The shape of things to come?

Travelling around the law fairs each Autumn is always a good way for the LawCareers.Net team to gauge what is happening in the recruitment market. We chat to firms about their recruitment plans (a bit of watching and waiting in view of the economy), we talk to the students picking up handbooks and signing up to LC.N Weekly (lots more first years this time - the message about starting early is getting through) and catch up with careers advisers (they need to see you regularly, from as early as possible, if they are really going to help you).

One initiative that caught the eye was from Plexus Law, part of Parabis Resourcing, which in its northern offices has introduced its 'Graduate Pathways' programme. The idea is to have a graduate intake into the business and offer a three-route process in which everyone recruited is given core legal training for a year, before settling on one of three pathways forward over the next two years. Only one of these paths is a trainee solicitor role resulting in a qualification as a solicitor. Alongside this route two other streams exist:(i) trainee technical analyst, which is a specialist legal role but not requiring the full range of experience needed to become a qualified solicitor, and (ii) trainee team coordinator, which is a management stream. This structure recognises a number of points when one considers the way law - and becoming a lawyer - may develop. Firstly, there may well not be a requirement for so many people to become solicitors. They are (relatively) expensive to train and employ, and may often end up doing work in specialist areas, ignoring much of their training. Secondly, expect to observe firms being far more clear-sighted in their business planning and, in turn, adjusting the way they recruit accordingly. Finally, it underlines the need for future lawyers (be they solicitors, legal executives, barristers or whatever) to be ever more commercially focused; understanding the market as a whole and specific organisations alike.

Another example of this sort of planning by firms which you might want to contemplate is the system run by Irwin Mitchell, by which they recruit two distinct streams of trainees: one to work in the part of the firm that serves individuals and the other to cover their business client work. Again, a conscious decision has been made to reassess the firm's future staffing needs and rework the recruitment model accordingly. And these two won't be the last, so keep your eyes open and your ear to the ground. But take heart; firms will continue to require smart, motivated, commercially minded, proactive individuals - so make sure that is what you are!