Where is Your Career Focused Long Term?

With the rise of international firms in the Australian legal market and the consequential fee squeezes occurring in bread & butter transactional areas of the practice, the legal landscape is changing and the mid market local firms are benefiting. (See our article on the rise of international firms in Australia). This is a trend that some of the managing partners of mid market local firms have predicted for some time and we are starting to see the truth of their views in the market.

There are some key practice areas where this trend is more prominent and we are seeing immediate results with an increase in career opportunities on offer in mid-tier firms due to increased workflow.

Property Roles in Sydney Mid-Tier

In the Sydney property space, lawyers are increasingly feeling pressure on their fees in the top tier. This is leading to a rise in high end work for mid and boutique firms, with the mid tier taking over the bulk of commercial and retail property work, leaving the larger firms concentrating more heavily on large scale resource projects, the infrastructure project space and property funds investment areas.

Another interesting trend is the growth of multi-skilled projects teams in the high end market, and the resulting movement of key lawyers from firms like Ashurst, Norton Rose and Freehills in the national mid tier market. These lawyers are now focussing on local property development and leasing work that used to be bread and butter in the larger firms, but has increasingly been squeezed out by competitive pricing.

With movement like this expected to continue, it is now a good time for mid and senior level property lawyers to start to consider where they want to work long term. If you are a top tier property lawyer considering where you want to position yourself for the future it would be worthwhile calling one of our specialist consultants for a chat about managing your career.

Workplace Relations Lawyers Jobs Bonanza

With an abundance of redundancies and insolvencies across the economy in the wake of tough financial times, combined with a recent massive increase in industrial activity,workplace relation teams in the mid tier have a drastically increased workload. Opportunities abound from junior to mid level lawyers in all the major capital cities in Australia for those who are keen to take advantage of this change.

Litigation

The mid market is also increasingly busy in the litigation space, particularly in areas like insolvency and regulatory litigation as a result of market wide demand for these services. The mid tier offers excellent options for increased client contact and autonomy, alongside increased control of hours which are rarely available in the top tier.

If making such a move is on the cards for you, get in touch with one of our Senior Consultants on +61 2 9266 2900 as soon as possible for a confidential discussion about the legal market.