Yes and yes.

Yes

Yes and yes.

Yes and yes. Although I spoke to a colleague at my old firm and they're apparently very worried about work drying up. 

No. But we only take people on at oooh 5,+ pqe and most are more like 10.

Yes and yes but if you were in my area of law you wouldn’t even have to ask!! 

Heh @ Dusty

Yes and no we also want a bit of pp experience first.

Thank you everyone for the replies. I was getting a bit spooked by all the doom and gloom recession chat and thought maybe things were slowing down, but the recruiters I’ve spoken to did say it was still busy for hiring. Im looking for a commercial RE role. 

Like a Japanese prisoner of war, but a happy one* **

*(TM) Alan Gordon Partridge

**not that happy to be honest.  Just very busy

currently v busy - team about to get more so as I am leaving firm in a week's time.

team is recruiting to replace me, but not a commercial RE role, soz. 

In house and... fook yes.

yes - busy as hell.  Our team has grown from 12 to 43 in past 24 months, and 3 new joiners next week.  It's insane.

Heh @ dusty

Winter is coming…

pretty busy tbh

still recruiting I think

Rushed off me feet here (in-house), had to work till 6:30pm yesterday.  Donations to Stonewall in leu of flowers please.  As it happens we are recruiting and finding it a very competitive market.

For balance, whilst I am personally v busy and my team will remain so, that is in part because we will be cutting external spend as that’s the easiest way to deal with budget pressures and releasing funds for modest salary bumps (vs headcount reduction). Not recruiting.

First in first out. Beware. 

Threads like this deny my lived reality and depress me. I’m at a city firm and have been trying to move for years. The market seems totally dead. There are hardly any adverts, the recruiters have nothing for me besides the few obviously advertised jobs, and I never hear back from any application that is even modestly aspirational, ie to a firm that might pay me more than my current salary. The only movers seem to be people who are trickling down the tier structure looking for an easier and poorer life. I’ve had interviews, and offers, but only from places that knew they were offering me less than my current salary. Pray for Pizzak_Rap please.

Do you want me to get busy love?

You'll be next .. Gazza likes em posh 

But before we all start praying for Pizzak_Rap we need a bit of context.  What area are you in, at what firm, how senior are you,  which firms have you applied to, and the big one - how strong a candidate are you?  Mayhap you have found your level.  

I’m in litigation. Enough said really. I’m 8PQE and nobody is hiring at that level. It’s typically 1-3. I think once you get past 5 people assume that it’s too late for you to work at a “better” firm, hence why there’s only trickle-down available.

My CV is awesome tbh, but seemingly people are reading “I AM SHIT” from it. I haven’t found my level. It’s just a stupid false-hierarchical system. I’ve met lots of litigators paid double what I get who are utterly shite, but they are where they are because they got in early.

Have you asked a headhunter to help you? 

Yes. They’re a huge problem in this industry. If you go on TheLawyer’s website you would think there were hundreds of jobs going, but it’s just a few which then get replicated a dozen times by different recruiters, plus there are some jobs that don’t exist or were filled years ago but the recruiters realised that they attracted enough applicants that they just keep re-publishing them to fish for CVs. More than one has admitted doing this to me, as if it wasn’t fraudulent.

They tend to get annoyed that I apply to roles directly myself and then I don’t hear from them for months. Or they pitch jobs to me that I very much don’t want. They never put me forward for jobs at firms that pay more than my firm, I imagine because they know it will be a no and they don’t want to tarnish their image with the firms by putting forward people they’re not interested in.

We’re dead as hell in our area and am beginning to get seriously worried (for balance!). I guess it depends on what area you are in. 

Yes and yes 

The fact is, there’s never really been a slowdown or consequences of major economic downturns for lawyers.  Lawyers always fret and worry, but even the GFC wasn’t that bad compared to other industries. Everyone thought work would dry up after Brexit too and it never happened. It didn’t happen for Covid either. Lawyer redundancies and layoffs at least in private practice are unheard of. 

Rubbish. 150 went in my old shop in the GFC. No redundancies but managed out. The senior partner had hall to shout in legal press no redundancies/Lay offs. Utter rush and a lot left when there was an upturn.

Gall and tosh.

And oh Patricia speak some property lawyers in the early nineties whole departments were wiped out.

Maybe they some were exited (poor performers) but fact is the market recovered quickly for lawyers and most would have been back in work. Unlike bankers. 

Disagree with patty the gfc was carnage in the longer term for cap mkt lawyers. Was an nq at the time and you basically lived by the seat of your pants for 3 years.. not exactly a quick recovery. Half ir thereabouts the team at my then firm were managed out despite being good solid lawyers. All at the mid to senior associate level. Horrible and put me off PP for life.