Injury Attorney R Us

The majority of second year trainee solicitors will be qualifying as solicitors at the end of the summer and hoping to continue their careers as a newly qualified solicitor. However, the results for many may not be so good.

Because of the economic crisis, the retention rates have been dropping as law firms have been tightening their belts. This will mean that many law firms will not be able to keep certain individuals in a job after their training contracts even if they wanted to.

This will cause a flood of newly qualified and jobless people into the job market. Given the situation, most law firms will not take all of their trainee solicitors on or any newly qualified solicitors from other firms.

For some, the situation will be bleak. Unable to secure a job at the firms that trained them and then unable to beat the competition for the limited number of newly qualified solicitor jobs that are being advertised.

There are few options open to you if this happens to you. Firstly, you should try to build relationships with the key recruitment agencies in your area so that they think of you when the next newly qualified solicitors jobs come up.

Always stay up to date with the new vacancies that come up in the legal press and on legal jobs websites is what you are advised to do. Spending time working on getting your applications looking as best they can is worthwhile. You have to make sure that you do not recycle the applications you used for your training contract, and also you can search the internet for some tips on how to draft a good CV and covering letter.

If you do not succeed in getting a job at first you could consider getting a job as a paralegal so at least you continue to get legal work experience. This may well be something that prospective employers will see as a positive.

You can take a break if you do not feel you want to work as a paralegal, or you can take a gap year and comeback in the market after a few months or a year when it may have picked up a bit.