Joanna Marklove, Director, discusses the Insurance & Residential Conveyancing private practice markets in 2024 and looks ahead to 2025
From Joanna
Marklove
Residential property
It's been a busy year within residential property with a steady flow of firms recruiting across all levels from paralegal to partner.
Demand remains high for properties across the country and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
Popular areas are only seeing a steady increase in prices and people will pay for a desirable location. However the recent budget news on increases in Stamp Duty may affect some second home owners and first time buyers – time will tell.
Counter-offers
Demand is incredibly high for conveyancers at the moment, and this is creating an extremely competitive market. Firms are keen to keep hold of their best talent and, therefore, counter-offers and buy-backs are at an all-time high.
As ever, we try our best to minimise these but we have found over the last 12 months that they haven’t only come from the candidate side: we have had offers changed from our clients, too, which, of course, has not sat well.
Home-working mismatch
Because it’s a candidate driven market, the demand for flexible working still remains incredibly high, especially for people with young families and for individuals who just want the lifestyle that it allows.
However, the majority of firms are heavily office-based and keen to have staff onsite for the majority of the week. This has brought its own challenges for us over the last 12 months, and we work incredibly hard to satisfy both parties and find the right solution.
Firms that can offer home-based roles seem to be scooping up some really good candidates across the market, and firms that can’t might be seen as being behind the times.
On Rightmove the most searched words when people are buying a house are “garage”, “annexe”, and “acre”, which demonstrates that, since Covid-19, priorities have changed and it’s the lifestyle people desire.
Increasing stability
The budget and recent rule changes created some immediate panic across the market but things have calmed down slightly and the consistent interest rate has been reassuring. The market remains busy, and things are likely to continue this way into 2025.
I am sure that we will see a steady flow of jobs in 2025 and a steady flow of candidates who would like to move on to pastures new. There will always be a reason why people look to move on and it’s our job to dig deep to find these candidates and make sure that we do our best to help them.
Insurance and PI
In 2024 the insurance/PI market saw a bit of dip in comparison to previous years.
The market has responded to changes to the fixed recoverable costs (FRC) regime, which sets the amount of legal costs the winning party can claim from the losing party in civil litigation, and which was extended in October 2023.
The FRC regime now applies across the fast track and includes a new intermediate track for simpler cases valued up to £100,000. As a result, we have seen a surge in firms moving to more serious injury work, which has caused a slowdown among the more volume-driven teams and an increase in teams at the more catastrophic end of the market.
This has been good news for those already with this experience, and we have seen an increase in NQ rates and salaries across the board. However, this has also brought with it a super-competitive element in terms of what firms are having to pay to get this experience on board, and buy-back has been a significant pain for firms taking on new talent.
This has been mirrored in clinical negligence, with firms also paying a premium for these lawyers.
Let’s see what 2025 holds.
