Your Passport for Success
Traditionally in a downturn, litigation is the area of law, which grows. While it would be true to say that litigators are in demand firms can still be choosy as to whom to hire. Strong areas are insolvency or its non-contentious cousin financial restructuring. Litigators with a skill in one or more niche areas such as construction, insurance or reinsurance or shipping are generally more in demand. Due to recent shakeups in various panels, litigators with personal injury/medical negligence experience will, however, find it hardest to secure positions since there is less demand. What has also become interesting, is that some of the US practices that wish to become full service UK firms (rather than simply concentrating on corporate/finance sectors) are looking to recruit litigators particularly those with international arbitration skills.
Specialisations
To specialise or not to specialise? It is difficult, particularly early in your career, to know whether specialisation is a good or bad thing. While there are advantages to remaining with a broad based background to keep your options open, the advantages of specialising in an area in which you have a genuine interest early on can provide significant benefits later on in your career. Generally there is a high level of interest in lawyers who have developed or wish to develop a specialist practice. This is particularly true in tax with corporate tax, banking tax and VAT lawyers more scarce than an honest politician.
As ever there are certain firms well known for their shipping and construction practices and lawyers who have experience in these areas can expect to be in demand.
One of the areas that has seen the greatest boom in recent years is IP/IT and Telecommunications. However, the dot.com crash and the general slowdown has meant that demand for these lawyers has declined although lawyers with a genuine understanding of what is often a technical area of business are likely to remain in great demand.
