The harsh lessons of the boom and bust economics of the 1980s have left the legal profession profoundly changed as it emerges from recession.

While legal recruitment consultants are happy to talk in terms of 'gravy trains' and 'recruitment drives', lawyers have adopted a much more circumspect language.Ronnie Fox, a senior partner with City firm Fox Williams, has a strong partnership practice and is therefore privy to the accounts of legal firms as well as those of other professions.'Things are getting better now,' he says.

'But it won't ever be like the 1980s.

The legal profession was slow to enter the recession and is slow coming out.' Mr Fox estimates law firms are about a year behind the rest of business.Law firms certainly are not hiring willy-nilly to capitalise on the economic upturn.

Fox Williams is not actively recruiting.

Instead, it is keeping faith with its trainees.'The best way to recruit', says Mr Fox, 'is to keep on trainees when they qualify.' 'We chose our trainees in the hope that they would be people who want to stay on and people we would want to keep,' he says.This is also the message from national law firm Eversheds, which will keep on all its trainees who qualify in the autumn.

The firm, which comprises nearly 1000 fee-earners, also intends taking on an additional 75 trainees this year.However, Eversheds chief executive, Keith James, says the firm is also currently recruiting in all of its main offices: 'We recently had a meeting when all regional managers reported that they were recruiting right up to partner level.' And, he says, Eversheds lawyers are now spending more and more time with clients involved in new projects rather than 'project development associated with an economy in a recession'.Mr Fox and Mr James agree that the most sought-after lawyers are those working in the specialist markets.

This is particularly true, says Mr James, in intellectual property, information technology and corporate finance.Yet, although good work is coming to the specialist and niche practices, Mr Fox adds the caveat that the more generalised firms are finding it harder.Legal recruitment consultants are also mindful of the pitfalls of an overblown economy and its impact on the legal markets.

Stephen Rodney is a director with leading recruitment consultants Quarry Dougall.

'Things are picking up, ' he says.

'The feeling is they are gearing up for the gravy train which is just around the corner.' He identifies banking, IT, telecommunication and construction as growth markets rather than litigation which, he says, is not in demand.Mr Rodney believes it is the larger firms which 'downsized' departments in the recession that are taking on more lawyers, and he believes that for the first time since 1993 the market is picking up for newly qualified lawyers.However, he notes, the emphasis is now on short term and fixed term contracts while law firm clients want fixed fees and more competitive bidding.

'Law firms do not want to get their fingers burned as they did in the 1980s,' he says.Lawyers are also more willing to leave legal London.

Since 1990, says Mr Rodney, lawyers are prepared to move back to their roots in order to enhance their career prospects.John Sacco is northern manager of recruitment consultants Daniels Bates.

'The market has been upward since last year, but this year it has really taken off,' he says.

'People are showing a willingness to move into new areas where new departments are being set up.

It is now possible to make very good career moves.'Mr Sacco even predicts the emergence of new recruitment firms to meet these increased recruitment requirements.International law firm Lovell White Durrant is also actively recruiting.

Apart from its commitment to a further 60 new trainees in the autumn, the firm is looking for general fee-earners on an ad hoc basis as the need arises.Linda Neal is senior personnel manager at the 142-partner firm.

She predicts 'more movement' in legal recruitment this year.

'We have just recruited a new partner, and at the moment we are looking for someone in insurance and reinsurance.'Ms Neal feels the conditions are better suited to fee-earners, especially those who can command a client following, rather than trainees.

She describes the situation for trainees as still one of 'hot competition'.Much of what is happening in the larger City firms is, to some extent at least, being reflected in smaller firms around the country.

Litigation partner Ian Holdsworth of Greaves Atter & Beaumont, a five-partner general practice in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, says his firm is directly benefiting from competition between trainees.'Because jobs are still so scarce, we are seeing very good quality candidates, who would have gone to bigger firms in Leeds five years ago,' he says.

'It is a bit cynical, but it would be churlish to let some of them go by the way.'Mr Holdsworth sounds a warning note.

At the beginning of this year the firm had a scare when, for no apparent reason, the market went quiet and Mr Holdsworth and the other partners were left 'casting about for work'.In Wales the picture is not quite so rosy.

Mike Howells, senior partner of Milford Haven solicitors Price & Kelway, says: 'My impression is that nobody is recruiting.

What seems to be happening is that partners are working harder instead of recruiting assistants to share the workload.'Mr Howells says his three-partner firm always used to recruit trainees but has been forced to stop because of the minimum salary requirement and the general effect of the recession.Across the channel in Bristol the situation seems just as uncertain.

Adrian Stone is a partner with Bristol firm Moriarty & Westlake, a general litigation firm of three partners.

Mr Stone detects a 'dearth' of jobs in the Bristol area.

'We are not offering any recruitment at the moment.

And I know there are lots of people looking for work.'However, in London the smaller firms are not finding conditions quite so tough.

Thackray Wood, a Beckenham firm formed during a merger in May this year, is advertising for a lawyer to start up 'any new department'.'We have had some quite interesting responses,' says partner Peter Castledine.

'We are feeling quite bullish considering what is happening to the economy'.'There is a feeling from my commercial clients that a full recovery is just around the corner.'