Mary Nowell, managing director at BCL Legal, talks to The Brief about her career to-date and why she made the move from paralegal to legal recruiter back in June 2005.

More than 60 per cent of BCL Legal’s consultant team come from a legal background, and the firm is currently hiring in Manchester and Birmingham for hybrid entry level “lawyer to legal recruiter” retrain roles. Read on to discover more about Mary Nowell’s journey from paralegal to managing director of BCL’s private practice division and, if you would like to find out more, please get in touch.

Varied, high-paced and challenging

I started in recruitment in 2005 as a fresh-faced law graduate. Having been fixed on becoming a lawyer for the previous decade (thanks Ally McBeal) I had decided that law wasn’t for me and fell onto the graduate scheme at an international recruiter.

I had no idea what to expect but I quickly fell in love with recruitment, and for nearly 20 years it has offered me a varied, high-paced and challenging career that has also provided work/life balance as I juggle the needs of a growing family.

I have been lucky: I started life at Michael Page where I learnt my trade joining BCL Legal to work for a recruiter that was carving a niche in legal recruitment, which was is where I wanted to focus. I’m now the managing director looking after our private practice division.

Why should you look at BCL Legal?

We live and breathe legal recruitment. If you are a legal recruiter, look no further. Everything we do from marketing events and career seminars to the technology we invest in and how we attract candidates is focused on the legal market. Our clear focus is unique and allows us to be very specific about what we need to achieve and why.

A focus on technology. The recruitment world is changing and you can either be at the forefront of that change of risk becoming irrelevant. We are always looking at new technologies to ensure that our consultants are working with the very best tools and engaging with the market in the most effective way.

Flexibility. Covid allowed us to reset and look again at how we work. We now offer true hybrid working where consultants work in the office two days per week and at home three. We provide all the tools you need to make your home your office. Many of our senior people are working parents and work four days – I am a passionate believer that you can have a fulfilling career and be present at home if we work together.

Our database is second-to-none. So many of our competitors rely on LinkedIn and other candidate mapping software to generate candidates but we don’t. We have a database that is rich in candidates. We just need great people building relationships with our candidate base.

We are on the preferred supplier list (PSL) for almost all of the Top 200 law firms. There is no cold calling required. We have strong client relationships nationally, so our consultants are working on existing PSL accounts or focusing on building those existing relationships.

We have a track record of training great recruiters. In 2021 we saw nine promotions, in 2022 ten members of the BCL team secured a promotion, and two of our consultant team have already been promoted in Q1 this year.

We work hard but we have fun. BCL is full of ambitious consultants at the top of their game. We take being great at what we do seriously but we also know how to have fun. I look around the office and feel hugely proud to see a bunch of great people, who like working together and who look after each other.

There is so much more to tell you, so if you would like to have a conversation about why you should consider recruitment at BCL Legal please get in touch. I promise you won’t regret it.

Connect with Mary Nowell via LinkedIn

Contact BCL Legal.