As specialists in business services in the legal sector, we know roles across management functions in law are on the rise. We have also seen new roles emerge too – in project and process management, innovation, change, risk & compliance, and more. With these roles, new talent and skills are constantly coming into law, which are not only changing the legal business model, but the mind-set too. We regularly share our insights collected from our daily work with law firm clients and candidates. But we realised we could take this a step further, collating data on the business services roles advertised in the legal sector since 2016 and using that to track trends across different business services disciplines. We also hoped to provide a report that could act as a benchmark for your own recruitment efforts, helping provide clarity on the areas of increasing recruitment activity – as well as specific trends in different roles and regions.

Research highlights

This work has been enlightening for us too, despite working in this field every day. For example, it is no surprise to us that the marketing function remains hugely busy from a recruitment perspective, with BD roles, in particular, up by 15% in the first half of this year’. Nor is it news to us that finance is a particularly stable function, taking an ever-more strategic role in today's legal business. But that operational and change, and risk & compliance roles are set to have increased by 144% and 204% respectively from 2016 to the end of this year, provides compelling proof that the legal sector recognises that investing in business talent drives business sustainability and growth. In addition, and as the data in this report shows, business services roles in law are growing faster than others: they now account for over 15% of law firm vacancies, up from 13% at the beginning of 2016. This is a phenomenal shift from the days when business services functions were run by just one person – often a willing law firm partner dabbling in a bit of management on the side. How things change. If you would would like to receive a full copy of the PDF, including all the data collected, plus analysis, please contact Martyn.Draper@TotumPartners.com