AAR referrers take $20k finders fee
Allens Arthur Robinson has made "several" $20,000 referral payments to staff members who have successfully recruited lawyers into its Perth office. Perth partner Tim Lester heads up the
Allens Arthur Robinson has made "several" $20,000 referral payments to staff members who have successfully recruited lawyers into its Perth office.
The $20,000 finder's fee was announced in October last year, doubling the amount offered for similar referrals in Melbourne and Sydney.
The Perth office is the only office to also offer a financial incentive for staff members who are able to source CVs and interviews for potential candidates - even if such candidates are not consequently hired.
"There have been a good number of phase one incentives where we've had a real upturn in the number of people we've been seeing in terms of CVs and interviews and we've hired several people which has led to referral payments being made," said Lester.
He added that the legal recruitment market has been tight in recent months, despite comments that the global financial crisis merely presented a "slight hiccup" for the region.
"WA didn't feel the effects of the financial crisis as acutely as other parts of Australia," said Lester.
"That was largely influenced by the large scale projects underway. 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.
"Very quickly the market has once again become very tight so we do need to look beyond the available pool of resources here."
Lester added that the international nature of the work being undertaken by Allens in the Perth office means that the firm needs to look for lawyers with experience beyond Western Australia.