An Upturn in Legal Jobs Emerges . . At Last

An Upturn in Legal Jobs Emerges . . At Last

LawFuel - The Law Jobs and News Wire

Lawfuel's interview with SimplyLegal's Damian Hanna

Many law firms are now seeing an upturn in work, creating new legal job opportunities for lawyers, according to Wellington legal recruiter Damian Hanna in an interview with legal online jobs board and legal news site LawFuel.co.nz.

Damian Hanna runs the boutique legal recruitment business SimplyLegal and told LawFuel that while the latter half of 2008 and most of 2009 have been challenging for anyone looking for legal jobs, there is now a “discernable degree of optimism” that has entered the marked.

“The law firms who I have been talking to are all reporting an upturn in work throughout the firm so that bodes well for the recruitment market in the future.

However, my view is that the recovery will be a reasonably slow one. It will take the law firms, in-house and government departments some time to consistently be busy enough to justify increasing headcount. Employers will be reticent about going too far too quickly, just in case the general economic conditions deteriorate again.”

Mr Hanna points to good opportunities with provincial firms who have – and often remain – difficult to attract people away from the main centres. “Although headcount issues are headline news in the public sector, we are still seeing some good government roles come onto the market and again, even though there are a lot of people in the market, some roles have still been difficult to fill,” Mr Hanna said.

The large firms have been very quiet in 2009 but some new jobs are now beginning to crop up as they slowly begin to recruit again.

One of the few areas where there continued to be some demand for lawyers has been insurance law, particularly in Auckland, he said. “There has not been the expected upsurge in litigation positions but there are still some good litigation roles around, especially at the intermediate to senior levels.”

Family law has also grown in demand. “There has been a steady demand for family lawyers throughout the year and we are starting to see a number of good employment roles around.”

As commercial activity has reduced there has been a slowing of such work, but the first signs of an upturn in the corporate/commercial sector have occurred and even some options have emerged for the struggling property law sector.

“The unknown factor is when any recovery will become noticeable overseas. When junior and intermediate lawyers start hearing that the London, Asian, US, Australian markets are getting back on their feet again, there could be an exodus of lawyers leaving NZ to try their luck overseas. That will obviously create gaps for those lawyers still in the country and for those junior lawyers who are finding it very difficult to get a position at the moment.”

ends

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