In Perth, national law firms are offering some lucrative deals in order to attract and retain top-quality lawyers. Angela Priestley reports

But the real commotion may well be emerging from businesses attempting to bring staff to the region to meet their resourcing needs.

It's commotion that has already caused a stir at Allens Arthur Robinson where, for the last six months, the firm has been offering finder fees of $20,000 to staff members who can successfully bring new fee-earners into their Perth office.

The fee is twice what's currently offered for similar finds in the Sydney and Melbourne offices and is evidence of the significant difficulties firms like Allens face in bringing highly-qualified lawyers to the West.

Not surprisingly, the scheme has been successful: according to the Allens Perth-based partner responsible, Tim Lester, the firm has already made "several" payments following successful hires, while also providing a number of financial incentives to those staff-members who have assisted in bringing CVs and candidates in for interview.

The $20,000 figure attracted the attention of the international press last week, with the Wall Street Journal citing it as an example of the lengths businesses at the heart of Australia's resources boom must go to in order to staff their needs.

As noted by the WSJ, investment in mining and energy projects rose 21 per cent in the months from April to October 2010 to a figure of $132.6 billion.

That's big business for what was, not so long ago, a relatively small city. Today, Perth boasts a population of just over 1.5 million. While it's a figure that's growing steadily according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the level of investment in the region far outweighs the level of personnel and skills available.

For law firms, the problem is that the bulk of the work currently associated with the resource boom can not always be filled by Perth-based lawyers but requires specialist - and often international - skills.

"A lot of the projects and the transactions are international in nature and involve structured financing," says Lester. "So being able to attract people with experience beyond WA is actually very valuable, whether that's from the Eastern States, Asia or the Middle East."

Meanwhile, the Global Financial Crisis was not as severely felt in Perth as it was throughout the rest of the country, presenting little relief for national law firms from the pre-GFC legal war for talent. "While there was a hiccup in terms of activity and a slight slowdown in transaction execution, transactions weren't necessarily canned. They were just slowed to allow the effects of the crisis to pass," says Lester.

And with global law firms like Clifford Chance and Allen & Overy announcing offices in Perth - even over opening offices in more traditional Australia legal jurisdictions like Melbourne - it seems the market for talent in the region is only going to tighten.

Still, according to Ralph Laughton, the managing director of legal recruiter Dolman, the Perth talent market is not exploding with legal roles at the moment. Rather, the quality of the candidates firms are looking for is heightening and law firms are realising they need to be flexible and more lucrative with their salary packages in order to lure the right mix of people from interstate and overseas.

"We were [in the past] getting orders in that we knew we couldn't fill," he says. "We didn't feel what was on offer [salary wise from firms] was competitive in Perth relative to where these people were and would have to relocate from."

He adds it's taken some time for employers to make their packages more attractive. "When clients realize they can't find the quality candidates they're looking for, then eventually either salaries go up or the offer goes up and the possibility of resourcing quality candidates becomes more realistic," says Laughton.

At Minter Ellison, Perth-based real estate partner Glen McLeod notes that the resources boom is driving legal work across a broad spectrum of law, especially given population growth in the region.

Having recently hired three new lawyers into his practice group - one from the UK, another from South Australia and one from Perth - he knows all too well the need to search beyond Perth-borders to bring new lawyers on board.

"We are a tier one law firm, so what we're selling is top quality services. We want to make sure we have the best people to do the jobs as the work comes in," he says.

McLeod's growing real estate practice is an example of the "auxiliary-style" work building off the back of the resources boom and one which shows the all-encompassing impact the resources work has on general business in the area. "Firstly, [growth is coming from] the scale of the infrastructure development and the number of infrastructure projects underway," he says.

"In addition, you've got a whole range of ancillary real estate issues created by the real estate boom because so many people have now been drawn into the state to service the resources industry."

According to Minter Ellison people and development manager, Louise Shelton, growth in legal work means looking to the firm's alumni to bring in potential recruits. "We get a lot of fantastic referrals from our current staff and alumni for our positions," she says.

And, like Lester, McLeod did not see the GFC hindering talent requirements. "The GFC is history," he says "We did not make anyone redundant in Perth as a result of the GFC. What we did do was take a calm look at the prospects for WA and the quality of our clients and considered what kind of prospects would be available in the future and responded accordingly."

As for the future, Allens' Lester believes current staffing levels are sustainable and likely to further grow as the resources boom continues.

"When you have these significant multi-million dollar projects that are underpinned by ten to 25-year contracts, you can look forward and see that Perth will continue to grow," he says.

In the meantime, offering $20,000 finder fees is certainly going to get staff on board to help with such growth.