Legal recruitment
For over 60 years, Reed has been at the forefront of legal recruitment, helping businesses across the UK find the perfect legal professionals for their teams.
Start a conversation with one of our specialist legal recruitment consultants
Send a brief overview of your requirements and we will contact you to find out more about your needs.
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Our law recruitment expertise
Our specialist legal recruiters use their local knowledge of the market and the UK’s largest candidate database to find you the top legal professionals for your business.
Our approach
Our highly experienced legal consultants recruit for all legal roles, from paralegals and trainee solicitors to heads of legal and partners. Our sector expertise includes:
In-house legal departments
Private practices
Public sector organisations
Temporary and permanent roles
Finding the best legal professionals can be a challenge as many are not actively looking for a new position, so it often requires headhunting techniques. Our executive search function includes access to the UK’s best executive advertising and headhunting tools, meaning we can penetrate the passive market to find you the top talent to help your team and business grow.
What we offer
As a specialist recruitment agency, we take a tailored and personalised approach to all our services and adapt our search to meet your requirements.
In addition, we provide all our clients with recruitment advice throughout the journey, from preparation of job descriptions, advertising, diversity and inclusion consulting, salary benchmarking, package negotiation, and onboarding advice.
In-house legal recruitment
Our specialist recruiters can find you the top talent for your companies’ in-house legal teams. From paralegals, legal executives, and solicitors, through to general counsel and chief legal officers, we cover the full breadth of the in-house legal sector.
With access to the UK’s largest candidate database, extensive portfolios of the top legal professionals in the market, and the use of executive search and headhunting tools, we can find you the professionals you need to help your in-house legal team thrive.
We maintain long-standing relationships with several in-house legal departments, from SMEs to major firms, positioning us uniquely to understand diverse organisational needs.
We will support you throughout the recruitment process, from interview and selection advice, salary benchmarking and package negotiation, to the latest industry trends and onboarding guidance.
Private practice recruitment
We have recruitment consultants across the UK who specialise in finding the top legal professionals for private practice clients. Whether you are looking for a paralegal, trainee solicitor, an associate or partner, we tailor our approach to find you the skills and experience you need in your new hire.
Our recruiters can help you find the best candidates within all areas of legal practice and across all experience levels.
We understand that finding the best legal professionals is often a challenge and many are already in employment, however we use our executive search function and the UK’s best executive advertising and headhunting tools to penetrate the passive market and find you the top talent to help your firm grow.
Our specialist private practice recruiters will support you throughout your recruitment journey. From salary benchmarking through to interview and selection advice, our consultants are on hand to guide you through the process.
Public sector legal recruitment
We have specialist legal consultants who provide recruitment services to public sector organisations, such as local councils and government departments.
We have the UK’s largest candidate database as well as teams of expert consultants based across the UK to help you find the top legal professionals in the market at every level both on a temporary and permanent basis.
If you are looking to benchmark your salary and package offerings with the industry average, or need advice on the current market conditions, we can support you throughout the whole process.
Legal leadership recruitment
Our specialist legal consultants are experts in their field, have relationships with some of the most talented legal professionals in the market, and can find you the top talent for any leadership role.
Finding the best legal talent at leadership level can be a challenge and take a long time when advertising yourself. Using our executive search function, we have access to the UK’s best executive advertising and headhunting tools, meaning we can penetrate the passive market to find you the top talent to help your firm grow.
We support you throughout the journey with local market advice as well as advising on national market conditions, providing salary benchmarking and package negotiation support, and onboarding advice.
Whether you are looking for a partner, legal director, general legal counsel, or head of legal, we can support you in finding the right person with the skills and experience you need for your business to thrive.
Overcoming recruitment challenges in the legal sector
We conduct a thorough pre-screen on all our candidates and focus our search on those who are the right fit for your business or team, rather than just on technical skills.
The best in-house lawyers need to be good team players, commercially astute, solution-driven, pragmatic, possess the ability to make the complex simple, have a good grasp of numbers, as well as being able to speak the language of your business and have an opinion which they are prepared to share. It is rare that all of this can be conveyed on a CV, so we take the time to get to know all our candidates and only present you with the best applicants.
Learn more about our pre-employment screening services.
Prior to conducting searches, we hold an in-depth meeting with you to fully understand your brief and minimise time spent on unsuitable candidates.
Being able to accurately articulate the job role and the company to applicants means we can present the opportunity in the best possible light to ‘in demand’ candidates who are often time poor and regularly approached with vague opportunities.
We can target the right people first time around and brief them on the key elements of the opportunities that match their technical skills, soft skills, and career goals.
Not every new hire will be the perfect fit for your company and every business experiences attrition to some extent. However, by working with our specialist legal recruiters, we take the time to understand the motivations, goals, and skills of all applicants and only present you with those that are a good fit for your company and teams.
That way you can be confident that your new appointee is dedicated and committed to their new role and to your firm, saving you time and money in the long-run.
We understand that often the best legal professionals are already in employment and may not be actively seeking a new role.
That is why we spend time actively engaging with the passive market, getting to know our candidates, and really understanding their career aspirations, so that when a new position becomes available, we often already have the perfect person in mind.
In addition to our extensive candidate portfolio, our executive search function includes access to the UK’s best executive advertising and headhunting tools.
Delays in recruiting can over-stretch legal resources, constrain key projects, and increase legal risk. Additionally, the impact of losing a valued member of the team can increase pressure and demand on the rest of the team and wider firm.
We can reduce your time-to-hire by providing support on how to best position your vacancy to attract the best talent in the market, supporting you with the preparation of job descriptions, advertising, diversity and inclusion consulting, salary benchmarking and package negotiation. We also provide up to date salary and benefit benchmarking to ensure you retain talent in a competitive market.
Roles we've recently filled
Commercial property solicitor
Electrical engineering company
Basingstoke
Head of legal
Technology company
London
Director
Top 100 firm
Bristol
Commercial property solicitor
Boutique firm
Edinburgh
Paralegal
Investment company
London
Private client solicitor
Boutique firm
Andover
Our legal expertise
Carolyn Thompson
Zoe MacMillan
Send a brief overview of your requirements and we will contact you to find out more about your needs.
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Our national coverage allows us to offer a recruitment service tailored to your needs, with accurate local market intelligence on salaries, competitors and the best professionals who can help your business thrive.