News/Blog
Thornton Legal news, opinion and insights on legal and recruitment matters.
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Last week was mental health awareness week which saw an increase within the press and on social media aiming to raise the profile of mental health generally and placing a focus on mental health and stress at work.
It was also only last month that following a survey of 1000 British workers, Lawyers were said to be the 2nd most stressed professionals in the country with those aged 35-44 reporting daily stress at work. It therefore seemed a relevant time to focus a blog on this area from the perspective of working within the legal sector as a recruiter. Our role is not only about finding people jobs but also listening to their reasons for wanting to make a move and ensuring that the next move is the right one for them.
Increasing at Thornton Legal we get calls from candidates looking for a new role citing stress at work as the reason for them wanting to move on. Examples of reasons given include - increased and unrealistic targets, micromanagement, expectation to work longer than contracted hours, lack of structure within the firm and toxic working environments.
The Junior Lawyers Division annual resilience and well-being report also revealed that of more than 1000 respondents, 48% had mental health problems within that month.
As a result of the increase in coverage on the issues of mental health and stress at work professionals are speaking out more than ever before and workplaces are under significant pressure to act and put measures in place to support and ultimately keep their employees.
It goes without saying that working in the legal profession can be stressful with large workloads and long hours often expected. Many are also juggling family life with trying to forge a successful career. The sad fact is that the profession is losing talent with candidates turning their backs on the legal profession to pursue other career avenues.
Recently the SRA (Solicitors Regulation Authority) and BSB (Bar Standards Authority) have placed more emphasis on the well-being of the legal profession. The charity Law Care which was set up to provide a helpline for legal professionals has also seen a vast increase in calls.
Signs of stress an employer can recognise in an employee include –
- Taking more time off
- Arriving late every day
- Seeming nervous
- Lack of motivation
- Increased emotions
Signs of stress you can recognise in yourself can include –
- Sleep deprivation
- Drinking and smoking
- Mood swings
- Panic attacks
- Change in eating habits
Some tips that can help with stress at work include –
- Managing your workload - Plan your day. Often working longer hours does not necessarily mean more quality or productivity. Good time management can often produce the same results so get organised, keep relevant diaries and calendars up to date and switch off at the end of the day.
- Develop a ‘to do’ list - This will create a clear focus for the day/ week ahead and highlight urgent tasks.
- Delegate Tasks
- Say ‘No’ more
- Improve well-being - Take short breaks, go for a walk, go the gym before work or on lunch
- Take time off - Go for a long weekend away, use your holidays
- Don’t let life be work - As the saying goes ‘Don’t work so hard making a living that you forget to make a life’. Spend time with friends and family outside of work
Mental health awareness week has reiterated the importance of speaking out. If you feel stressed as an employee or employer, it can be difficult to talk, but there is a strong basis for requesting for support and for getting adjustments made in the workplace.
Many employers we deal with at Thornton Legal have their employee’s well-being at the forefront of their works culture with many offering flexibility, rewards and benefits to support employees.
However, there is still a long way to go within the legal profession. Highlighted by those contacting us wanting a new job due to their working environment, and the statistics continuing to come out of various surveys and reports focusing on the legal profession.
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Thornton Legal is a leading legal recruitment company, recruiting for legal jobs in across Merseyside, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Yorkshire and the West Midlands 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 to see what we can do for your law firm or legal career.
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The success of Thornton Legal is built on the number of placements we make, the more the merrier!
Having said that, our aim is to give good advice rather than chase quick fees. We always ask our candidates if they have let their current firm know their concerns, before such a big decision as moving jobs is made. It is important to have those internal conversations first and only then can a fully informed decision be made.
So why do law firms lose good staff, often to a direct competitor? These are some of the common complaints that we hear:
Onboarding
New recruits should be set up for success from day one. This is a non-negotiable.
Training
Lack of training is one of the most commonly heard reasons for someone wanting to move firms. Often promises are made but not delivered on. It’s no surprise that employees get fed up and contact recruiters.
Culture
Creating a positive culture is a must, our thoughts are that the right culture comes above salary in most cases. Who wants to come to work everyday into negative working environment? The culture of a firm comes from the top and it need to be worked at. Partners and Directors take note.
Work life balance
Law firms not offering some degree of flexible working will loose out in the war for legal talent. Click here for a previous blog on this topic.
Progression/growth opportunities
Every firm should give employees the opportunity for advancement, whether that’s up the career ladder or additional training so their day to day job becomes more varied and interesting. No-one wants to do they same job day in day out for years on end!
Managing Change
The legal sector is going through a turbulent time, with mergers and acquisition happening on a regular basis. How these events are communicated internally go a long way to ensuring that employees don’t decide to move on to a more ‘stable’ environment.
Retaining employees is particularly important given the skills gap in the legal sector. It has been reported recently that the cost of recruitment is an eye watering £30,000 on average! So, please do your best to keep your employees happy, at least the ones you don’t want to lose.
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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.
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For this blog, I thought I’d move away from recruitment and the law to one of my favourite pastimes and topics; running! I’m not quite a running bore (I hope not anyway), but I do encourage people as best I can to have a go to mixed success…I can but try!
I’ve been running for 10 years or so, dipping in and out depending on my commitments in any given 12 months sometimes running loads and sometimes very little. I’ve done my fair share of organised races from 10k’s through to the London Marathon, and standard wise I’d say I’m average…I’m more than a plodder, but not much more!
I love running for lots of reasons; the personal challenge, the way it clears the mind, the social side and the fact it is really easy to do. Kit on and I’m off!
Thornton Legal has been around for 3 years now and we plan to be around for a lot longer. I’ve run consistently during that time, nothing major just half an hour to an hour here and there. Running a business is stressful and running is my best release. In fact, some of my better ideas have come while out on the roads and trails. I’ve even managed to get Nick my co – Director involved, and he can now be found regularly running along the Liverpool waterfront or the Wirral.
Finding time to run more recently has been a challenge. I have a toddler and a baby on the way in July so I’m trying to be creative about finding the time. I’ve been pondering organising an informal running group for a while and, as the weather is on the up, I thought this week would be the time to getting the ball rolling.
Liverpool is such a great city for running, particularly along the waterfront, so I’ve put the feels out on Linkedin to the Liverpool business community to see if anyone would be interested in joining me for a weekly lunchtime 5k. All very informal with the only aim being to get changed, run, showered and back to the desk in an hour. I did a test run today and it’s definitely possible!
I’m thinking of starting next Wednesday so, if you’re interested in joining us, keep an eye out on my Linkedin feed and comment!
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Thornton Legal is a leading legal recruitment company, recruiting for legal jobs in across Merseyside, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Yorkshire and the West Midlands 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 to see what we can do for your law firm or legal career.
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Speaking to candidates this year has been an interesting and informative task. Some of their tales of previous experiences with recruiters have demonstrated to Joe and I why we set up our own recruitment business in the first place. It has also served as a great reminder of the standards we aspire towards for our own business.
We wanted to see how we could keep on improving the services we offer at Thornton legal and recently decided to survey some of our existing candidates to try to identify what they liked and what they disliked about recruiters and the recruitment experience generally. The results were very interesting.
Many candidates found their previous interaction with recruiters to be a positive experience but struggled to name them, even the ones who had placed them in their current jobs. This worried us.
Others had a less favourable perception that involved one or more of the following:
- “Being kept in the dark as to applications”
- “Not being contacted when they were told they would be provided with an update”
- “Recruiters sending CV’s to firms without the candidate’s permission”
- “Their consultant not knowing enough about the role or firm”
- “The application for a particular job falling down over salary at the 11th hour”
- “Recruiters not taking the time to find out what the candidate actually wants”
- “The role being very different to the one advertised by the recruiter”
- “Was a hindrance rather than a help”
A fair number, thankfully, gave glowing appraisals of the recruiters that had helped them find their perfect role. Some of the more positive comments included:
- “Going above and beyond what I had come to expect of a recruitment consultant”
- “Was knowledgeable and well informed and knew a lot about the culture of the firm, the team and the role itself”
- “Took the time to understand what the candidate actually wanted from a job”
- “Managed expectations and kept the candidate in the loop throughout the process”
- “Helped out with interview preparation”
- “Was trustworthy and efficient”
- “Was easily contactable and seemed genuinely interested in helping”
It struck us that in a candidate driven market awash with legal recruiters that we needed to take on board what our most valuable commodities were telling us. Without them we simply wouldn’t have a successful business.
It simply isn’t good enough not to respond to enquiries, not to get back in touch when we say we will get back in touch, not to prepare candidates properly for interview. I remember only too well from my own time as a solicitor in private practice, the frustrations I had with some recruiters who suggested roles to me that didn’t fit with my experience or ambitions, who didn’t call me back, who didn’t offer constructive feedback or advice.
Thornton Legal is keen to buck the current trend of impersonal legal recruitment. We want to meet candidates, to get to know them, to offer a consultative approach to recruitment that ensures that each and every candidate we deal with feels as though we have listened to their needs.
We have received some fantastic testimonials from candidates placed through us recently. We think we are doing the right things. The recurring themes we came across were acting with integrity, a knowledge of the market, offering a personal service and believing that we care.
We are happy that our candidates value the service that we offer but we don’t want to rest on our laurels. The recent survey has highlighted just how competitive the legal recruitment industry is and that candidates have a lot of choice as to who represents them.
The best kind of marketing a recruiter can get is our recommendation from a happy candidate to one of their colleagues. The number of referrals we have had this year is testimony to this.
There are a lot of legal recruiters in the North West. Some are great. The majority are pretty average. We want to be able to stand out from the crowd and ensure that we are memorable. We can only do this if we do what we say we are going to do and apply the Thornton Legal ethos consistently to each and every candidate we represent.
If you are a lawyer working in the North West who wants to have an open and honest chat about the job market, your career or an opportunity advertised on our website, we would be happy to take the time to listen. We appreciate that it can sometimes be difficult to speak during the day and are only too happy to put time aside in the evenings or at weekends if this suits you better. We are certain that we can help. We are absolutely certain that if we can’t help, you will still come away from the conversation having thought it was a positive and constructive experience.
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Thornton Legal is a leading legal recruitment company, recruiting for legal jobs in across the North West, West Yorkshire and West Midlands. 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.
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Putting together your CV can be a daunting task, especially if you’ve been at the same firm for a long time or are simply unsure how to set your experience out in a way that is going to be attractive to potential employers.
Thornton Legal are always happy to take the sting out of the process and offer a comprehensive CV advice service to candidates who want their CV’s to stand out from the crowd.
We are often asked what the best advice would be for applicants unsure of the basics or in need of a CV MOT. Our golden rules on CV writing remain the same:
Get the basics right
Ensure that the document covers your education, qualification, and experience, interests and includes information pertinent to the role. A short candidate profile summarising your current role and suitability for the job should be inserted towards the top of the document to catch the eye of the person reading it.
Presentation is key
Other vitally important things to consider are a clean and well-structured layout that ensures the CV can be scanned quickly by the reader. It should be clear and concise and ideally no more than 3 pages in length. Insert paragraphs into the body of the text at appropriate points. Ensure that you get somebody to proofread the CV to ensure that it is grammatically correct and devoid of embarrassing spelling mistakes!
Your job history should be set out in reverse chronological order with your current/most recent role at the top. The dates that you were employed at each firm should be included together with full job titles.
Showcase your achievements/skills
If you are particularly good at something job related or have achieved something significant in a particular role, be sure to mention it. By way of example, law firms are always keen to see:
A consistent billing history
Examples of winning new business or business development
Leadership or management skills
Examples of training given to clients of your firm
Evidence of the type of client you have worked for, the value or complexity of work done or any interesting or niche skills that you may have, which could set you apart from other candidates in the process.
Understand the job description and tailor your CV accordingly
A general CV, setting out your experience is useful but in the event that you have a job description or job specification for a particular role, consideration should be given to tailoring the contents of the document with reference to the specific skills and experience sought by the firm.
If you don’t have an up-to-date CV or even want some help in putting a fresh one together, Thornton Legal are happy to help.
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Thornton Legal is a leading legal recruitment company, recruiting for legal jobs in across the North West, West Yorkshire and West Midlands. 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.
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How did you get into legal recruitment?
I worked in the legal profession for 8 years starting as a legal assistant after completing my legal practice course. I qualified as a Solicitor in 2012 and after a couple of years working as a Solicitor, I started looking at other career options. My interest in legal recruitment was first sparked after I used a legal recruiter myself during my job search, so I decided to look at getting into this area myself.
Why the career change?
When I was working as a Solicitor, I got little job satisfaction and wasn’t really enjoying it so decided the time was right to make a move. I also had a young family so wanted a role offering a bit more flexibility and work life balance. After speaking to friends in legal recruitment it seemed like the perfect choice as I could still use my legal knowledge and background. I am now in my 7th year of legal recruitment and haven’t looked back!
What do you like most about being a recruiter?
I enjoy building up relationships with candidates and clients. It is always nice to be part of the process seeing candidates getting offered their perfect role and watching how their career develops. I also like to be kept busy and with recruitment no day is ever the same!
What has been the highlight of your career so far?
Completing my legal training contract and working full time with a 12-month-old was a big personal achievement for me. In terms of recruitment I would say progressing to a Senior Consultant and more recently seeing the firm ride out the pandemic having a record year which looks set to continue this year.
What has been your favourite box set so far, why?
I tend to binge watch most box sets within a few days. My latest watch has been Selling Sunsets .. definitely a guilty pleasure after a busy day!
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
I enjoy spending time with my family and friends. I have 3 boys aged 6, 7 and 13 so I am kept super busy with them. I enjoy most sports (watching that is!). I spend a lot of time as a football mum and most Saturdays I will be found at Prenton Park watching Tranmere Rovers.
I love eating out, going to concerts, the theatre and going on holiday. I try to get away in the sunshine as much as I can!
Thornton Legal is a leading legal recruitment company, recruiting for legal jobs in Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Yorkshire and West Midlands 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.