Honestly no idea on a macro level but it seems to be a City-wide trend that there are just no NQ disputes roles going – the very few that were/are floating around are beyond competitive.

If I had to hazard a guess, part of it will be that litigation costs are coming under more and more scrutiny so (1) more clients are avoiding the big, long-running, costly disputes that keep litigation teams quids-in for years at a time and (2) in turn, to keep PEP up and avoid unwanted scrutiny over their business plans, partners are running leaner teams and trying to shave their overheads – meaning less NQ recruitment (the stupidest of all the cost-cutting tactics, because teams screw themselves on pipeline talent and just create a problem for 3-4 years down the line).

Anecdotally, I’ve heard whispers that make me think the disputes market problems aren’t restricted to NQ level. I have heard of (and seen) mid-level and more senior associates coming from historically respected disputes practices struggling to find ‘upgrade’ moves and needing to take pay hits.

How many trainees does your firm have?!

£125k -> £150k NQ rate for firms which take on ~30-60 NQs EVERY YEAR?! With a generally flat M&A market for 3 straight years… and we’ve forked out for all these expensive American partners… and for some reason we care about short term financial metrics like PEP (despite broadly being LLPs to avoid the disclosure obligations of private companies…)

Legal Cheek – please may we have a separate comment section for bashing recruiters. Many thanks in advance

disputes roles are very very hard to come by

at the elite end i.e. top US firms looks like theres lots of partner moves but not so much at the very very junior end.

this is a mid levels market – i am seeing lots of 3-5 PQE people moving.

Litigation NQ offers are virtually non-existent, and teams which traditionally hire more/have a higher churn rate (e.g. finance) are also seeing a big activity slowdown. Generally speaking, transactional work as at its lowest in years and the small amount of firms which are currently hiring laterally will tend to seek +2PQE associates.

“large NQ pay rises”

🤡🤡🤡

Offsetting the recent large NQ pay rises by hiring fewer of them – it’s a simple game.

Praying for ya son, keep grinding.

Anything to keep earning bread my G. Nothing shameful about a paralegal role for that matter at all – you keep yourself in the game, keep learning relevant skills and keep working in a legal environment.

The only issue I find with this is that for whatever reason (unclear to me tbh) there’s some strange inertia/lack of flexibility in the legal profession where they’d rather hire some goon freshly out of their LLB or LPC to do a paralegal gig rather than a new NQ who just happened to fall on hard market times and circumstances entirely out of their control.

I hope people here reading this can correct me, but I haven’t encountered many instances when one can “ladder down” to a role that’s below where they currently sit in the legal pyramid. Like, there’s definitely qualified lawyers out there who got the boot/laid off/made redundant and who’d totally take a paralegal gig even with a massive pay cut, so long as they can keep earning an income and firms will just not care about them one bit.

Dunno, maybe I’m wrong here.

I would not recommend taking a role as a paralegal as this would be a step back. If anything it’s better to take any NQ role at a well regarded law firm (or in-house practice) and then make a lateral move into a practice area or firm you’re actually interested in. It won’t be easy and you’ll have lots of recruiters and lawyers tell you you can’t do it but you can because I am evidence of that as I switched at 1 PQE. Just make sure you are keeping up to date with legal updates in your preferred practice area and when it comes to interviewing have a good explanation as to why you want to switch.

You’re not wrong – you definitely have to take what they say with a pinch of salt. They’re a necessary evil though.

Take a role as a paralegal in your chosen practice area (or close to it) and keep applying for NQ roles. Better to explain that circumstances beyond your control meant you couldn’t find an NQ role but that you were so keen to stay within a particular practice area and keep up with the goings on, gain experience etc than to say you didn’t work at all. For me, it’s a pride thing and I’ve struggled to get my ahead around that being the best option. How have we all worked for so long and now we’re being forced to take pay cuts, work as paralegals etc etc.

Best of luck to you, I really hope you find something.

Yeah no shiz son, recruiters are two bit spivs who only talk up their “book of business”, often incompetently.

Is it better to be unemployed and wait for a role, or take a step back to a paralegal role?