Expanding your horizons

Since the beginning of the year, we have seen a marked increase in enthusiasm from firms to recruit quality lawyers. We are turning from an employers’ to an employees’ market. This is reflected in the number of new jobs coming through to us each week, the return of recruitment events, where firms use a myriad of methods to entice us to sell themselves (from fabulous goody bags with brollies and stress balls to afternoon tea and scones) and the thickness of the back pages of the legal press.

So, as a lawyer perhaps contemplating the next move, how does this impact on you? In a tough market, there will always be far more lawyers than jobs. However strong a candidate you are, you will be faced with stiff competition. As the market picks up, the competition will be less fierce as more law firms recruit and the pool of candidates is spread wider among the larger number of recruiting law firms.


Of course, there are always variations within different practice areas. For example, at the moment, the appetite for commercial property lawyers is insatiable. Most City law firms are looking for mid- to senior-level property assistants and the number of property lawyers on the market is small. This means it is a fantastic time to be looking.


There is a real ability for property lawyers at small firms to jump to larger firms, and senior candidates to find good career prospects, making a positive and upward career move. Only recently I assisted a property lawyer at a 20-partner London firm make the move to one of the best-rated property practices in the City.


Other practice areas are still to reach the heady heights of the late 1990s and early millennium, such as corporate. As a corporate lawyer looking to move, you may have to bide your time, be patient and wait for the perfect fit. But as the market improves, as it appears, touch wood, it will, this will move faster.


Like buying an annuity, when you reach that critical period in your career and need to make a move, a lot of it is about luck, how the market is at that time, just as interest rates might be fortuitously high when you reach retirement age.


We are moving steadily towards it being a good time for most lawyers out there. If you are contemplating a move, have some underlying issues that cannot be addressed by staying where you are, or simply want to improve on the quality of work you are doing, you would be wise to think about starting the process to find a new firm and progress your career at an optimum time.