AUGUST 2019 BusIness 29
The routes into law are also changing
as it becomes less elitist, due in part to
the financial crash in 2008, which hit
the legal sector hard.
This has resulted in broader training
options opening up. Perritt says: “As a
result of the crash, many lawyers
moved away from the profession and a
number of firms collapsed or reduced
their trainee intake, relying on better
efficiencies and the use of unqualified
staff to make up for the shortfall.
“While competition is still tough,
access to the profession is also
changing with a variety of routes
available, whether as a legal
apprentice, paralegal, CILEX, or via a
traditional training contract. There is
further change to come in the next
couple of years, when the new
Solicitors Qualifying Exam is
introduced in 2021.
“Myerson currently offers
approximately five training contract
places each year, recruiting two years
in advance. With a record number of
applicants this year for both the firms
summer vacation scheme and 2021
training contracts, it’s clear that those
starting out in the profession are once
again, seeing law as an exciting career
prospect.”
Similarly, promising young lawyers
can now be fast tracked into senior
roles rather than waiting years to serve
their time.
Cottom explains: “It’s not
uncommon now to hear about
relatively young lawyers in CEO roles.
Take Laura McCann, for example, a
woman who has had the most fantastic
career progression.
“She’s gone from being a trainee
solicitor eight or nine years ago to
head of legal and deputy monitoring
officer at a local authority. This
would never have happened 20
years ago, so the message for young
lawyers or trainees is, it’s there for the
taking.”
Perritt agrees that the traditional
hierarchy is collapsing.
“Law firms are now having to think
outside the box with regards to how
they operate and interact with clients
and this, in turn, creates new
opportunities and working methods for
lawyers to adopt and embrace.
“Gone are the days when the older
generation of partners had the
monopoly on running the business.
“ The law firm of today needs the
input of the younger generation to
help navigate the constantly-
developing technological landscape,
as well as driving innovation and
change in other areas of the
business.”Joanne PerrittCraig ChaplinKiran Purewal, Principal
Consultant at Sellick
PartnershipThe legal sector is always evolving,
which means that both clients and
candidates are having to constantly
adapt. One of the biggest changes I
have noticed in recent years has
been that clients are becoming
much more flexible when looking
for new legal talent, which in my
opinion is giving talented lawyers
much greater opportunities to
progress quickly.
Within the public sector
specifically, legal departments are
now more open to candidates that
have transferable experience rather
than a specific niche skillset in the
area of law they require. For
example, I am currently working
with a number of candidates that I
would class as ‘all-rounders’ –
lawyers that have experience and
skills in a number of different areas
of law. This generally wouldn’t have
been the case a few years ago, as
organisations would require
candidates with specific niche
skillsets and lawyers would
generally focus on one specialist
area. However, as the market grows,
more-and-more organisations are
looking for the right candidates
rather than someone with specific
skills or experience.
This has been hugely positive for
the sector, and is giving lawyers a
real opportunity to try their hand at
multiple disciplines offering more
chances to progress. These days, if a
multi-skilled lawyer decides to look
for a new role in order to advance
their career, they will have a widerrange of options to consider rather
than if they specialised in one area
of law. As a result, highly skilled
legal ‘stars’ can climb the ranks
quickly, sometimes achieving very
senior roles after only a few years.
Many of my clients have also
restructured their teams in a way
that encourages team members to
cover a broader area of law. Many
local authority legal departments
now have a litigation team in which
all the lawyers will cover a range of
matters, rather than having a
specific employment lawyer,
prosecution lawyer and planning
lawyer. Each team member covers
various areas of law, giving lawyers
more exposure to different
specialisms and offering them
greater opportunities to make their
mark and progress.
This is not to say that only lawyers
who have skills in multiple areas of
law can do this – far from it. As the
sector changes, the opportunities
for the best legal minds to take the
lead grows, making it a very
exciting and rewarding place to
build a career. My advice to anyone
seeking a long, healthy and
successful career in the sector is to
mirror their employer’s flexibility
and to embrace the opportunity to
diversify.
Being open to learning new things
is one of the key attributes that my
clients seek and in return they are
happy to support and encourage
progression. Candidates should
also think big and strive to achieve
their end goal; very little is out of
reach, and for the very best legal
candidates, the sky really is the
limit.Flexibility is giving
legal candidates an
opportunity to shine
Kiran Purewal