firms and match their London salary pound for pound which, given the far lower cost of living in Leeds, leaves them considerably better off.It seems that the regions, like the capital, are booming.

ZMB consultant Andrew Caulfield says his agency has just doubled the size of its Manchester office from two staff to four to cope with demand.

ZMB's London office has also started getting a volume of work from home counties firms and those on the periphery of the capital, who are also finding it harder to recruit.Another booming area is the use of locums, or staff on temporary contracts.

So much so that ZMB has started a separate division to handle these placements, according to Mr Caulfield.

Julia Ramsden of Badenoch & Clark agrees that business is brisk.

'It is going up in leaps and bounds,' she says.

There is no such thing as a typical locum.

They will range from the newly qualified -- who may vary from those who have been made redundant to antipodean lawyers with several years experience, who are in this country for only a short time -- to senior partners who may have taken early retirement but do not yet want to fade away altogether.The days when 'locum' was seen as being synonymous with 'second rate lawyer' are well and truly over, says Ms Ramsden.

The quality of work many of them can expect to be doing is of the highest, she adds.'I have known antipodean lawyers come here, expecting to work for three months before travelling somewhere glorious, who end up staying on longer because the position they have got is so good.'LAW FIRMS ARE INCREASINGLY TURNING TO THE SERVICES OF HEADHUNTERS TO FIND THE RIGHT LAWYER FOR THE RIGHT JOBThe recruitm ent of lawyers to commercial firms, like so much else in the business of law, is moving towards a more aggressive and competitive model pioneered by the US.

There, taking on precisely the right lawyer for the right job is seen as being so crucial to business success that head-hunting has become the norm.

So-called contingency recruitment -- that is, fishing only in the pool of lawyers who look at recruitment adverts or who have registered with a recruitment agency -- would be seen as too random a process.

In fact, US firms do not even understand the concept of contingency recruitment.

For them, using head-hunters to lure apparently settled lawyers away from their existing employers is normal practice.In the UK, however, commercial law firms still take on most fee earners through recruitment agencies.

Anthony Tomkins, founder of The Charles Fellowes Partnership, says recruitment agencies succeed because they can sell the idea of working for a particular firm to candidates.

'Law firms are often not great at promoting themselves.

Our job is to promote our clients to candidates,' he says.He says the best agencies offer good value to commercial firms, because they also have access to a far greater number of candidates than any one firm could get by advertising in its own name.

As a result, Mr Tomkins says, 'it is rare to come across a commercial firm that thinks it could do an equally good job for less money by advertising directly'.Indeed, during the current boom Mr Tomkins says fees are 'not an important factor for firms in deciding which agency to use'.

Much more important, given that an agency has to work hand-in-glove with their clients to be able represent them to candidates, is that the firm 'gets on with the agency's people,' he says.

Where firms do advertise in the jobs pages, filling vacancies is often only a secondary motive.The main purpose of advertising is usually to raise a firm's profile, particularly if it is looking to expand a particular department.

As independent legal management consultant Anne Radford says: 'Advertising jobs is partly a marketing activity.

It's telling people, "We're on the move".'In fact, as a method of filling vacancies, some commercial firms have found advertising to be painfully unsuccessful.

At a time of acute shortage of experienced lawyers, even recruitment agencies have found themselves struggling to find candidates.

Agencies remain popular for recruiting lawyers at all levels but something more specialised is often felt to be needed to attract heads of departments and partners.

This is when firms turn to headhunting, or 'executive search'.

According to headhunters, up until the beginning of the decade there was an unwritten agreement among leading commercial firms that they would not poach from one another.Things are no longer so gentlemanly.

Firms are reluctant to talk about it, but nearly all of them use headhunters.

A survey carried out in December 1997 by HW Group, which owns legal recruitment agency Daniels Bates, found growing support for the concept of headhunting.

Daniels Bates regional controller Anil Shah says: 'Most firms see law as such a candidate-driven market that they believe headhunting will be the predominant recruitment method for big firms in future.'Indeed, Jonathan Glass, director of leading legal headhunters Longbridge, says the scope of headhunting is expanding all the time, with even two-years qualified lawyers now sought by this method.

Mr Glass maintains: 'All the firms are using headhunters now.' He says they realise that by going through an agency 't he best lawyer a firm can hope to get is the best one who happens to be looking for a job at that time'.The best headhunters, however, will research the market, identify a shortlist of possible candidates, and then persuade them to consider a move from a job they might not previously have thought of leaving.

But the perception among firms is still that many headhunters are fly-by-nights, cold-calling lawyers at random.

Mr Glass agrees, saying: 'The unprofessional headhunter is the bane of our lives.' He says any good headhunter should be able to provide firms with evidence of the depth of their knowledge of particular legal markets and the people operating in them.

He says: 'At presentations, we often give information to senior equity partners about their own firm that they did not know themselves.'In the middle of a boom, with commercial lawyers in incredibly short supply, it is perhaps unsurprising that legal headhunters are mining a rich seam of business.

But according to Ms Radford, the trend towards headhunting is set to continue in the longer term.

She says it reflects the attention law firms are paying not just to the technical skills of recruits but to 'the clients they bring with them as well as their personality and their way of doing business'.Ms Radford says it is a sign of a mature management approach that law firms should be specific about the need for recruits to show 'good client rapport and the ability to manage projects and work as part of a multi-disciplinary team'.

She says: 'These more detailed requirements are more likely to be satisfied by executive search than by a recruitment agency.' She says firms are also right to assume that the people they are seeking 'are not going to respond to adverts -- you have to dig them out'.There are other ways law firms can find the staff they need.

Sometimes it can be as simple as advertising internally.

If a staff member has a friend who would fit the bill, they can put them in touch with their employer and save the cost and time of approaching a headhunter or agency.

But neither this, nor the best efforts of the recruitment agencies, look likely to stem the growth of the headhunters.

It appears the era of the gentleman solicitor is well and truly over.ROBERT VERKAIK FINDS THAT MORE IN-HOUSE LAWYERS ARE TAKING THE PLUNGE AND MOVING INTO PRIVATE PRACTICELawyers always regard the grass as being greener on the other side of the legal practice fence.

For instance, many private practice solicitors are convinced company solicitors work fewer hours, are treated with greater respect and showered with decadent perks.Across the fence, the in-house employee suspects his private practice counterparts are all drawing the sort of fat cat financial packages he reads about in the papers.For a long time, it was only private practice lawyers who were prepared to act on their suspicions and change jobs.

Now there is a steady, two-way flow between the two practice areas.Tony Warnock-Smith spent 25 years as an in-house lawyer in the pharmaceutical industry before joining Cardiff and London law firm Morgan Bruce in 1996.

Mr Warnock-Smith says when he first started his career, the idea of leaving a company employer to go back into private practice was very unusual.

One reason for this was that company lawyers had grown too attached to the company car, generous pension and free gym membership.

But over the years the perks gap has narrowed.Mr Warnock-Smith says: 'The terms and conditions for partners in many law firms are increasingly sophisticated and are beginning to look compara ble to company staff packages.'Jennifer Parker, a former vice-president in the legal department of merchant bankers Morgan Stanley, joined the London office of Pinsent Curtis as client service partner in April last year.Her previous employer boasted a first class staff restaurant and two on-site gyms.

'They look after you very well,' she says.

Pinsent Curtis has in-house caterers but no gym.As well as being more comfortable, corporate employment has also been viewed as less risky than the unpredictable fortunes of private practice.

But these days the in-house legal department is usually one of the first to be trimmed when the company board succumbs to a hostile takeover.

Mr Warnock-Smith says: 'In recessionary times there are just as many in-house lawyers who have come under threat.'During the last 12 months, recruitment consultant Harvey Sutton has helped more than a dozen lawyers move from City law firms to the corporate sector and back again.

Most recently they placed Cameron McKenna lawyer Nigel Bremner -- the older brother of Rory, the TV impressionist and political satirist -- as head of business and legal affairs at a film production company.Harvey Sutton's director, Benjamin Jackson, makes the point that company lawyers understand their value to a law firm.

'Lawyers who jump from in-house jobs back to private practice almost always come in as partners and eschew the partnership selection procedure that most lawyers have to endure,' he says.So what are the main differences between the two practice fields?Ms Parker trained with City law firm Freshfields and is in the unlikely position of having gone from private practice to in-house and back to private practice.

'I think it's quite unusual to move back into private practice and I certainly always said that I never would, but then I have come back to do something different, as client service partner,' she says.Ms Parker's main task at Morgan Stanley was to advise on specific issues for the company as they came up.

'Less commonly,' she says, 'would you be documenting a transaction through from start to finish which is what you do in a law firm.' But she also describes her Morgan Stanley job as being demanding in terms of hours and expectations placed on her, including being called at home.Siobhain Butterworth left City and media law firm Stephens Innocent last year to set up The Guardian and Observer newspapers' first in-house legal department.

She now covers all legal matters arising out of the business of publishing and selling these two national newspapers.

Ms Butterworth emphasises that the most significant difference in her role from that at Stephens Innocent is that she now feels a significant cog in a large wheel.This is a view with which Ms Parker agrees.

'In-house you are one of the members of a team of very different disciplines,' she says.

'In a law firm, law is the be-all and end-all and that frankly, in my view gives you a little less variety of people and experience.' Ms Butterworth says: 'Teams in private practice are all about sharing knowledge, standards and quality, teams in-house are all about, "how can we pull this thing together?" how can we get the paper out?'One of the first culture shocks to face Mr Warnock-Smith when he joined Morgan Bruce was the need to 'account for time' because he was now billing clients rather than paying legal fee bills.But he also says: 'Coming into a medium-to-large sized law firm is wonderful in the sense that there are experts down the corridor, upstairs, downstairs and in the next office.

There is an atmo sphere of legal resource.'The one thing that Mr Warnock-Smith misses is the lack of client feedback in private practice.

'You do a piece of work which disappears into a black hole and you are very lucky to hear what happens,' he says.

'Whereas in-house you know whether your work is good, bad or indifferent.'The differences in the work carried out between the two types of lawyer has also narrowed over the years.

City practices are continuously exhorting their solicitors to be businessmen lawyers who can give added value to the company.Mr Warnock-Smith is always conscious of what he wants when asking for advice from a law firm.

He considers legal advice in the context of providing a solution to the problem rather than simply firing off the law.

Mr Warnock-Smith explains: 'I haven't found myself running for the defensive letter, in a way -- certainly in former times -- you found coming from law firms.'Adds Mr Warnock-Smith: 'The role of the in-house legal adviser since I [first] worked in-house has changed from doing all sorts of things for the company to being expert purchasers of legal advisers.'City law firms have been quick to see the benefit of recruiting in-house lawyers jettisoned by companies.

From the law firm's perspective there is a greater chance of bagging the business of the company from where the lawyer has come.Ms Parker says: 'The expectation in many cases must be that if you bring someone on who has been in-house their previous home will continue to refer work back.'For the individual lawyer who moves across fields the expectations are very different.

Ms Butterworth sums up: 'The question really is, "am I fulfilled in my job?" I really couldn't care less whether there was a good canteen or not.'REBECCA TOWERS TALKS TO LAWYERS IN THE CITY OF LONDON AND IN THE REGIONS ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THEIR WORKING LIVESIn the recessionary period at the end of the 1980s and early '90s, many commercial law firms adopted a 'hire and fire' approach to recruitment, picking up and dumping recruits as economic conditions demanded.

But a decade later, the same firms now struggle to find new staff.As vice-chair of the Young Solicitors Group, Katie Paxton is more aware than most of the pressures and pitfalls of recruitment strategy.

Ms Paxton came to law from the financial services sector in her early twenties and qualified slightly more than a year ago at a City firm.In Ms Paxton's view the general picture has not changed much since the recession.

Commercial recruitment 'has been a bit of a mess over the last few years'.

She criticises the recruitment policies of many firms as too short-term, and as being too much a 'knee jerk'reaction to changing economic conditions.To Ms Paxton, the way forward is longer-term recruitment strategies which offer assistant solicitors comprehensive training and a clear career path.

'Choosing a firm is a personal thing,' says Ms Paxton.

'I worked before I went to college for big organisations and felt that I would get the best training in a smaller environment.' Looking back she remains unimpressed by what she describes as the 'City mentality' -- long hours and competitive behaviour amongst fee-earning peers.In 1996 she moved to the 'more relaxed', Southampton-based Bond Pearce, before moving 'in-house' to work for an IT company.

Ms Paxton's advice to young lawyers is to take advantage of support networks such as the trainee and young solicitors' groups, and to 'stick with it and don't get disillusioned, it's not like LA Law; you'll find the bits you like and you will get there in the end'.Paul Greatholder, an assistant solicitor at City firm Denton Hall, qualified in September 1995 and trained with midlands firm Wragge & Co.

Mr Greatholder was drawn to the City in 1997 mainly by opportunities to work on 'bigger and better' projects -- and his desire to live and work in the capital.

So far, he says, the hours have been a standard eight-hour day.

But, as Mr Greatholder says, this is unlikely to last.

'The department I've joined was extremely busy a while ago working long evenings and all weekend.' Other than the City's longer hours, Mr Greatholder says City and provincial solicitors share the same billing and time pressures.The property market remains a key advantage of working in the provinces, says Mr Greatholder.

Even a City assistant solicitor's salary of £30,000 to £40,000 does not bridge the disparity between provincial property prices and those in London.

Mr Greatholder advises those thinking about a career in law to 'have more than one string to your bow.

Don't just think of yourself as a lawyer -- think of yourself as a specialist in your area and as a lawyer secondly.'Leslie Perrin, managing partner of Bristol firm Osborne Clark, says larger regional firms make the same demands on their staff as their City counterparts.

This is particularly true of the larger provincial practices which can now boast the specialist experience and expertise in big commercial transactions that their corporate clients would normally take to City firms.Training and remuneration are still widely regarded as significant incentives for moving to the City.

These days, Mr Perrin says: '[provincial firms'] training and pay are much more in line [with the City] than they used to be.' But, he adds, ultimately, the appeal of global City firms 'is that you are going to the absolute market leaders in the world'.Recruitment methods differ amongst commercial law firms.

'Each firm has its own method of recruitment,' says Mr Perrin.

'We recruited 45 solicitors in 1997 -- we have been able to get them if we have wanted to,' he says.

But he remains concerned that there is still a shortage of commercial lawyers being trained.Mr Perrin, who qualified at the age of 35, would advise students considering a career in commercial law 'not to be afraid to do a non-law degree.

It is entirely right that a lawyer should acquire some knowledge in the real world before attempting to advise people about it'.According to Patrick Maddams, chief executive of London firm Beachcroft Stanleys, City firms can offer 'a better salary structure, better training structure and better social facilities' than their regional counterparts.City and provincial firms, he says, 'are different in terms of a working environment.

[London] is not a nine-to-five place, it's hectic .

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One of the reasons is that [commercial law] is transactional in nature, involving large mergers, acquisitions and projects'.

As a result 'the hours are longer and you are rewarded accordingly,' he says.

Mr Maddams says a major advantage of training with a smaller, regional practice is the opportunity to gain a wide range of legal experience.

By contrast, the bigger City firms often place newly-qualified solicitors in one of a number of departments.

Recruits are then expected to specialise in a particular area within that department.Despite the current scarcity of commercial recruits, Patrick Maddams reports continued fierce competition amongst law students to secure a training contract.

'There are more people studying law than there are places for them.

We received 1,500 a pplications last year for ten places.' But many other City firms still believe the profession to be suffering a shortage of commercial lawyers.

Mr Maddams concedes that big City firms are paying the price for drastic cutbacks made during the recession, as substantial salary packages are now needed to attract new talent.

This, he says, could have been avoided if proper management and training programmes had been in place at the time.The indicators are that the City has been forced to reassess its management, training and recruiting strategies.

Chambers recruitment consultant David Wolfsen echoes this point: 'One City firm reported to me that they didn't work long hours.

They said, "we don't want our assistant solicitors to spend all their life at work", they wanted their solicitors to develop client-getting skills.' City firms seem to be adopting a new approach to recruitment, one based on reciprocity.Large City firms encourage extra-curricular study and interests in exchange for a commitment to work within a highly pressurised environment.

Beachcroft Stanleys is a good example.

The firm is giving David Talalla, trainee solicitor, additional leave to allow him to go to take his place as a member of Malaysia's national cricket squad at this year's Commonwealth Games.