We realise how hard you’ve worked, and how important these next steps are, approaching the culmination of your training contract. You may be unsure about your practice area choice, and whether to stay with your current firm, or look externally upon qualification. Your current firm may have been the only law firm you’ve experienced, leaving you unsure as to whether it’s the most appropriate place for you to continue to develop. Conversely, you may have a well-defined idea of how you’d like your career to play out, but need someone to act as a sounding board, offer advice backed by experience, and to manage the recruitment process diligently. How can we help? We are keen to start our relationship early into your career and support you throughout. We can assist you in clarifying your motivators and their importance, we can talk to you about the demand and relative prospects in your training seats, and the merits and drawbacks of moving externally to a wide range of firms. We can also provide accurate information on salary, benefits, working hours, internal firm culture and the timings involved in making a move. We can then implement a plan to manage this often complicated process; advising on your CV presentation and interview preparation, and offering impartial advice throughout your decision-making. We have experience in talking to hundreds of lawyers at this stage in their careers, and watching the impact of these early choices. In some cases, newly qualified roles are filled as early as 6 months prior to the qualification date, and so at any point during your training to talk things through.

The legal landscape is complex, the future prospects at your current firm and the opportunities on offer externally are fluid and change constantly. We continue to see significant lateral Partner movement, dramatic remuneration changes, and law firm mergers, as just some of the variables that affect your career. We are also conscious that people’s personal situation and the factors that are important to people change. This affects how feasible it is for you to work long-term at your current firm, and therefore the value you get by changing employer. Often it’s useful to go through the process of thinking about, and discussing this in detail with someone that understands how to ask the right questions, to uncover and clarify your key drivers. How can we help? At Sigma Legal Search we take a thorough, and consultative approach to working with Associates. We aim to fully understand your motivators and long-term goals, before advising on an approach that provides the best short to medium-term chance of success. We look at both at live, and strong speculative opportunities, and qualify the roles based on your specific situation. The process will be managed confidentially and with care, feedback will be available on demand, and the communication will be transparent at all stages. We don’t mind acting as a sounding board and providing no-obligation advice, and whilst we are here to support you, we aren’t afraid to use our experience to push back where we think it will help! Contact us to discuss in more detail.

You are either a Partner, or a Senior Associate looking for a step-up, or perhaps a clearer promotion path than is on offer at your current firm. Moves at this stage in your career often come with inherent risk, but also potentially large gains. We realise that there are many factors that need to be discussed and considered, depending on your niche, and circumstances. Experience has shown us on many occasions that often its the right platform for your practice, that is the defining factor as to whether you reach your career aspirations. Often the small things, make a big difference. How can we help? We realise that it’s important that moves at this level are managed sensitively and in the strictest of confidence. We want to get to know you personally, your push / pull factors and review your practice in detail. We will then go out to market, confidentially, in order to gather relevant information on the various options on offer, before presenting them to you, and agreeing a course of action. At a senior level, there are often issues that transpire, which can be avoided by the right action early in the recruitment process. We can work with you to identify and mitigate these issues, and can provide support with your business plan and interview preparation, if required. Contact us to discuss in more detail

Sigma Legal Search will continue to work with clients strategically on key associate and lateral partner hires, which are integral to the business. Whether you are looking to add a new practice capability, a bolt-on team to complement an existing practice area, or you are looking to add a specific person to an existing team, we can help. In addition to the contingent recruitment model, we can offer a retained search methodology to target the best hires in the industry. For these projects we tailor our approach to suit your requirements and the project itself. Please use the contact us form to discuss in confidence.