Ian Roberts

09/02/2017 by Ian Roberts

11 questions to ask at your NQ job interview (and 3 you should never ask)

“Do you have any questions?”

As queries go, it sounds innocuous enough. It usually signals that your interview is drawing to a close. And if you’ve successfully hurdled an interrogation about your ambitions, experience and qualities as a team player you may be tempted to relax.

Big mistake. How you respond to this question may tip the balance in your favour, or send you straight to the top of the ‘no’ pile.

Saying you think the interviewer has covered everything is very rarely the right option. Much as you may want to shake hands, grab your coat and get out of there while the going is good you should ask something before you leave.

The questions you raise should serve one or more of three purposes:

Show that you have done your homework about the firm and the role in question
Demonstrate that you are interested in the firm and your potential career there
Establish that the firm is the right fit for you in terms of its values and ambitions

With that in mind, here are 11 questions that you could ask at your NQ job interview. Having said that, don’t ask one that has already been answered. Good listening skills are a prerequisite for any legal job.

What makes someone successful in this role?
Can you tell me about the culture and working environment in the firm?
How is work allocated and how will I be supervised?
What type of work can I expect to be doing as a newly qualified at the firm?
Will I always work with the same partners/lawyers or can I expect to be working for people across different teams?
How will my work be assessed? What kind of feedback can I expect to receive?
How do you expect the firm to grow in the next five years?
Is there a mentoring scheme in place and, if so, how does it work?
How does the firm train junior solicitors in business development and networking?
What sets the firm apart from its competitors?
Can you tell me about the types of clients the firm has and describe some landmark cases/transactions?

Finally, there is no harm in enquiring about the next step in the recruitment process and when you can expect to hear further.

Worse than not asking any questions at all are those that show you in a bad light. The wrong step here can undo all your previous good work. Questions not to pose include:

Anything that relates to the salary or how often it will be reviewed. It indicates to the interviewer that money is your priority rather than your career. This type of question is best dealt with through an intermediary or the person at the firm who arranged the interview with you.
Anything about how quickly you can expect to be promoted. It is always good to come across as confident and ambitious, but this goes beyond that to presumptuousness.
Who are the firm’s competitors? This shows that you have failed to do your research – not a good trait for a lawyer.

And tempting as it may be, don’t ask if you will get your own corner office with views across the City.

Good luck!

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25/01/2017 by Ian Roberts

7 ways to thrive as an NQ Solicitor at your new firm

In the first part of this blog, we set out some tips for moving firms as a Newly Qualified Solicitor. In this second part, we give some advice on how to survive those nerve-racking early weeks as an NQ at a new firm and go on to thrive in your first role as a professional.

At last, you are a solicitor. After all those years of studying and long hours as a trainee, you have your reward. And what’s more, you have a new job. It’s an exciting time.

You wouldn’t be human though if you didn’t feel a sense of trepidation. Unlike when you were a cosseted trainee, there is nowhere to hide. It is a daunting prospect. What’s more, you are taking a huge step up in an unfamiliar environment surrounded by people you don’t know.

Here are seven tips that will help you not only survive the transition from trainee to solicitor, but flourish at your new firm:

1. DO THE HARD YARDS

One disadvantage of moving to a new firm is that no one knows what you are capable of. It may say ‘solicitor’ on your business card, but you could still find yourself doing some fairly menial or tedious work to start with. Don’t let this dishearten you. Throw yourself into it with gusto and show that you are willing to do the hard yards in order to get on. The attitude you show in the first few weeks counts for a lot.

2. GET TO GRIP WITH HOW THINGS WORK

Every firm does things differently and you will have to get to grips with a host of new things: work policies and procedures, computer systems, house styles, precedents, etc. Spend time getting familiar with how things work and who does what so that when you do get busy you aren’t left floundering.

3. DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK

It is not that unusual to hear of NQs who had very little responsibility as Trainee Solicitors being expected to run their own files straight after moving to a new firm. This can be extremely stressful. The temptation is to battle on and not show your new colleagues that there are areas where your legal knowledge is, let’s say, a little bit hazy. This is a mistake. There’s no magic switch that makes you fully competent just because your training is over. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, even if you think this shows you in a bad light. The same applies if you feel you are overwhelmed by your workload.

4. MAKE FRIENDS

If you are going to thrive rather than just survive you need to get to know people in the firm and make friends. Empty your diary for the first few weeks and take up as many social invitations as possible. Many firms have sports teams and societies, and joining one or more of these is a great way to meet people across the firm. Be confident and proactive about introducing yourself to people. Often, drinks in the pub after work are the best time to get to know people and feel part of the team.

5. FIND A MENTOR

Some firms offer a formal mentoring scheme. If yours is one of them, you should take this up. If it doesn’t, see if you can find someone to mentor you informally. A mentor can be invaluable in finding out how the firm works and the best way to get on.

6. NETWORK

Now you are qualified, part of your role may include bringing in new clients. Volunteer for formal networking events and take the initiative in finding new ones. Keep your business cards on you at all times, even at the weekends, as you never know when you might meet someone interesting. Also, find out whatther departments do so that you can spot opportunities to refer work within the firm.

7. STAY IN TOUCH WITH OLD COLLEAGUES

It is well worth keeping in touch with your old colleagues after you move. The legal world is a small one and there is every chance you will end up working with someone from your old firm in future, possibly even as a client if they go in house. Former colleagues may even refer work to you if your new firm does work that your old firm doesn’t cover.

If you are thinking of moving firms as a Newly Qualified Solicitor, please get in touch and we can discuss how we can help you.

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22/12/2016 by Ian Roberts

How to move firms as an NQ Solicitor (and find a better job)

To move or not to move, that is the question. For some, it is an agonising decision. For others, it is one that is out of their control. Either way, moving to a new firm as an NQ Solicitor is not something you want to leave to chance.

In the first of a two-part series, we start by looking at what you should do to put yourself in the best possible position to find a new job as an NQ. In the next part, we’ll examine what you need to do to thrive in your new firm.

The end of your training contract is a watershed moment for any solicitor. But with the relief at having finally qualified comes one of the biggest questions you will face in your career: what next?

If you have been told you will not be kept on, your only option is to get out there and find a new job. Even if you have been offered an NQ role, you may be in two minds and want to see what your options are.

Here are our tips for moving as an NQ (and finding a more fulfilling job):

1. GET OFFERED AN NQ ROLE BY YOUR EXISTING FIRM

This may seem counterintuitive if you are intent on leaving, but one of the best things you can do is secure a position as an NQ Solicitor with your current firm. You will certainly be a more attractive proposition to another firm if you have been offered a seat at your training firm.

In our experience, the larger firms prefer candidates who are moving out of choice rather than being pushed. In fact, it was on the advice of law firms we spoke to during the design phase of NQSolicitors.com that we added a field that asks candidates if they have been offered an NQ position.

And, if you have been offered a position at your training firm but are unable to find a new role that suits you straight after qualification, it gives you breathing space until you find your perfect role.

2. START THE PROCESS EARLY

It definitely pays to be ahead of the game if you are thinking of moving. Begin the process well in advance of qualification and carry out plenty of research about firms that do the type of work you are interested in.

Although some firms won’t start recruiting until they have settled the situation with regard to their own NQs, things are likely to move quickly once they do, so it pays to be prepared.

Of course, if you do manage to find a new job before your existing firm has made up its mind, you don’t need to worry about securing an NQ post at your training firm either.

3. USE YOUR EXPERIENCE TO CHOOSE YOUR NEXT FIRM CAREFULLY

Unless you worked as a paralegal before starting your training contract, choosing which firm to train at may have been a bit of a stab in the dark. But you’ve had two years in the industry now, so it makes sense to use your experience wisely.

You should by now have a better idea of what is important to you in terms of the type of work you want to do and the atmosphere you want to work in. Find out from speaking to friends and doing your research what other firms are like and how well they match what you are looking for in your career, be it partnership prospects, work/life balance, etc.

4. CHOOSE YOUR RECRUITMENT CONSULTANT CAREFULLY

Discretion is the number one watchword when you go out into the employment market. The last thing you want is for your existing firm to find out your CV is being touted around as this could result in you losing your new seat. Not all recruitment consultants are created equal, so be careful which ones you choose.

5. UPDATE YOUR CV

You know this already, but make sure your CV is up to date. It can be hard to remember what you did in your early seats, but the more relevant detail you can add the better.

You don’t need to add an exhaustive list of everything you have done as a trainee solicitor, but you should give a good overview of your experience. Most importantly, you need to demonstrate that you know why you did what you did, what the vagaries and complexities were, and what the commercial angle was. This will show that you learned a lot during your training and are ready to move on to the next stage.

Contrary to popular belief there is no right way to set out a CV, but it should be laid out neatly and be easy to navigate.

In our next post, we are going to set out some tips for NQs to get off to a flying start at their new firm.

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14/12/2016 by Ian Roberts

What is the impact on Trainee Solicitors when law firms merge?

The three-way tie-up between CMS, Nabarro and Olswang announced in October is the latest in a series of mergers to have hit the London legal market in recent years. We look at the impact of the merger on the firms’ trainee solicitors and their chances of securing newly qualified positions.

The merger of CMS, Nabarro and Olswang has created, in their words, a “new City powerhouse”. The combined firm will become the world’s sixth-largest law firm by headcount and the sixth largest by revenue in the UK.

Like all mergers, it has been followed by spin from the firm about what great news the merger is for clients and “our people”.

The first sign of the new firm living up to that is its confirmation that it will honour training contract offers when the three firms merge. This is clearly great news for those trainees.

What is less clear, of course, is how the merger will affect the quality of training experienced by the firms’ existing trainees and their chances of securing an NQ position at the end of their training contracts.

Looking first at how the merger may influence the chances of trainees being kept on as NQs, a starting point is to look at retention rates at each of the three firms over the past few years. This can be seen in the table below and makes interesting reading.

CMS, NABARRO & OLSWANG RETENTION RATES (2014 – 2016)

CMS Retention Rate

2014 63/89 (71%)
2015 36/55 (65%)
2016 38/56 (68%)

Nabarro Retention Rate

2014 21/24 (88%)
2015 19/22 (86%)
2016 23/27 (85%)

Olswang Retention Rate

2014 14/16 (88%)
2015 12/18 (67%)
2016 6/8 (75%)

As the table shows, CMS’s retention figures are quite low compared to its merger partners, ranging between 65% and 71%. By contrast, Nabarro has had a consistently high retention rate of between 85% and 88% over the past three years. Olswang’s retention rate has fluctuated wildly between 67% and 88%, though it would be foolhardy to draw too many conclusions from such a small sample size (especially in 2016).

RECENT MERGERS

As a clue to the future, it is instructive to look at how trainees have been affected by other recent mergers. In the two years before their merger with Gowling, Wragge Lawrence Graham kept on 77% and 72% of trainees respectively. In 2016, the first year since they joined forces, Gowling WLG retained 74% of trainees. In other words, no real change.

Again, we should warn against drawing many conclusions from this data, as the merger involved a tie-up between a UK and Canadian law firm with no real presence in the UK prior to the merger.

The 2014 merger between Charles Russell and Speechly Bircham may, therefore, be a more accurate indicator, and the figures paint a more encouraging picture. Charles Russell Speechlys retained 73% of its trainees in 2015 and 72% this year, compared to just 63% (Charles Russell) and 69% (Speechly Bircham) in the year prior to the merger. This is only a modest uplift, but reassuring nonetheless.

It is difficult to draw cast iron conclusions, but a tentative one is that the CMS merger could be good news for CMS trainees, neutral for Olswang trainees and possibly less good news for Nabarro trainees.

Turning now to the bigger picture, what effect can a merger have on an individual’s training and long-term opportunities?

In an article in The Lawyer, Andrew Leaitherland, managing partner at DWF, is quoted as saying that a merger presents significant benefits and advantages. “The merged firm may have greater resources and this can manifest in many ways: larger training budgets mean more opportunities for learning and development; more offices may mean opportunities for relocation; and a widening of service lines may provide greater scope to work in different practice areas,” he said. “The talented and ambitious trainee may well find that they are ideally suited to an acquisitive firm because of the career progression opportunities this presents.”

This view was supported in the article by Duncan Batchelor, graduate recruitment partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, who cited the opportunity for more client secondments and overseas seats for trainee solicitors as a result of his firm’s global growth.

THE AFFECT ON TRAINEES

Trainees at a merged firm will have a host of questions they need to consider if they are offered the chance to stay on as NQs. These include:

Will the merger change the culture of the firm and working environment?
Are more mergers planned, and if so, how might this change the firm further?
How will the merger affect the practice area in which the trainee wishes to work, the quality of the work and the type of clients the firm acts for?

In the article in The Lawyer, Ben Higson, graduate recruitment partner at Hogan Lovells, suggested that lawyers applying for roles at merged firms should think of the benefits and “the exciting challenges and opportunities that working for a merged firm might bring”.

Andrew Leaitherland took this further: “The savvy candidate may even want to ask about opportunities to be involved in any of the cross-firm initiatives which inevitably arise post-merger and which are designed to facilitate integration,” he said.

Only time will tell what the future holds for trainee solicitors at Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP, or ‘CMS’ as it will be known, thankfully. We for one will be watching with interest.

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22/11/2016 by Ian Roberts

The number of ‘Equivalent Means’ qualifiers has hit 100, is this route ‘the future’ for Trainee Solicitors?

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has recently revealed that 105 Legal Practice Course graduates have successfully applied to qualify as solicitors through ‘equivalent means’ since the scheme was launched in summer 2014, enabling them to bypass the traditional training contract (source: Legal Cheek).

This has led to some speculation that equivalent means could be the way forward for the legal sector.

While the scheme has gained some traction, and we should certainly congratulate those solicitors that have qualified via equivalent means, I personally cannot see any reason why the introduction of an alternative route to qualification alone will lead to large-scale change within the sector.

This is mainly because the existence of an alternative route, by itself, gives medium and large-scale law firms, with well-established training programmes, absolutely no reason to change.

Such organisations invest a huge amount in building highly-effective training programmes that are designed to attract the ‘brightest and best’ trainee solicitors, and an essential part of their offering is that, essentially, they guarantee that their trainee solicitors will qualify. The equivalent means route, crucially, offers no such guarantee.

Without being discourteous, I can see nothing about the equivalent means route that looks attractive from the point of view of an aspiring solicitor that is confident that he/she will secure a training contract.

Having said that, I think that the existence of an alternative route to qualification is a hugely positive development of the sector, and a boon for aspiring solicitors who, for one reason or another, have been unable to secure a training contract.

It is certainly the case that lots of extremely bright and capable individuals are lost to the sector for no other reason than they hit the legal market at the wrong time. During difficult economic times, many firms cut back on the number of training contracts they offer, and you can’t help but feel sorry for anyone who happens to be seeking a training contract in that environment.

Many of those who do miss out generally look to build on their legal experience and essentially ‘stay in the game’ by taking on paralegal work.

Those that take on paralegal work with large law firms have virtually zero chance that this engagement will lead to anything else.

However, the existence of an alternative route to qualification may well persuade smaller law firms, who have often been deterred from taking on paralegals who are clearly motivated to secure a training contract, to consider equivalent means as a viable option, as the burden falls primarily on the individual looking to qualify.

While it is encouraging that 105 aspiring solicitors have successfully qualified through equivalent means, I would like to know what percentage of applications are actually successful.

The continued growth in the number of solicitors qualifying via equivalent means will surely depend on this figure.

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11/11/2016 by Ian Roberts

Flying start for NQSolicitors.com

I’m delighted to report that NQSolicitors.com has got off to a flying start following our launch at the end of October.

Dozens of London-based trainee and newly qualified solicitors signed up immediately after we contacted them to tell them about the service. It’s fair to say we’ve been staggered by the positive response, and we’re continuing to add new candidates daily.

Some of the trends we are noticing include:

Candidates who have signed up so far come from a variety of backgrounds but are mainly from top 30 law firms (including Magic Circle and Silver Circle practices)

Two-thirds have already qualified, including a large number of September 2016 qualifiers

One-third are yet to qualify, with many of these due to qualify in March 2017. We expect this number to rise substantially as we get closer to that date.

The feedback we have had from candidates is that they like the fact it is so easy to register and to upload their details. Also, the anonymity the platform offers is a big factor in their decision to register. There is no chance their anonymous profiles will be seen by their current firms and they have complete control over which firms receive their CV.

All in all, we’re delighted by the reaction we’ve had from trainees and newly qualified solicitors.

If you have any questions about how the platform works, please call us on 020 3709 9165 or e-mail us at info@nqsolicitors.com. You can also take a look at our candidate FAQs.

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