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Talent shortage in Aussie law firms ‘as acute as ever’
A new report has given an overview of the legal market, noting the disparity between the short supply of candidates and an increasing demand for their services.
Emma Musgrave
According to Taylor Root’s annual Salary Report, similarly to last year, the “talent shortage facing Australian law firms is acute as ever”.
“The last few years has seen a relentless demand for banking, corporate and projects lawyers,” the report’s ‘Market overview’ slide detailed.
“This year, the royal commission into the financial services industry has created a voracious appetite amongst law firms of varying shapes and sizes for litigators and financial services advisory lawyers.
“Following closely behind is a resurgence in needs across employment, competition and IP.”
From a global perspective, the report found there is still a huge demand for transactional lawyers, following a momentary pause in recruitment drives among UK law firms post-Brexit.
“This has continued to deplete stocks of Australian mid-level lawyers seeking greener pastures in London (and indeed other locations),” the report said.
“Whilst we hoped for an exodus of returning Australian lawyers back to our capital cities, it became evident over 2017 that Australian lawyers working in London were being well looked after – continuing to enjoy high quality work and responsibility and excellent earning power.
“In other words, the shortage of mid-level and senior associate Australian lawyers across numerous practice areas continues.”
Over on the in-house side, the report noted that as “corporates continue to review their legal expenditure and endeavour to keep as much of their legal work in-house as possible, in-house legal teams have continued to grow solidly”.
“We have seen extremely competitive offers from them to attract mid-level and senior transactional lawyers from private practice.
“This, combined with often better working hours, continues to make in-house a very attractive option for private practice lawyers.”
Taylor Root’s latest annual report also offered an insight into senior lawyers, and revealed how it's becoming increasingly difficult for them to secure a promotion to the partnership within their current firm.
Emma Musgrave
Emma Musgrave (née Ryan) is the managing editor, professional services at Momentum Media.
Emma has worked for Momentum Media since 2015, including five years spent as the editor of the company's legal brand - Lawyers Weekly. Throughout her time at Momentum, she has been responsible for breaking some of the biggest stories in corporate Australia. In addition, she has produced exclusive multimedia and event content related to the company's respective brands and audiences.
Prior to joining Momentum Media, Emma worked in breakfast radio, delivering news to the Central West region of NSW, before taking on a radio journalist role at Southern Cross Austereo, based in Townsville, North Queensland.
She holds a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) degree from Charles Sturt University.
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