Specialist Recruitment and Career Advisers to the Legal Profession in the South West

Although we regularly advertise a selection of our current vacancies in the legal press, we don't include a full jobs database on our website. Far too many recruiters' own on-line job boards are out of date, inaccurate and unwieldy and we'd much rather focus our efforts on our client relationships and your job search.

You will find many of our jobs on several of the leading online legal jobs boards - see links below - but if you are considering a new move (or would just like an informal career discussion), we urge you to contact us so that we can discuss your requirements in depth, and provide you with full and up-to-date details of all our instructions. 

» thelawyer.com 

Market Review (Spring '08): It is still too early to say precisely what the impact of the recent financial market ‘shocks’ is likely to be on the South West recruitment markets. Generally, the leading firms in the region remain busy, with many departments continuing to enjoy record breaking results. There is still a shortage of high quality talent and most of our clients are still recruiting in numbers for additional resources to cope with existing workload and planned growth. However, although the rumoured slowdown does not seem to have had a major impact so far, there is a certain degree of anxiety and caution in some quarters, with perhaps less opportunistic and speculative hiring taking place and some firms taking longer to make considered recruitment decisions.
 

There is strong support for the view that a gentle slowdown may actually work to the benefit of our regional clients. As the flow of very large transactions (typically carried out by the major City law firms) slows, underutilised lawyers in these firms may well conclude that now is the right time to relocate to Bristol/the South West to progress their careers by gaining experience working on the many and varied deals being carried out by the leading firms here. Many corporations too, feeling pressure to keep a lid on legal spend, are increasingly looking to regional law firms that offer City quality advice at regional charge-out rates and arguably provide better value for money than some expensive City players. All our clients are keen to recruit lawyers from the City and there will always be opportunities for talented individuals looking to make the move westwards.

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Don't forget...

1. Not all jobs are advertised

Although the majority of our successful candidates do fill active law firm vacancies, we place a significant proportion of our candidates into new roles that simply didn't exist prior to a specific client approach made by us on their behalf. This type of discreet, proactive approach really can and does produce results - particularly for high calibre lawyers wishing to target a discrete and self-contained market, such as the South West. For these candidates, there never was - and may never have been - a 'vacancy' for them to respond to.

2. Right place, right time?

You may be happy to bide your time and wait for the perfect vacancy to come along, but can you be sure that you'll get to hear about it? Even if you're in no rush to find a new role, it helps to have someone who understands your career objectives keeping a constant look out for you in your target market.

Career Counsel acts as an employment agency in the introduction of candidates to its clients.

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