So you want to work in the law....where do I plug you in?
I am a great fan of legal services. I have to be it pays my mortgage. I also am a great fan of good people who work in the law... I have to be they deliver the service... which pays my mortgage... but for how much longer?
You would have had to have been living in a cave for the last two years to know that there is a battle for talent out there in the big wide world... and not just in legal services. Good people are hard to find. When you find them, the challenge for management is to hang on to them, motivate them and keep them. Those who are not so good and can't change well they have to go.
But things in the legal services market (and probably professional services as a whole) are predicted to change dramatically. I encourage you to read the survey from a U.S. legal consultants Altman Weil who have just released their 2015 survey "Law Firms In Transition".
If you are a young aspiring lawyer, an old lawyer, a law student or indeed a Managing Partner or law firm CEO this report is essential reading. It gives an insight into our futures.
If I am honest I suspect that more young aspiring / younger lawyers will Google and find this report ( I have deliberately not copied the link so go and find it!) and read this report than law firm managers. Apathy is part of the problem with the legal services industry, it has in the main, always been complacent. That is why ABS organisations have looked closely at legal services and thought "we would like some of this market". They regard it as a profitable sector which has been run like a cottage industry.
So if you are a youngster/young talented lawyer read this post and share it with your other young lawyer friends.Read this report after all it is about your future. Tell them where you heard about it... your old mate Shaun from Brethertons.
If you are a law firm managing partner share the report with your HODs and partners and keep your fingers crossed that they will read it. I dare you to add a read receipt on the e mail and see how many actually bother opening the e mail!
The most staggering prediction in the report is at page 120 of 124. I won't tell you what it says. The answers to the questions posed are however from Managing Partners of US law firms.
If you can be bothered to visit the website and download the report you will be amazed...I was.
If you are an aspiring lawyer read the report from end to end. When you get a the chance at interview to ask if you have any questions ask the person interviewing you what they think of the predictions in the " Altman Weil 2015 Law Firms in Transition Survey"... if the response you get from your question is "what survey is that?." You might want to delete the firm off your list. If they don't know what their future is, you certainly won't want them in charge of yours!
Remember there is a battle for talent!
Now having got that off my chest and having calmed down and having read the Altman Weil report from cover to cover I am delighted to confirm, we are already working on lots of the positive stuff.
So if you are looking for a job visit our careers page. Don't worry if your role isn't advertised... drop us your CV anyway. We often interview people just go expand our talent bank. If you are someone I should be speaking to or looking at, drop me a line - always happy to have a coffee.
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