THE LAW Society is seeking a “career development adviser” to help solicitors and trainee solicitors find careers outside law.
In an advertisement published in The Irish Times today, the society says this person will be a “key resource for solicitors who are facing unemployment, changed working arrangements or transition to another jurisdiction or career choice”.
The post is initially for a year, and the person appointed will offer mentoring skills, self-assessment tools, workshops and development programmes to help solicitors “plan and prepare for career transition and effect a structured career move or adjustment”.
The society’s director general, Ken Murphy, said the society was not in a position at the moment to estimate the number of solicitors who might be unemployed or under-employed, but he pointed to an article in the forthcoming issue of the Law Society Gazette which said that the practice mix of most Irish law firms in recent years involved 50 per cent conveyancing, 30 per cent litigation and 20 per cent “other”.
One solicitor had told him that conveyancing now represented only 5 per cent of the work he was doing in this area two years ago, he said. The fact that there was a decline in business activity and a credit squeeze meant that areas like mergers and acquisitions were also down.
However, he added that other areas of law were holding up, with litigation actually buoyant, as businesses fell into difficulties. There was still a demand for solicitors’ services in areas like probate, family law and crime.
However, he said that the rumours about large-scale layoffs were unfounded, and the society was now attempting to establish hard facts about the extent of unemployment and under-employment in the profession. “The profession needs the Law Society now more than ever,” he said, stressing that it was there to provide all assistance possible to solicitors who found themselves in difficulty.
He said that the forthcoming issue of the Gazette focused on practical supports to solicitors seeking to develop or reorient their practices, or offer their skills outside the legal profession, with articles on “recession-proofing” law firms, improving their management and on individuals preparing for interviews.
In the article on recession-proofing, David Rowe writes that medium-sized firms have cut staffing levels by a combination of redundancies, shorter working weeks, sabbaticals, natural attrition and not taking on qualifying trainees. The larger practices have by an large kept their staffing levels intact, he writes.