Articles From the Team

Newly Qualified Season Gets Off To a Positive Start

We have recently held NQ seminars in Birmingham and Manchester, each event was well attended and feedback from trainees that attended was positive.  In Birmingham the NQ market looks fairly busy and we are seeing 1 or 2 NQ roles coming through already.  Most firms are set to release internal job lists during the next month or so but already 1 or 2 of our law firm clients suspect that in certain areas they will require external candidates.

NQ positions we are already working on in the Midlands region include corporate, insurance litigation (industrial disease, insurance fraud, defendant PI, defendant professional indemnity) and property litigation.  It will be no surprise to anyone to hear that we predict that employment and commercial litigation will be slow once again this year.

If you are due to qualify this September and want to specialise in an area such as employment (or any other hard to area of law) you will need to be flexible on location and the type of firm you’ll consider.  Flexibility is certainly the way forward.  Whilst its fine to have a plan A, you’ll need a plan B and even a plan C ready if things don’t look as positive as you first hoped.  Think about where you have family and friends located, where you went to Uni etc.  Don’t discount smaller firms.  Its better to attend an interview than not for a number of different reasons, primarily because come September not many people can afford not to be unemployed.

I have witnessed many an NQ season in my time as a legal recruiter, the thing that always strikes me is how people’s plans change shape from what they were in April and what they look like come June time when plan A hasn’t come to fruition.  Many trainees end up specialising in area of law they didn’t anticipate in a location they never thought of living in!

For more information or to speak to a recruitment consultant contact James Brewster on 0845 241 0933.