Frankfurters and Flexibility

FRANKFURTERS AND FLEXIBILITY

Frohe Weihnachten!

For those of you not familiar with Birmingham and the change which comes over the city centre each November and December, let me fill you in.

Each year the Frankfurt market arrives, and the square next to the Town Hall and the famous ‘Floozy in the Jacuzzi’ is transformed into a small part of Deutschland, complete with oompah bands, bratwurst and glϋhwein.

The market itself is a bit of a phenomenon. Although it has only been visiting the city for ten years it has now grown to a point where it attracts as many visitors as the one in Frankfurt itself, with around 3 million people visitors each year passing through before it returns to Germany in late December.

What is particularly noticeable about the market is how in the evening it transforms into the centre of the professional services community. Being sited close to the heart of Birmingham’s business district and located in the shadow of the offices of DLA Piper, Browne Jacobson, Eversheds et al, it is not uncommon for the market to suddenly become a hub of lawyers, accountants, surveyors and other professionals when it gets dark.

This somewhat spontaneous networking can lead to pockets of business being discussed in various corners of the market, with preliminary negotiations taking place which are then followed up in the office the next day. Business being conducted in slightly unusual environments is becoming more common, as firms look at the new ways of speaking to clients outside the boardroom yet without the expense of corporate hospitality.

The concept of doing business away from the office is becoming more common as increasing numbers of professionals seek to implement flexible working arrangements. With internet technology meaning that even staff based overseas can work remotely in real time, and with some professional mothers keen to return to work quickly after maternity leave, more and more business is being conducted out of the office.

If you look at the not too distant past there was a certain stigma attached to those seeking flexible working, particularly in large corporate practices where the thought of going on maternity leave more than ten minutes before your waters broke was considered a sign of weakness.

Nowadays firms that have embraced flexible working are those which tend to enjoy high levels of staff retention and can also attract talent seeking this kind of working arrangement knowing that they won’t have to forego either their career or family life at the expense of the other. Indeed some firms now integrate family-friendly perks into their benefits packages to specifically attract those who are disillusioned with their current firm’s lack of awareness of their personal responsibilities.

It’s premature and indeed inaccurate to say that the death of the office is nigh, as a collective group of people working together in close proximity still enjoy a level of interaction and cohesion which makes it the most productive way of doing business. However this growing realisation that not everything has to be office-based to be worthwhile is threatening to upset the long-held belief that this is the only way to trade. After all, if you are approached on behalf of a corporate lawyer who can bring a £3m following but who wants to work from home every other Thursday are you going to say no?

The legal market seems to be more readily embracing the flexible working concept, realising that the wealth of talent not seeking a 9-5 desk job is huge, and by discounting this they run the risk of losing out on some good people. It is surprising that law is one of the fields which has taken longest to adjust to this considering it is an area where core hours have never really been observed with 60 hour weeks being common. As a candidate recently mentioned to us, if you’re happy to do 12 hour days does it matter if you’re doing 8 hours in the office and 4 hours from home?

With an ageing UK population it is entirely feasible that over the next 10-20 years more lawyers will be seeking to implement flexible or part-time working as they wind down their careers. Those firms who are willing to accommodate this will have the opportunity to recruit high quality lawyers with followings, and can expand the client base which will remain with the firm after the retirement of the original fee-earner. This recruitment can often be on a consultancy or non-partner basis, meaning that the firm has everything to gain and nothing to lose from their willingness to be flexible. Is your practice fully embracing the opportunities presented by flexible working?

If you near Birmingham, interested in doing business in a different environment, and you’ve never been to the Frankfurt market before then why not give it a try? You haven’t lived until you’ve been five Weiβbiers down, staring up at a giant moose’s head singing Christmas carols at you.

Let me tell you, “drunk” doesn’t even come close.

If you are interested in discussing how flexible working could improve the appeal of your firm and also increase your profitability contact one of our specialist consultants at VG Charles & Co. Alternatively if you are seeking a new opportunity which offers flexibility speak to us for a non-committal and absolutely confidential discussion on 0121 233 5000 or 020 7649 9094.

Pop Goes The Weasel

Here’s a scary thought for you. In 6 weeks time it will be 2011. 2010 will be a thing of the past, consigned to history.

Come Hogmanay, we will look back at 2010 as the year that an Icelandic volcano grounded a whole continent, when 33 Chilean miners spent more than two months trapped underground before being pulled to safety, and when the world said goodbye to Dennis Hopper, Alex “Hurricane” Higgins and Norman Wisdom.

As someone who’s childhood is still a (fairly) recent memory the very concept of years flying by still seems like a bizarre phenomenon. After all, when you were young just how long did it take for Christmas to come round? December seemed to take eight months by itself.

Don’t worry; this blogger isn’t getting philosophical in his old age. The concept of the years merging into one has become very apparent recently, firstly having spent last Saturday fighting through the mass of Christmas shoppers (didn’t we only do this about four months ago?) and also with the introduction of the occasional Popmaster as a mid-morning challenge.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, Popmaster is a quiz on Radio 2 in the morning where listeners are asked questions on any chart music from around 1960 until the relatively present day. At least one question is always along the lines of “name the year that these three songs were in the chart”, and leads initially to much head scratching and trying to remember where you were when you heard that song first, then incredulity when your confident prediction of 1984 turns out to be 1977.

‘Maggie May’ – 1971. ‘Really?’
‘Take On Me’ – 1984, but only reached the Top 10 in 1985. ‘Oh, I would have gone for ‘83’
‘Hotel California’ – 1977. ‘Pah, one year out.’

As this repeated failure on our part proves it’s only too easy to lose track of the years going by, particularly without any significant event to benchmark them against. The Christmas break and start of the New Year is often the point when people have a period of reflection; analysing your achievements over the last twelve months can often bring into focus both where your career is and where it’s going.

For firms too the New Year is a point where many reassess their progress. Initially the fresh start can provide a ‘shot in the arm’ for the three months ahead of Year End, and also gives a starting point for drafting new strategies to be implemented in the new financial year.

From either the individual or the client side, actions at the start of a New Year can be key to how things will progress over the coming twelve months. Whereas in 2009 and to a lesser extent 2010 was all about survival, 2011 shows signs of being the year when firms will be looking to recover lost ground, with the brave ones attempting to steal a march on their rivals.

Similarly this will mean that the opportunities for individuals will be greater as strengthening and building of new and existing practice areas begins in earnest. As mentioned in an earlier blog the market is already showing some signs of relaxing the ‘three times salary’ measurement of following, with some firms instead being willing to speculate on candidates who can cover their costs in the short-term, and who have scope to build a competitive practice long-term.

So here’s the point. Why not put your New Year’s resolutions in place early? If you intend to be sat somewhere else by next year doesn’t it make sense to beat the crowd and start looking now?

As firms are formulating plans for 2011, why not make sure that the possibility of amalgamating your practice into theirs is something which they can consider when putting together the new business plan, make your hire a proactive rather than a reactive strategy?

The start of 2011 will be a critical time for the market to shake off two years of downturn and to look positively at the future. Just make sure that you don’t let another year fly by without having something to show for it!


Turns out “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” was from 1974. No, we didn’t get that one either.

To discuss new opportunities for the New Year talk to one of our specialist consultants at VG Charles & Co. Whether you are an individual or team considering a move, or you are a firm seeking to diversify and/or strengthen its offering, our consultants can offer impartial and professional advice on how to achieve your goals. Call 0121 233 5000 or 020 7649 9094 and one of the team will be delighted to assist.

Money Makes The World Go Round

Ask anyone if they’re paid what they’re worth and unless you’re talking to someone extremely honest then there’s a chance that you will be met with a somewhat enthusiastic ‘no’. According to a recent survey in Canada 46% of the working population feel that they are underpaid; in contrast only 4.5% believe that they are paid more than they’re worth .

This is hardly surprising, given that human nature means that we always want more than we have. This isn’t a new or recent fad; even in biblical times it was enough of a problem that when God was trimming the Commandments down to ten He still felt it necessary to include one about not coveting anything which our neighbour has, explicitly not his house, wife or his oxen. But then.....what if he’s only attracted his wife because he’s on more money than you, and has a nicer car and better house and......

Despite being warned off having an envious glance at the neighbour (and his wife – remember commandment no. 7 too), it’s that desire to earn more money which drives most of us onto success. Matching and exceeding what your peers have achieved is one of the fundamental drivers of ambitious professionals, and is the yardstick by which we tend to measure ourselves.

Salaries are always a hot topic within both the legal profession and the legal recruitment worlds. After all, unless you’re working pro bono the chances are that the remuneration has some impact on your decision to get out of bed and go to work in the morning. At least once a year VG Charles & Co is consulted by firms looking to get an idea of where they are in the market with their salary bandings, particularly at the lower PQE levels where followings are less likely to come into play.

Like it or not, salaries are often a good indicator of where a firm sees its standing within the local legal community. Unsurprisingly those who see themselves as a leading player generally pay the highest salaries to ensure that the best talent comes to their door first. To a lesser extent there is also the status of being the best payers in town, with the obvious inference that your profitability levels are sufficiently high to enable you to do so.

Generally salary negotiations are a balancing act between what a firm is looking to pay and what the new recruit is looking to earn (which is generally the higher figure!). In a market which has realigned as certain areas experience more supply than demand for the first time in years, salaries have generally reached more realistic levels than those experienced in the pre-credit crunch boom.

Recently Sullivan & Cromwell announced that they would be paying their London trainees a starting salary of £50,000, coming shortly after Bingham McCutchen confirmed that their NQs would be earning £100,000 upon qualification. Substantial figures indeed compared to the average wage, but in truth this is not a massive increase on what some of these lawyers earned last year. However, as often happens when a significant milestone is passed there has been a great deal of press coverage and people with an opinion on whether these salaries are justified.

Speaking in the broadest terms the legal market tends to stick to the rule of thumb of three times salary; if you’re a solicitor then your target is roughly 300% of your basic salary, if a partner then your following should be a minimum of three times what you’re expecting to earn. Therefore logic states that an NQ on £100k needs to be billing around £300k, which is a considerable target considering this would be at an NQ charge-out rate. To achieve this firms may opt to ‘sweat the assets’ to ensure these targets are met, contributing to the high burn-out and drop-out rate between 1-3 years PQE.

Irrespective of what industry you work in there is always going to be an argument over whether the remuneration is justified; curiously enough it always tends to work in the currency of nurses.....?

Is a professional footballer worth the equivalent of 200 or 400 nurses? In the grand scheme of things probably not; morally it’s difficult to compare the value of kicking a ball with saving lives. That said, football clubs are businesses just like law firms, accountants or internal designers and with the turnover in any of these industries being dependant upon success and the talent at your disposal, you have to pay a premium to get the best.

To use the old cliché, money makes the world go round and for as long as that is the case firms and businesses of all types will be willing to outlay attractive salaries to get the best talent. Should a newly-qualified lawyer be earning between three and four times what a doctor of an equivalent qualification can command? As long as that lawyer is producing the goods and generating significant levels of fees and profit for their firm then its difficult to argue against it.

Besides, think of the tax that top earning lawyers will be paying. There’s a couple of nurses right there.

Do you feel undervalued at present, concerned that you are not being paid enough for the role that you undertake? Interested in discussing what level of remuneration you should be expecting? Or are you responsible for setting the salary levels within your practice and would value talking to an independent expert as to where you compare with your competitors? Call one of our specialist consultants at VG Charles & Co on 0121 233 5000 / 020 7649 9094.

We Are Family

Part of the role of a good legal recruiter is knowing the market inside out, to the extent where you are aware which areas are busy almost before your client does. If you only work reactively when a firm experiences a surge in their corporate instructions then there is a significant lead time before that practice has the necessary addition in place. Add together the search/sourcing time, shortlisting, three interviews and at least three months notice, and its feasible that your firm can be under-strength for six months.

However if your legal recruiter is already in conversation with twelve good corporate lawyers then from time of instruction you can be looking at having CVs on your desk within two hours and the shortlisting having already been done for you as they highlight the two, three or four candidates best suited to your requirement.

This market intelligence comes from a variety of sources; speaking to lawyers and assessing their workloads, talking to other professional services firms and talking about their own market and also the priceless attribute of experience; we’ve worked through recessions and recoveries before, and we know where things will pick up and where firms will struggle to recruit in 6 months time.

For example we know that with recent employment law cases which have hit the headlines there is a good chance of the Equal Pay market booming in the near future.

We know that wills & probate work peaks during the winter, particularly if it’s cold!

We know that family lawyers have two distinct boom times, at the end of the summer holidays and at the turn of the New Year. It’s a sad reflection on human nature that the two main times of the year that families spend together are the two key occasions where relationships break-down.

You can’t blame matrimonial lawyers for that, nor bemoan that these booms are so reliable that they can plan months ahead to ensure that staffing levels are high enough to cope. As a consequence, those of us in the legal recruitment field also need to be aware that these peaks and troughs exist so that we are able to provide the candidates to meet the requirements.

However at the moment the family field itself is in a state of flux. With the vast reduction in numbers of Legal Aid practices offering family law (and the current legal challenge to these cutbacks), publicly-funded family law faces some uncertainty over its long-term future, resulting in firms being more cautious with their plans for the next year.

Family law though is nothing if not resilient. During the recession many firms revived or re-invested in their privately-funded family teams, aware that whilst corporate deals and property transactions fell away due to the banking crisis, matrimonial disputes and resultant care issues are always going to occur and can be relied upon as a regular source of fee income.

A large number of firms have now turned their back on publicly-funded work and are now pursuing the privately client market, particularly the much coveted High Net Worth dispute where the assets run into the multi-millions. But just how much of this work is there to go around? Family law will be getting a much-needed shot in the arm with a wave of pre-nuptials in the wake of the Radmacher case, but is this enough to justify the number of firms competing in this market?

Irrespective of the outcome to the challenge to Legal Aid cuts there will continue to be a shift away from publicly-funded work; firms recognise that the long-term prospects in this area are uncertain whilst the fees on offer mean that profit-wise it is simply not worth their while. Unless these firms drop family altogether this will mean congestion at the top end of the market as more practices target the wealthy, hence those seeking to stand out from the crowd will need to look at their USPs and how they are getting this message out to the market.

Encouragingly the demand for really high quality family lawyers has not dropped off though; recently we placed a very high calibre ancillary relief specialist without a following yet who still joined at partner level due to their experience and background. It proves that firms will still look at individuals who have the right expertise, and will put together an attractive package to secure them.

So what next for your average high street family lawyer? Quite simply it will come back to the main methods in which solicitors traditionally secured work; recommendation, referral and marketing/networking to local clients, ideally with the odd High Net Worth individual thrown in. It may be that looking to specialise solely at the HNW end of the market is beyond the reach of a non-niche firm, whilst choosing to rely on Legal Aid work may simply be a rug which can be whisked out from under your feet at any time.

As Christmas approaches family lawyers will be again gearing up for the post-New Year rush of matrimonial disputes; whether this will be at the levels seen in previous years remains to be seen but you can be sure that the requirement for family law advice will increase, as will the need for additional family lawyers to service this.

Just make sure your legal recruiter is already prepared!

To discuss opportunities within the family law field, or if you are keen to strengthen your family practice with key high calibre hires contact one of our specialist consultants on 0121 233 5000 / 020 7649 9094 or visit our website www.vgcharles.com

To Follow Or Not To Follow, That Is The Question.....

“Following?”

It’s the golden question which legal recruiters face every day when working proactively, particularly at partner level although it is becoming more common for associates also.

In a market still suffering from the after effects of recession and which has learned its lessons the hard way, firms are reluctant to make hires unless there is an increased flow of new clients and instructions to pay for this. Some firms retain an opportunistic view, believing that as long as a new hire can bring enough work to cover their costs then it’s a risk worth taking; for others the projected following has to be at least three times the salary or it’s a non-starter.

However despite this being such a crucial part of any senior level hire the thought of producing a business plan still fills many lawyers with a sense of dread.

In fairness for some it is because quite simply their nature of work does not easily lend itself to repeat instructions. Speak to the probate lawyer with direct clients who instruct them repeatedly and something is going seriously wrong there.

However for the majority it is the thought of failure to deliver on promises which causes the greatest concern. There is a misconception that a business plan is a ‘rope to hang yourself with’, consequently many lawyers opt to take a pessimistic view of their figures favouring an ‘under-promise, over-deliver’ mindset. However what many fail to recognise is that as soon as you start to under-promise your chances of securing the role diminish quite rapidly.

When putting together business plans and quantifying a following you should remember that you are talking to other lawyers who understand the way the market works. Business plans are automatically taken with a degree of tolerance as no-one can predict the future; you may well expect that all ten of your biggest clients will move with you, but if only nine of these follow then sometimes that’s just the way it happens. Sure, if you predicted that fifty would move then you may have gone too far out on a limb, but firms are aware that not everyone can be relied upon to follow.

The other aspect of putting together the plan is to understand that it is a sales document, not a story. Just as if you were preparing any other pitch the key things to understand is where your practice is strong, and if there are any weaknesses then how can these best be explained?

For example, does your practice require a ‘bedding-in period’? We have recently worked with an excellent partner who handles a range of public sector work, but whereas her corporate clients would present an active following from Day One the majority of her work comes from securing tenders which often means a 6-12 month lead time. A twelve-month business plan is therefore unlikely to carry much weight; however a three year projected plan outlining an early period of consolidation followed by significant results between months 12-36 will be considerably more attractive.


As a legal recruiter one of the most frustrating situations is when you work with a strong individual who fails to appreciate the weighting firms place upon the business plan, and then can’t understand why practices that were previously falling over themselves to employ them are now altogether much cooler on the prospect. However in a changing market this is very much the way things have gone; reputation counts for little without the numbers to back it up and a failure to appreciate this and having no business plan to sell yourself with is going to significantly compromise your chances of making that next move.

Are you looking for a move, confident that you have a following but have no clear idea of how to put together a business plan to reflect this? Or do you have a strong business plan put together but seeking guidance as to how to take this to market professionally and effectively? Call one of our specialist consultants on 0121 233 5000/020 7649 9094 or visit our website www.vgcharles.com