Now that our clients are fully back in to the swing of things after the Christmas/New Year lull, Thornton Legal are pleased to see that normal recruitment activity is beginning to pick up with an increased number of new instructions in January.
Real Estate related roles are once again the focus of attention for many of the larger firms which will come as no great shock to those that keep on eye on the market. We have seen a recent influx of Corporate/Commercial roles of varying degrees of seniority. The junior roles often a result of increased volumes of work and the more senior a due to departing partners looking to be replaced, especially in the smaller commercial outfits.
Residential Property remains flat and in line with what we were seeing towards the latter half of 2017. This probably reflects the general slowdown in the property market over the past 12 months and high street firms competing with others for new instructions. Firms only really appear to be recruiting to replace leavers and not as a result of growth or expansion.
Family and private client instructions were steady in 2017 and nothing we have seen so far has given us any reason to think that 2018 will not prove similar.
From a placement point of view lot of the hard work we saw put into recruitment in the final quarter of last year has borne fruit in early January. Of particular satisfaction was the placement of 2 high quality commercial litigators into large national firms and 1 into a boutique regional commercial practice. We were proud of these placements as they were hard to fill roles in what continues to be a tight market for both roles and candidates.
What is clear is that the fight for talent for both firms and recruiters alike continues unabated in 2018. Fears over economic certainty mid Brexit have not stopped commercial firms hiring and the recent optimistic growth forecasts for this year will come as a welcome relief to many in the industry.
One a more sobering note, the PI market which has been comprehensively strangled of late shows little sign of recovery, especially with planned changes to the small claims limit still on the government agenda. Firms whose business models in recent years has been built on high quality paralegal recruitment are finding it more difficult to find the same calibre of candidate with many fee earners and paralegals looking to retrain or exit the profession completely.
We do wonder whether we shall see an increase this year in the number of Employment Law roles available as a natural consequence of employment tribunal fees being comprehensively slashed 6 months ago.
Whatever the challenges faced in legal recruitment in 2018, we at Thornton Legal feel as though we are well equipped to tackle them head on.
We believe that 2018 will be a fantastic year for a whole host of reasons. In addition to the launch of our bright, shiny new website and a new recruit into our marketing team, we are looking to add at least two consultants to help us recruit back office support and paralegal roles as well as increasing our footprint in Yorkshire and the Midlands. Exciting times lie ahead!
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Thornton Legal is a leading legal recruitment company, recruiting for legal jobs in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Chester and Preston. We are passionate about providing a professional, innovative and reliable legal recruitment service that is focused on quality and ensures our clients are matched with the strongest legal talent available. Contact one of our legal recruitment consultants today on 0151 307 5757 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to see what we can do for your law firm or legal career.
