Where have all the lawyers gone?
There are far more career options for lawyers now.
There is currently a shortage of mid-ranking to senior lawyers in the market. A few years ago the legal market looked very different. Lawyers completed their articles and set themselves the ambitious goal of joining a law firm for life. For life! The Americans did most of their business in America. The accountants practised accounting, and as for the dotcoms well they simply didn't exist.
But times have changed. Demand for lawyers, and in particular transactional lawyers, heavily exceeds supply. As a result of the continued buoyant economic climate the 1999/2000 financial year saw most of the UK's premier law firms achieve record profits. In particular most law firms seem to have benefited from an exceptionally strong year for cross-border M&A work. In addition, the growing and converging new technology markets as well as the upturn in the Asian economy have boosted many firms.
Lawyers who traditionally had the option of choosing between private practice or in-house can now select a broader range of options, such as joining a multidisciplinary partnership, an investment bank or a dot.com. There is also less of a stigma for lawyers who leave the profession and the growing statistics support this.
What law firms need to do is adapt to this new climate and recognise those factors which they are in control of, such as the ability to rebrand, more effectively manage the careers of their lawyers, and other similar initiatives. In today's market lawyers seem to accept more readily that they will typically work long hours but the law firms who are winning the recruitment race are those who are best managing and looking after their lawyers. For some time there is likely to be a larger number of firms chasing fewer lawyers but if law firms can at least implement some initiatives to ensure that staff retention rates are kept to a maximum then they will at least be able to improve the current dilemma. At TMP QD Legal we are now working closely with a number of law firms to retain and motivate their assistants.
