Recruiting the regions

Like most parts of the economy, recruitment within the legal sector has had its ups and downs over the past few years; the Midlands has most certainly seen its fair share of turbulence.

But the start of 2014 heralded an initial stabilisation in the region followed by months of consistent and - more importantly - sustained growth across some, but not all, areas of the law.

On a general note, we have seen live vacancies increase year on year. This upward trajectory
is encouraging, especially as the demand for candidates is coming from firms of all sizes, from the national players and large volume specialists to long established high street practices. However, it's important to note that the picture
is varied, which, in turn, means the availability
and the quality of job opportunities will squarely depend on the individual discipline.

Property: the growth area

In terms of said disciplines, just over half of the roles that we are now working on are property focused. This is then followed by commercial and corporate vacancies, litigation (insurance and commercial), employment and family, as well
as trusts and tax for private clients.

In terms of property roles, commercial is leading the way and we are seeing more and more multiple commercial property vacancies at both the larger national firms in the main legal centres and the 'out of town', small to medium-sized commercial practices. The positive you can take from this is that firms are, by and large, recruiting because of increases in their workloads, particularly in respect to residential and commercial development.

The number of residential conveyancing vacancies on the high street has also grown at an alarming rate over the last six months and I predict this will continue until the housing market cools.

There is, of course, much debate about whether there is another 'bubble' looming, but many commentators forget that the regions, including the East and West Midlands, have not experienced the huge price hikes that have been seen in London and the South East.

Both the large volume conveyancing businesses and the more traditional, small to medium-sized firms are looking to recruit candidates with at least six months' conveyancing experience, while more experienced lawyers are needed by traditional law firms. Larger conveyancers are also commonly offering trainee conveyancer roles to Legal Practice Course (LPC) graduates. This is a good route in for newly-qualified solicitors (NQ) as they provide excellent training and development opportunities. Again, this is a trend we believe will continue.

Conveyancers with plot sales experience are also in high demand as a result of the new housing developments that are springing up all over the Midlands. The housing market was one of the biggest casualties of the 2008 global credit crunch, but the government's efforts to kick start the sector with initiatives such as earmarking surplus public sector land and brown field sites for development, along with the hotly debated (and much criticised) Help to Buy Scheme, are now - thankfully - paying dividends.

A commercial focus

The commercial roles we work on are mostly IT and technology focused. There is also a moderate demand for solicitors with projects and public-private partnerships (PPP)/private finance initiative (PFI) experience. Despite some high profile and much publicised casualties, many PPP/PFI projects have been undertaken successfully post recession. Many in the property world disagree on the future of these models so it's an area the legal profession will need to monitor closely and then evolve with over time.

When it comes to corporate jobs, the majority are for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) lawyers. However, interestingly, there are now as many banking, asset and project finance roles as
there are general corporate vacancies. But,
in comparison, restructuring and insolvency positions are largely non-existent. These trends can be interpreted as a direct result of an economy with more financial confidence.

Litigation roles are still prevalent but general commercial contract litigation not so much.
More so, they are focused towards professional and clinical negligence as well as personal injury (PI). It goes without saying that the PI market has changed hugely post Jackson. The claimant injury market has shrunk massively as a result of the ban on referral fees, which has caused a shake-up. The end result is fewer firms are now offering PI services.

The defendant injury market has, however, remained fairly steady. Firms that act for insurers have seen the dynamics of their work change as they are now dealing with fewer low-value motor litigation cases. This is again due to Jackson, as well as more robust case management practices that have encouraged parties to treat litigation as a last resort. These factors have shifted the emphasis to higher value motor, employers and public liability litigation work, all of which are better for profit levels as they are typically charged on an hourly rate basis as opposed to
a fixed fee.

As you might expect, professional negligence teams have also remained busy. This has mostly been down to the number of claims that have been brought against construction professionals and solicitors.

The defendant clinical negligence market is another buoyant area thanks to the NHS Litigation Authority. The organisation spends £75m a year on lawyers and it pays out more than £1bn in compensation. The associated panel firms are always looking to recruit new lawyers for their teams as a direct result. >>

Family affairs and employment matters

Family and employment vacancies are bubbling away but they lack the sustained growth of other disciplines at present. Panel membership is still
an important requirement of most of the family
job descriptions we work on, while business development experience is also high on the list of many potential employers across the market.
The low level of activity in these areas is widely considered to be down to the high charge-out rates for privately funded work. However, child panel membership is still a common requirement in order to get access to highly competitive legal aid work.

In terms of employment vacancies, the overwhelming majority are respondent oriented. This trend tells us claimant work has dropped off massively since the introduction of tribunal fees back in 2013. We often see these roles advertised as part-time as there just aren't enough full caseloads available to justify costly full-time positions. This might, of course, change over the short to medium term now that the new fee structures are being challenged at a judicial review.

On a positive note, private client roles are now busier across the board compared with 2013. We have seen a noticeable increase in demand for Court of Protection experience along with high value tax and trusts expertise.

The Midlands: a history

The growing economy is most certainly driving an increase in the number of overall vacancies across the Midlands. There are some anomalies, such as commercial property, which saw few lawyers qualify into it between 2009 and 2011. Three years down the line, we are now seeing a shortage of candidates. The same can be said for corporate, but to a slightly lesser extent. This is a similar trend to what happened in 2005/06 after the dotcom bubble burst shook confidence in 2000/01: firms tightened their belts and subsequently trainee numbers fell. The latest recession was obviously
a lot deeper but the similarities and the consequences that we are now seeing are obvious.

Criminal jobs are also scarce. While the legal recruitment market for many is very ample, if you are an employment, family or criminal solicitor then you are going to struggle. This is in stark contrast to being a commercial, residential property, or corporate lawyer as they perhaps have too many choices on offer. The number of banking roles has also increased, but given its position as a niche discipline in the regions, it will never be as buoyant as others.

If we compare the number of vacancies in these core areas year on year, we as legal recruitment consultants saw close to a 100 per cent increase
in active vacancies in 2012/13, but in 2013/14 we have seen a rise of 500 per cent. That figure, although staggering, is wholly accurate, and is excellent news for the jobs market. The reality is however, that there simply aren't enough solicitors working in the 'boom' disciplines actively seeking
a new position.

The increases, however, do not apply to PI and defendant insurance litigation, where we have seen a 50 per cent decrease in the last 12 months as the PI landscape adjusts to life post-Jackson reforms. Having said that, we have seen vacancies increase in some niche areas, including industrial disease and costs.

If the cycle of 'recession and recovery' continues as it has done in the last 15 years, the doom- mongers out there will say we are due another recession at some point in the next five to ten years. If their predictions are correct then the impressive percentage increases witnessed over the past 12 to 24 months are not, and will not, be sustainable. But hopefully, this government - and successive administrations - will have learned from past mistakes.

Firms, no matter what their size or structure,
also need to work hard to keep trainee solicitor levels more constant if they want to avoid painful shortages of talent when times are good. I would also hope that this, coupled with firms recruiting law graduates via less traditional routes to qualification, should mean fewer gaps in experience levels going forward.

Habits are, of course, hard to break so it wouldn't surprise me if I am sitting here in five years' time commenting on yet another dearth of two to five years' PQE commercial property solicitors and
a 1,000 per cent increase in vacancies since 2012. However, the onus is on the entire legal sector
to adapt, plan and respond quickly to market demands.

There is some great talent working in the Midlands (along with some first rate firms) so,
all in all, the future looks promising. SJ

James Brewster is associate director at BCL Legal