It's My Law

Talent Management

Mike — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:07:40 +0000

Jitendra Valera writes in Legal week that knowledge and experience management is one of the top four most important strategic challenges faced by the UK’s leading law firms. This was identified following a recent survey of the UK’s 125 largest firms, 73% of those surveyed rated it as either a ‘very important’ or an ‘important’ issue.

Retaining and exploiting the knowledge and experience within a firm, and being able to use it to the greatest competitive advantage, has always been a key management challenge. Its importance in recent years is heightened as the level of churn among qualified lawyers increases.

How do you ensure that the knowledge and experience of departing lawyers is not entirely lost to the firm when they walk out of the door for the last time?
How do you ensure that the knowledge and experience of those who replace them is marshaled and maximised as quickly and effectively as possible?

The article identifies a three pronged approach

Look at how law firms can best retain and exploit knowledge and experience when staff turnover cannot be avoided. Innovative technology has a huge role to play here.
компютриEnsure that internal attitudes to the sharing of knowledge and experience are supportive. If information is not shared, is not used or is not regularly updated, it is valueless.
Firms must take measures to try to reduce staff turnover. This is an area which law firms have grappled with for many years, often unsuccessfully.

The importance of retention is where JCLEllite comes in, with the concept of contracting and providing experienced staff to fill the gaps, or a flexible approach to the work that ensure that the talent can be retained, while the work life balance maintained.

UK Law firms to review hourly fee system

Mike — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:48:20 +0000

The FT reports that the

UK law firms are being pushed to reform hourly fee system which is coming under pressure from clients complaining of high fees at a time of soaring legal industry profits.

Many of the top firms are starting to offer alternatives to hourly rates and making more use of cost-cutting business practices, such as putting services offshore.

JCL Elite is seeing a large number of firms retain our services to provide flexible, talented staff to help resolve the billing issues. From the firms point of view this offers a way of controlling costs while maintaining exceptional quality. While the talent pool is rewarded directly for the work completed.

To find out more about the services on offer or the work available please contact John Cullen on 020 7726 0000.

Freelance lawyers

Mike — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:30:01 +0000

Having spent months consulting with lawyers at all levels, senior law firm management and senior in-house counsel. Without exception, they have shown great interest in the positive business, career and all-round financial ramifications that a high-quality outsourcing market for lawyers working on a contract basis will provide.

So it is exciting to note that we have been instructed to find a number of lawyers to work freelance in Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. This represents an exciting opportunity for all concerned.

Trainee Retention

Mike — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 13:42:39 +0000

Results just published are showing that trainee retention rates across the UK’s elite legal profession are holding steady, with many firms keeping hold of more than 90% of their intake despite a sharp dip in City lawyers’ overall business confidence.

Legal Week reports that:

The results come despite business confidence among the UK’s top lawyers recently faltering, as City partners anticipate the economic turmoil hitting the profession. Legal Week’s quarterly business confidence poll this week has shown just 30% of partners are expecting double-digit revenue growth over the next 12 months, down from last year’s high of 70%

They go on to report that

top national firms have shown the biggest rise in retention rates, with many of the firms which lost more than a fifth of their lawyers last year now maintaining more than 90%.

With magic circle partners sensing that the market direction is not clear for the coming months, firms are holding onto their talent. This is an ideal time to explore what JCL Elite can offer in terms of talent provision and risk mitigation.

Work Life Balance in 2008

Mike — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:32:17 +0000

The work-life balance of the UK’s lawyers has come under scrutiny as part of a Law Society review to see why record numbers appear to be leaving the profession.

Some say the popular belief that the life of a City lawyer is all about big bonuses, expensive holidays and flowing champagne is misguided and, in fact, the career is more likely to end in emotional or physical breakdown.

JCL Elite is pioneering a different route. Having secured a number of prestigious roles from Magic & Silver circle firms we are looking to fill them with talented lawyers. But he is the rub, these are all project based freelance positions. We are seeking lawyers who want the challenging work, want to make a difference, want to make the money and want to have a choice.

The positions that we are filling are only for the most talented and very best, they cover a number of different areas and offer the lawyer a chance to secure contract work within the firm and also to take time afterwards to recover, recharge and enjoy a bit of life before we help them with the next project or contract.

So if this sounds interesting and you would like to know more please contact us and we will be happy to discuss this in total confidence.

Partnership Aspirations

Mike — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:54:43 +0000

What the top flying corporate associates want for Christmas is a partnership. A quick straw poll of group of hot young things is met with a resounding ‘yes’. They all admitted, whether overtly or in a more subtle way, that partnership has and will always be, their career goal.

Partnership remains the pinnacle of success in private practice.

But with only 3% of associates making Partner is some firms this does not mean firms should give up developing alternative career paths.

It’s My Law is offering career alternatives not alternative careers and is finding willing takers amoungst the top echelons of the Legal profession, both from senior partners and the law firms themselves.

Associates quoted in Legal Week said;

“The people issue is one of the biggest challenges for law firms at the moment - both firms and the individuals are struggling with it, as not everyone wants partnership and all that it entails. Trying to retain people that don’t want partnership is the biggest issue. The profession as a whole needs to offer an alternative [to partnership].”

As the It’s My Law model becomes more widely accepted we will see a move towards addressing those issues, but the real difficulty in law is the progression from trainee to seven or nine years’ PQE to potentially qualifying as a partner.

Alternative Career Paths - Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Mike — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:02:21 +0000

Legal Week reports that Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer UK corporate head Tim Jones has vowed to put alternative career paths at the top of his agenda in his new role as head of the firm’s London management group.

Career management is one of a number of projects Jones has singled out for attention since taking over from chief executive Ted Burke as chair of the firm’s City management team.

Jones is now discussing a number of proposals with the firm’s associate engagement group after Freshfields’ first ever associate away-day earlier this year highlighted career structure as one of the main issues concerning fee earners.

In particular, Jones will look to flesh out the role of counsel to give it more prominence and a clearer brief. The role is currently recognised in different ways in different jurisdictions — in some areas it has been a step to promotion, as was the case with former City counsel Stuart Grider who was this year made partner, as well as being viewed as an alternative to partnership.

Jones told Legal Week:

“I want to push the debate forward. A number of proposals are beginning to emerge and a lot of changes we make will be experimental.

“At the moment, the term ‘counsel’ is inconsistent and covers a multiplicity of different applications. We want to beef it up and we need to decide what it means in terms of participation in a management function.”

High attrition rates for female lawyers

Mike — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 10:56:04 +0000

The Lawyer reports that The Association of Women Solicitors (AWS) has spoken out against the high attrition rates among female lawyers, identifying inadequate childcare and inflexible working arrangements as the major causes.

AWS chairwoman Susha Chandrasekhar commented that “The high attrition rate hits men as well as women but it hits women disproportionately. Women are off the radar when they take maternity leave and when they come back they are seen as less committed.”

“You are twice as likely to make partner as a man. More women go into in-house and government, because these are places offering flexible working.”

Assistant Retention

Mike — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 09:57:28 +0000

James Baxter of Legal Business writes “As our annual survey finds, the biggest firms are now losing 25% of their assistants each year.

He points out that

once recruiter fees, partner time spent interviewing, integration and training costs are accounted for, the cost of an assistant resigning is close to an entire year’s salary for the departee.

If you factor in the price of the bumper pay and bonus round, secured at the very height of the buyout boom earlier this year, and it is not hard to see how slack talent management can strip millions off a firm’s bottom line.

This continues to point to a need for a shift in thinking by the law firms in respect of staff retention. The ideas of flexible working or contracting is becoming a popular way of ensuing that the right talent is available at the right time for the right price.

Work life balance

Mike — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:13:26 +0000

In the 2007 Legal Business Assistant Survey By Stephen J Doggett, they find that:

With assistants in short supply, firms must be more scientific about how they attract and retain the best.

It goes on to identify that the law firms when trying to attract Britain’s brightest assistant lawyers have generally followed three paths.

Some put out vague messages about the importance of work/life balance.
Others tout the introduction of new career paths to hint at career progression.
And some simply throw money at the problem in the form of dramatic salary increases or bonuses (usually accompanied by the condition that the assistant works harder).

It concludes:

However, if the 2,225 assistants responding to this year’s Legal Business Assistant Survey are correct, firms would do better to concentrate most of their energy on the first, work harder on the second and largely leave the third alone.

Once again this sits right in the middle of the space that JCL Elite, with It’s My Law works. more