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Ian Roberts

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What you need to know if you want to become a divorce and family lawyer

Divorce law is one of the highest profile areas of the profession, with cases involving the rich and famous regularly reported in the press. But the majority of family lawyers don’t just specialise in matrimonial let alone purely divorce work. If you are thinking of becoming a family lawyer or even a specialist in high-profile divorce, here’s what you need to know.

The new BBC drama The Split had its season finale this week and may have given you a taste for divorce law. If this show is anything to go by, it’s one area of law guaranteed to offer you no end of glamour, intrigue and excitement. Assuming the TV version is even close to real life, you certainly won’t be bored.

How good a reflection of real life is The Split? One divorce lawyer quoted by Stylist magazine shortly before it aired said: “There hasn’t been a programme about divorce lawyers in London before and it’s focusing on the mega-rich, so it’s not going to be everyday people, but there’s so much of it that’s absolutely right.”

The bit about the mega-rich is certainly accurate as London is renowned as the divorce capital of the world. Last year, the ex-wife of a Russian oil and gas trader was awarded £453m in one of the UK’s largest divorce settlements. Cases like this have made London’s top divorce lawyers some of the highest profile in the profession, regularly profiled in newspapers and magazines. Some even have nicknames; Ayesha Vardag is known as “The Diva”, while Raymond Tooth is “Jaws”.

When asked how realistic the TV programme is, another lawyer quoted by Stylist was more circumspect: “It’s hard work – long, unsociable hours – and because we deal with emotions it’s hard to switch off, even if you’ve got years of experience, because clients want to speak to you all the time. Sometimes you’re their only comfort blanket and there are so many forms of communication nowadays – WhatsApp, email, text. They can easily find your mobile number or tweet you. They know when you’ve been on LinkedIn or when you haven’t. It’s intense.”

Most ‘family’, ‘matrimonial’ or ‘divorce’ lawyers deal with a range of issues including child maintenance, financial settlements, pre and post-nuptial/civil partnership agreements, and, sometimes, child protection issues. Not only that, family law often strays into other areas such as property, tax, trusts, and even company and business law. There can also be complex law involving foreign jurisdictions where one or more party has an overseas connection. This requires strong legal skills and a willingness to go outside your immediate comfort zone.

For many, the chance to help people during a critical period is one of family law’s main attractions. “You are meeting clients at a very difficult time in their lives and that can be quite challenging, but you are hopefully setting them on a road to a happy future with all these issues resolved,” says Julian Ribet, a partner at Levison Meltzer Pigott, a boutique divorce and family practice in London.

To succeed in the field, you require a rare combination of skills. “You need to be able to combine empathy with the ability to distance yourself from the emotion of a case,” says Anna Ferro at Blaser Mills. “That professional distance is key; if you get too involved in the issues, you will not survive.”

Perhaps more than anything, you need to be thick-skinned. “Clients will often lash out at whoever’s there,” says Withers partner Michael Gouriet. “You can be a bit of a thumping board. You don’t want to get too drawn into the case and only believe the client’s story is right.”

Despite its sometimes laboured script, which included a heavy dose of unnecessary exposition, The Script has doubtless intrigued many aspiring and junior lawyers. It should, however, be taken with a large pinch of salt. The reality is that most family practitioners get involved in a host of matters, only some of them related to divorce or matrimonial issues. Still, that wouldn’t have made nearly as good television.

Are you looking to be matched with law firms that are recruiting family or matrimonial lawyers? If so, why not create an anonymous candidate profile on NQSolicitors.com?

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What you need to know if you are thinking of becoming a commercial litigator

If you are considering becoming a commercial litigator on qualification, this is what you need to know.

The late Sir John Mortimer QC, creator of the much-beloved Rumpole of the Bailey, had a rather jaundiced view of litigation. “lf someone tries to steal your watch, by all means fight them off,” he said. “If someone sues you for your watch, hand it over and be glad you got away so lightly.”

What you can take from this is that litigation is not for the faint hearted. This is true not just of the parties in conflict, but of their advisors, too. So, what can you expect as a commercial litigator?

To some of its practitioners, it is the sport of kings. They would claim that no other area of law offers such variety or excitement. Jones Day partner Barney Stueck says: “I sometimes compare a partner’s role in a substantial piece of litigation to that of a film producer: coordinating a variety of people with different skill sets and often strong personalities to a final show (i.e. the trial) and doing everything possible along the way to ensure its ultimate success.”

Let’s start by clarifying what we mean by commercial litigation

Some firms refer to it as “dispute resolution” and this is a more accurate description of what most litigators do. Dispute work includes not only going to trial (litigation) but also resolving disputes through arbitration or mediation, and even negotiation. (For the sake of consistency, we’ll stick to calling it commercial litigation in this blog.)

At its simplest, commercial litigation involves a claim by one party that another has breached a business contract. It can also refer to breaches of market rules or regulations by financial services firms. Many claims, especially by the large City firms involve multijurisdictional issues. Some are extremely complex and involve a huge cast of characters: people with different roles at the client company, experts, barristers, foreign lawyers, etc. Claims can be brought in a variety of forums (courts, tribunals, arbitration hearings) and in any number of jurisdictions.

Although you are required to conduct litigation in accordance with a set process, no two cases are ever the same. Each will require getting to the bottom of the facts in order to unravel the story of what happened: who did what, when, where, how and to whom?

As a trainee solicitor, it can be hard to see the wood for the trees as you are likely to be one of many ‘actors’ being directed by the partner in charge. You may be required to carry out research, prepare a chronology and list of people involved, take attendance notes, put together bundles for hearings and help draft witness statements. If you are lucky you may see a case through from start to finish. More likely you will come in part way through and leave before the end.

As a newly qualified solicitor, as well as more of the same, you can expect to be involved in updating the client and liaising with the barristers and experts. You will also get to work on cases from start to finish.

Once your career progresses you can hope to have more of a say in the strategy of a case. This is where commercial litigation not only gets more challenging but more rewarding, too. Some litigators describe it like a multi-dimensional chess game, often with millions of pounds at stake.

To succeed in commercial litigation, you will need a variety of skills. The brains to understand some highly complex legal concepts and business practices, the skills necessary to juggle numerous aspects of a case at any one time (often involving foreign law), and the ability to work as part of a large team.

As we showed in our blog, Understanding candidate preferences is key for law firms seeking the best NQs, commercial litigation is the second most popular choice of preferred department for newly qualified solicitors. You are therefore likely to face strong competition for jobs.

For those who enjoy it, it can become a passion

This is summed up well by Mayer Brown partner Alistair Graham: “This area of legal work is really exciting – you’re sorting out problems relating to the big issues of the day. The last 25 years in the City have seen many fraud scandals and financial crises and I’ve found it fascinating to see these up close. Focusing on drafting contracts, which is what non-contentious lawyers tend to do, is not for me – I enjoy the cut and thrust of disputes.”

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Positive news so far for NQs qualifying this spring

Firms have started to announce their spring 2018 retention rates and so far, it’s good news for NQs. Here’s our round-up of the spring retentions to date

Magic circle firm Slaughter and May was one of the first to announce its spring retention rate and no wonder as it’s an impressive 95%. It made offers to 36 of the 37 trainees qualifying in March, all but one of whom accepted. This compares to a figure of 91% last autumn and a 100% clean sweep this time last year. Its new solicitors can expect a starting salary of £80,000.

Over at magic circle rival Clifford Chance, applications were received from all 48 of its spring qualifying trainees with offers made to 44. All were accepted (92%), and they will start their new role on a not to be sniffed at £87,300 a year. This season’s retention rate is a marked improvement on last year when only 31 out of 46 qualifiers (67%) stayed with the firm.

Keen no doubt to spread the good cheer, Mayer Brown revealed its perfect retention score before Christmas. Admittedly it’s a small sample size but even so, all four of its qualifiers are being kept on and will start on £75,000. This puts them on a par in terms of salary with DLA Piper, Hogan Lovells and Macfarlanes.

Six of Trowers & Hamlins’ seven spring NQs are remaining with the firm (86%), three in London, two in Manchester and one in Exeter.

All these firms are making a habit of announcing their retention rates early as they were the first to post their results last year, too. In that respect, this year is following a similar pattern to last with few firms releasing their retention information before the last couple of weeks of February.

It comes at a time when the Law Society has issued fresh guidance urging firms to avoid leaving trainees in limbo before qualification. The Law Society’s Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) would like trainees to be given at least eight weeks’ notice of whether they are being kept on. The chair of the JLD told Legal Cheek: “In extreme cases, trainees have been told there is no role for them the day before their training contract ends.”

Clearly, this is unacceptable. Hopefully, this new guidance from the Law Society will see firms announcing earlier this year. As and when they do, we will keep you updated.

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What you need to know if you are thinking of becoming a corporate lawyer

Are you thinking of becoming a corporate lawyer on qualification? If so, here’s what you need to know.

Tell someone you are a corporate lawyer and they are likely to look at you either with awe or pity, but rarely indifference. Depending on your point of view, corporate lawyers are either the glamourous rock stars of the profession or its pitiful drudges, chained to their desks when everyone else is in the pub.

The perception seems to be that being a corporate lawyer is some kind of trade-off. As Lucy Kellaway put it in the Financial Times: “Do you really want to be a corporate lawyer? You will earn a lot of money. You will work with bright people. But survey after survey shows that City solicitors are the least happy professionals around. They work the whole time.”

Having spoken to countless corporate lawyers at all levels over the years, it is simply not true to say they are all unhappy. Yes, hard work is a prerequisite for success, there’s no escaping that. But they take on interesting, varied work often involving high-profile transactions that cross continents and keep the world (or at least the business world) turning. As one Freshfields corporate trainee put it: “My experience is that when the hours are long, the work is often more exciting.”

Is corporate law for you? That depends on the type of person you are and what motivates you, and we’ll get to that. First though, let’s set out the type of work you can expect to do as a corporate lawyer in the UK.

In its broadest sense corporate law covers everything from company advisory work to multi-jurisdictional transactions. It includes raising finance, issuing shares in public companies and buying and selling businesses. In short, it envelops a huge range of legal activity and no two matters you work on will be the same.

In most big law firms corporate law is the powerhouse department. As Chambers Student says of the hugely profitable magic circle firms: “The work is heavily focused on corporate and finance: these departments stand at the heart of the firm overseeing multibillion-pound transactions. Teams like employment, tax and IP often play a supportive, advisory role in facilitating these transactions.”

So, what do you need in order to succeed as a corporate lawyer:

1. Energy

There’s no hiding from the fact that the hours are long, often very long. A recent survey in Legal Cheek has revealed how much time, on average, trainees and junior lawyers at large City firms spend at work each day. Kirkland & Ellis tops the list at 12 hours 28 minutes per day, with magic circle firms Clifford Chance (11 hrs 44 minutes) and Freshfields (11 hrs 37 minutes) not far behind. You could safely bet that corporate lawyers at these firms will have been among the hardest workers. “Pulling an all-nighter” is unlikely to be a rare occurrence.

2. Management and team working skills

Large corporate deals often require vast teams of specialised lawyers, each dealing with a small part of the big picture be it tax, pensions, employment, etc. Someone needs to manage these teams and draw together all the different strands. Keeping all those balls in the air is the role of the corporate lawyer running the show.

3. Organisational skills and attention to deal

Corporate law requires both the ability to see the big picture and an aptitude for close attention to detail so that no important points are missed. That’s why the hours are so long and the job so demanding. Being organised and able to stay on top of things is crucial

4. Wide legal knowledge and the ability to think innovatively

Corporate deals can be endlessly complex, especially when they cross jurisdictions. A broad legal knowledge is a must, as is the ability to come up with innovative solutions to difficult problems. There is rarely a roadmap to follow and you will often find yourself having to work with colleagues and clients to overcome what may seem at first like insurmountable barriers.

5. Confidence and the ability to win clients

As we’ve said, corporate deals bring in big bucks and that means competing for business in pitches and beauty parades. Having the charm and persuasive skills to win work is a rare skill and one that will set you on the fast track to partnership.

If you believe you have what it takes to succeed as a corporate lawyer, you may also like to consider the likely impact of Brexit on corporate work and your career prospects? Like everything else Brexit related, there is no clear answer to this, but we look at it in more detail in our recent blog, With Brexit looming, should you stay in law? And if so, which field should you specialise in?

In the meantime, if you are thinking about a career in corporate law post qualification, please go to NQSolicitors.com to see find out opportunities are available.

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How technology and big data can transform your legal recruitment in 2018

I believe that 2018 will be the year that hirers and candidates fully embrace technology and data for the first time.

I’m not the only one who thinks this. A recent article in Forbes says: “In 2018, a big internal shift is coming, but this time the focus is on technology: how it can be used to find people, connect people, engage people, even replace people — and what to do when that happens. For years, technology has acted as a tool to help with day-to-day tasks, but the focus in 2018 will be technology as a way of life in the workplace.”

Before we look at how technology will improve recruitment we need to look at why it hasn’t done so to date.

Say to people that technology hasn’t improved recruitment and they’ll say of course it has and point you in the direction of job boards and LinkedIn.

But I’d argue that these tools have simply changed the way recruitment consultants do their jobs. They have helped to grow the recruitment industry and perversely helped to entrench the reliance on agents.

Technology has changed recruitment rather than improved it. There seems to be an ever-greater reliance on agents nowadays – there’s an entrenched belief that you need the middle man.

This isn’t true. Recruitment consultancy is a relatively modern industry and it’s only since the 70s and 80s that the industry took shape as the one we recognise today. Granted, people didn’t move around as much in the past as having a “job for life” was still very much the goal for many people, but they still moved. When they did, they tended to do it themselves, generally through word of mouth and by replying to adverts.

Clearly law firms would rather not pay hefty recruitment fees when hiring junior lawyers, especially given the cost of training.

Quite sensibly, firms are doing what they can to attract applicants themselves but it’s not as easy as it used to be for two reasons:

1. The candidate mind-set has changed.

This has been aided by the prevalence of recruitment agents – many candidates think that the right role will simply find them.

2. Noise.

People used to advertise in a small number of newspapers or publications so candidates knew exactly where to look to find a new job. But now it’s so much harder to get peoples’ attention.

There’s no doubt that LinkedIn is making a big play in the recruitment space and is trying to persuade hirers that they can effectively source candidates themselves through the platform. Its pitch is that it can help hirers identify and target candidates with a high level of accuracy.

The problem is that LinkedIn charges a subscription for reaching out to the market (whether you are successful or not) and because it is making money through subscriptions, it relies on getting as many paying customers as possible. More customers means more noise, and more noise means it’s harder for you to target candidates and get your message out there.

It’s a similar story with jobs boards. These are another good example of how technology has changed rather than improved recruitment. The vast majority of adverts placed on jobs boards are by recruitment consultants rather than the actual hirers.

Go back 20 years and any agent will have known the candidate they were dealing with, will have met them in their office and will have known their client inside out. Job boards allow any Tom, Dick and Harry to search CVs, identify candidates, find adverts and make an introduction.

I’m always surprised by job boards selling themselves on the basis that they have 400,000 CVs on their database, as if that’s a positive. I don’t want 400,000 I want 1,000 good ones! Any more than that and it’s just more noise.

So, how can technology improve recruitment?

Technology has changed our lives in so many ways because it allows us to design and build tools for highly specific uses. It’s not easy to build these tools. First, they have to be thought up, then they have to be funded. As technology-driven tools tend to require plenty of investment, the urge is to scale them up as quickly as possible in order to make a quick return, and when you scale things up they tend to lose focus on why they were built in the first place.

But if you get it right, if you build a recruitment platform that understands the drivers and mind-set of the candidates and the needs, desires and issues of the hirers, then you can achieve something that is truly transformative.

NQSolicitors.com has been built because we steadfastly believe that technology can dramatically improve the recruitment of junior solicitors at NQ – 2 PQE. That’s what the platform is designed to do, and that’s what it’s doing right now.

Here’s how:

1. Quality

NQSolicitors.com allows hirers to locate candidates that meet their specific criteria. Whether it’s a top tier US law firm seeking candidates with an Oxbridge education and magic circle training, or a five-partner practice in Tyneside with a more open approach.

2. Speed

Hires can search for candidates that match their vacancy at any time, any place and at the click of a button. Additionally, the site’s saved search function will continue to search for new matches while you get on with your job.

3. Reach

Traditional recruitment agents are, of course, constrained by the number of candidates they can deal with. NQSolicitors.com allows hirers to conduct a search of the entire market, allowing you to reach more suitably qualified and interested candidates.

4. Cost

NQSolicitors.com does not charge hirers a subscription fee, and only charges a fee upon successful placement. The cost of hiring through the platform will be approximately half the market rate at 12.5%, meaning that many law firms will typically save between £4,000+ per hire.

The message we are getting from hirers is that unlike LinkedIn and jobs boards, NQSolicitors.com is not just changing recruitment but changing it for the better. By embracing technology the way we have, NQSolicitors.com has made it easier for hirers to identify quality candidates, do so more quickly, and at a reduced cost.

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Understanding candidate preferences is key for law firms seeking the best NQs

When candidates create a profile on NQSolicitors.com, we ask them about a dozen questions regarding their academic record and legal experience to date, and a further four questions about their specific work preferences.

In order to accurately match their profiles with law firms that are looking to hire, we need to know:

  • their preferred location(s);
  • their minimum salary requirement;
  • the department or practice area within which they would like to work; and
  • the type of firm they want to join.

When designing the platform, we spent lots of time mulling over the length and content of the list of practice areas we would include on the site. As every law firm names their departments or practice groups slightly differently, the list could easily run to more than 200. But in the end, we settled on a list of 75 distinct practice areas from which candidates can choose their preferences, (and they can obviously select more than one).

We thought it would be interesting to dig into the data and tell you which practice area is the most popular for trainees and junior solicitors at NQ-2 PQE.

Preferred Practice Area/Department

If you think that Commercial Litigation and Corporate departments are the most popular destinations for junior solicitors, then you’d be right, (26.4% of candidates selected Commercial Litigation as a preferred department, and 25.5% selected Corporate).

Employment was comfortably the third most popular choice (22.9%), while other distinct practice areas which are popular destinations for junior solicitors include IP (13.2%) and Banking & Finance (11.1%).

While Arbitration/International Arbitration and Commercial are clearly popular choices as distinct practice areas, they are generally selected by candidates who also select associated practice areas.

For example, candidates who select either Arbitration or International Arbitration generally also select Commercial Litigation as a preferred practice area, and are clearly keen to join some kind of Commercial Disputes department. Similarly, candidates who select Commercial as a desired practice area, generally also select Corporate and are clearly motivated by working within a transactional practice group.

The pie chart below shows the results when we apply our data to The Legal 500’s broader groupings of practice areas.

Broader Classification (as per Legal 500)

Having grouped individual practice areas together within wider banners, ‘Corporate and Commercial’, (which includes Commercial, Corporate, Corporate Tax, Competition/Antitrust, Equity Capital Markets, Financial Services, Partnership and Private Equity) now leaps to the top of the popularity league table, and by a reasonable margin, ahead of Dispute Resolution (which encompasses seven distinct practice areas), Real Estate (nine) and TMT (five).

If you source candidates through NQSolicitors.com (and why wouldn’t you?), it is worth bearing in mind candidate habits/behaviours when setting your search criteria.

If, for example, you have been asked to source a first-rate junior solicitor for your Disputes practice, it would be wise to include multiple practice areas (you can select up to three), within your vacancy details e.g. Commercial Litigation, International Arbitration, and Arbitration.

If your Corporate department, (which in reality undertakes a broad mix of Corporate, Commercial and Equity Capital Markets work), wants to hire an NQ, you should include all three of these practice areas within your vacancy details, as it will generate a greater number of matches.

If you have any questions about optimising your results when searching for candidates on NQSolicitors.com, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

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