As part of “The Qualification Season” – a series of blogs by CapeClarke aimed at trainee solicitors looking to qualify in September 2015 – we will give a brief overview of the market conditions affecting many of the core legal disciplines that trainee solicitors look to qualify into.
The next area of law for discussion is Corporate.
The Current Market: The corporate market (along with Commercial Property) was one of the biggest casualties of the recession and it spent the next 5 years recovering. For years, corporate transactions were not moving beyond due diligence and clients were not viewing deals as being financially viable. Private equity transactions dropped off a cliff as dis equity capital market work! There were some redundancies, 4 day working weeks and unoccupied private equity and M&A specialists.
That was then, this is now! The corporate market has been much busier in the last 3 years, with renewed (or enhanced) confidence in the market or opportunistic businesses seeking to take advantage of the recovering market. Those firms who operate in the private equity markets have really undergone a revival. Couple that with the lack of recruitment throughout the recession and what you have is a corporate market desperately seeking to recruit quality solicitors at all levels.
Is this a good career option? Corporate is an excellent area to qualify into, particularly if you work at a strong transactional practice – during the better times, you will be hugely busy and as a result of trainees not really gearing up to qualify into corporate in recent years, you will find yourself highly sought after once you have a year or so of PQE under your belt!
September 2015 opportunities: There will be numerous opportunities this year (and probably for the next couple of years) to qualify into corporate and they will also afford the opportunity to NQs in smaller or mid-tier firms to make the step up to the larger practices – corporate divisions cannot be as picky as they used to be so that has allowed, particularly junior, solicitors to transform their careers. What a difference a couple of years makes – if you were a trainee solicitor 4 or 5 years ago and were hoping to qualify into corporate, you were in for a bit of a shock, with very few departments wanting to expand. We have already been instructed on 3 specific opportunities in Leeds alone at the NQ level for September qualifiers.
If you would like to discuss this blog, have been thinking about a move or would just like some general advice about options in the market, please feel free to contact Terry Cape or Chris Clarke on 0113 2385965.
CapeClarke is a leading niche legal recruitment consultancy operating across Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle and London. Please feel free to check out our priority legal vacancies by clicking here. Please note these legal vacancies are only a small selection of those we have been instructed on, so please get in touch if you do not see a role which looks suitable.
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