Making the move from private practice to an in-house legal role, particularly in the financial services sector, requires tailored preparation. The expectations for in-house roles often emphasise commercial acumen, succinct communication, and adaptability. In-house roles often involve more varied responsibilities, closer collaboration with non-legal colleagues, and a focus on legal risk management within a business context. In-house interviews often test your ability to combine legal expertise with practical, business focused solutions. Expect competency based questions, scenario discussions, and an evaluation of your commercial awareness.
Below, we have provided some practice questions specifically for lawyers transitioning into these positions. Preparation Is Key.
Motivations
Understanding
Experience
Key Points
If you are considering a move in-house, it is important to be prepared for the unique challenges and opportunities that come with the new role. Practice answering key interview questions, tailor your CV for the financial services world, and explore current openings that align with your skills.
For further, more generic interview advice and practice questions please contact us via our website. For further insights on career development and tips for lawyers, visit the LawSociety’s career advice page.
Explore current in-house legal vacancies at Fry & Brown or contact us for more detailed advice on making your next move – we’d love to hear from you!
Jan 2025
As a lawyer looking to move jobs, making yourself visible to legal recruiters is essential in this new competitive market. But maintaining your professionalism and confidentiality can feel like walking a tightrope. You want to position yourself for new opportunities, but the demands of your role and the industry means you must tread carefully. Whether you are a Junior Legal Counsel, General Counsel, or somewhere in between, you can make LinkedIn work for you without broadcasting your job search to colleagues, clients, or competitors.
1. Optimise Your LinkedIn Profile for Discovery
Even if you are not actively job hunting, your LinkedIn profile is a powerful tool to demonstrate your expertise. A well-crafted profile doesn’t raise red flags: instead, it positions you as a thought leader in your sector.
Headline & Summary: Use a headline that reflects your expertise, e.g., “Experienced Financial Services Lawyer | Banking, Funds & Capital Markets”. In your summary, focus on your achievements and areas of specialism without indicating you are seeking new roles.
Skills & Endorsements: Add relevant skills like Corporate Law, Regulatory Compliance, or Financial Services Law. Obvious phrases that are searchable by recruiters.
Privacy Settings: Adjust your settings to Private Mode when viewing other profiles and disable notifications about updates to your profile.
2. Engage Without Overexposing Yourself
Lawyers often lack time for regular LinkedIn activity, but engagement doesn’t have to be time-intensive. A few strategic actions can keep you on recruiters’ radars:
Like & Share: Interact with industry-specific articles and updates. For example, posts from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or industry thought leaders can reflect your professional interests.
Post Thoughtfully: Share insights into legal trends, regulatory updates, or noteworthy industry developments.
Follow Relevant Pages: Following pages like ours, other recruitment sites, or professional financial organisations and bodies subtly signals your interest in the financial services sector.
3. Use Recruiter-Specific Features
LinkedIn has tools designed for job seekers, many of which are discreet:
Open to Work: Activate the “Open to Work” setting but choose the option to make it visible only to recruiters.
Keywords in Your Profile: Ensure your profile includes terms recruiters search for, such as insurance law, funds regulation, or employment law.
4. Build a Professional Personal Brand
A personal brand tailored to your legal expertise adds credibility and positions you as a go-to expert.
Content Curation: Share and comment on UK-based legal publications. For example, the Law Society Gazette or articles from the Financial Times Legal section often provide share-worthy insights.
Highlight Achievements: Without breaching confidentiality, mention successful outcomes like: Advised on a £500m cross-border merger, ensuring regulatory compliance across jurisdictions.
5. Maintain Confidentiality and Professionalism
Discretion is key: Avoid publicly announcing career goals or frustrations. Keep interactions professional, and if approached by a recruiter, move the conversation off-platform for detailed discussions.
Keep your profile up to date: Interaction of any kind will keep you on top of the lists. But a profile that is obviously out of date will be skipped over.
Next Steps
At Fry & Brown, we specialise in connecting lawyers like you with opportunities across financial services, whether it’s at a bank, insurance company, or asset manager. With over 20 years of experience, we understand the need for discretion and professionalism.
If you are ready to explore new opportunities or simply want advice on positioning yourself effectively, get in touch with us today.
Contact us here or visit our LinkedIn page.
Building a presence on LinkedIn doesn’t mean compromising your confidentiality. With a few strategic adjustments, you can become visible to the right recruiters without announcing your intentions.
Ready to take the next step in your career? Let Fry & Brown guide you.
Jan 2025
In an increasingly competitive and technology-led job market, the value of using a recruitment agency is often overlooked. However, for legal professionals in the financial services sector, working with a recruiter can significantly streamline the process and consequently your career path. Whether you’re a lawyer seeking a new opportunity or an employer in financial services looking to fill a key legal role, partnering with a specialist recruitment firm, like Fry & Brown, can make a world of difference.
Expertise in Financial Services
One of the key reasons to work with a recruiter is their deep understanding of the niche market they serve. At Fry & Brown, we specialise in placing UK and common law qualified lawyers in financial services organisations such as banks, insurance companies, asset managers, fintechs and other boutique-regulated companies. We don’t work across multiple industries but are deeply focused on one – financial services. This allows us to truly understand the intricacies of the roles, the skills required, and the unique demands that financial institutions place on legal professionals.
Financial services firms have complex regulatory and legal needs and using a recruitment firm specialising in this sector ensures you won’t waste time if you have the necessary expertise or fit. Help understanding where your skills best align in a rapidly evolving sector allows you to make better-informed decisions.
Access to Hidden Opportunities
Some of the best jobs in financial services may not be advertised on job boards or company websites. They’re often filled by introductions or existing relationships before needing to go to the wider market. Sometimes there is no job at all until an opportunity is created or adapted for a great candidate. And some employers don’t want their vacancies advertised due to confidentiality, sensitivity or the senior nature of the role. A recruiter can help tap into this hidden pool of opportunities and make introductions through extensive networks. Rather than relying on job postings, a recruitment agency with a solid network can introduce you to roles that may not be publicly advertised.
Time-Saving Efficiency
Working with a recruiter means quicker access to roles specifically tailored to your expertise and career aspirations instead of spending hours browsing through job listings.
The recruitment process can be overwhelming but by working with a recruiter you ensure that your time is spent only on relevant opportunities. Before you start you can understand both the state of the market and your market value, with the recruiter then ready to help guide you through the complexities of the hiring process.
Market Insight
Gaining valuable insight into the job market is one of the main advantages of using a recruitment agency. A recruiter will provide you with up-to-date information on salary expectations, trends in the legal market, and the evolving demands of the financial services industry. This knowledge is crucial for candidates who want to understand how their skills and experience match up to the current market.
Application Feedback
The biggest frustration we hear from our candidates is the lack of feedback they receive following making an application for an in-house role, especially when applying through LinkedIn. It is often described as a blackhole and sometimes you don’t even know if your application has been looked at or received. Although it can be difficult for lawyers to chase for feedback, recruiters will often have direct lines for HR and hiring managers and will not jeopardise anything by being persistent.
Applying through a recruiter means there is someone accountable for providing feedback, and whilst recruiters can also struggle to get this information from clients, finding a specialist legal recruiter who has deep relationships with fewer clients makes getting constructive and quality feedback much more likely. At Fry & Brown, we endeavour to get detailed feedback following every interview and give insights as to why for those who aren’t selected for interview. We will be honest in providing both positive and negative feedback giving you the opportunity to improve, something you won’t always get from a direct interview.
Recruiters provide most of the value during the interview process, we will usually know the people who will be interviewing you and the wider legal team members. We know the hiring process and what our clients are looking for as well as who else is in the running. You can use your recruiter for interview practice, to learn about the format of the interview and to advise on the best way to sell yourself.
Salary Negotiation
Recruiters also provide guidance on the package negotiation process, ensuring that candidates secure fair compensation and that employers offer attractive packages to top talent. Help navigating salary negotiations can be particularly useful if an offer comes in low, or if one part of the package is particularly important to you at the expense of another. Conversations around compensation can be awkward; no one wants to go back and forth too many times and you don’t want to jeopardise an offer for a job that you really want. Using a recruiter as the middleman means you can push for the best package available without the risk of altering the client’s opinion of you.
Using a legal recruiter enables applicants to ask uncomfortable questions that they may not want to ask an employer directly. This may be around the personalities in the team, reasons for people leaving, culture, promotion and career prospects, maternity leave and any rumours they may have heard. You will get your questions answered by the employer and an honest insight from the recruiter based on previous placements and institutional knowledge.
Long-Term Relationships
A good legal recruiter doesn’t just fill vacancies, they work to build a long-term relationship with clients and candidates. At Fry & Brown, we focus on understanding your long-term goals as a lawyer seeking to take the next step in your career. This relationship means you have an expert on hand to offer advice whenever you need it. It is also more likely that you might get a call out of the blue about that perfect opportunity if they know and remember you.
Bringing it all Together
Ultimately, using a recruiter is about gaining market knowledge, saving time, accessing opportunities and then acing the process. For both clients and candidates, working with a recruitment agency that specialises in financial services law ensures the placements are more likely to last and the candidate will thrive in the unique financial services environment.
Whether you’re looking to grow your team or take the next step in your professional journey, a recruitment agency can provide the insight and connections needed for success. If you’re eager to advance your career and are seeking support along the way, we invite you to reach out to us. Don’t hesitate to get in touch – we’d love to hear from you!
Dec 2024
Last month, we hosted an engaging panel discussion at The Lawyer Events General Counsel Strategy Summit.
The subject in question was ‘how to make your team more commercially minded’.
Thank you to our insightful panel members Ailsa Longmuir, Luis Martin and Gavin Walles.
1. To speed up the adjustment from private practice to in-house, legal leaders should be investing time and support in new employees to help individuals take risks, develop business acumen and become part of the team. Give them time and the opportunity to observe.
2. In-house lawyers should aim to be viewed as business people rather than just legal professionals, and this can be achieved by aligning language to the business, being proactive, and having lawyers run broader projects and sitting with the business.
3. Creating a B2B relationship between the legal team and the business involves understanding the business’s needs, communicating the skills of the legal team and collaborating effectively early on in the process, to avoid any confrontation later. Lawyers should not tell the business what they know but what they need to know.
4. Use feedback and the quality of business relationships to measure the legal team’s commerciality.
5. In interviews, determining if someone is commercial involves assessing their curiosity, flexibility, risk appetite, ability to navigate difficult situations and approach to decision-making. You could include case studies and get someone from the business to sit in on interviews.
6. Hiring individuals with the right motivations and attitudes from diverse backgrounds, who have a willingness to learn and develop, is crucial for successful transitions from private practice to in-house roles.
Is there anything you would add to this list?
Jun 2024
I don’t know if anyone listens to Radio 2 on a Saturday morning with Claudia Winkleman… most Saturdays I am sat in the car waiting for the kids to finish some sport or music club and regularly hear her little wins feature, where a celebrity goes up against a member of the public to compare little wins and the listeners call in to vote.
In recruitment, especially permanent recruitment, there are huge highs and lows. A candidate accepting your offer can put you in a good mood for a week, whereas an offer turned down (or worse still a candidate who pulls out after accepting) can destroy you, even if you’re expecting it. And it doesn’t get any easier just because we we’ve been doing this for 25 years!
Luckily for us at Fry & Brown, lawyers tend to be pretty reliable – they do their research, are honest and stick to their decisions. This together with our thoroughly communicative process means we don’t experience too many real lows. But another way of combatting the downs is to celebrate the little wins which is something that Jane and I regularly practice and share.
Little wins are small, everyday achievements that could go unnoticed, but when noticed can make you smile and keep you going. Some examples for us are –
Little wins act as stepping stones during challenging times and focussing on them, and letting the bigger stuff take care of itself, means we can stay level-headed and not let the highs and lows affect our performance. This enables us to remain consistent. That is not to say that we don’t get incredibly excited when we land someone their perfect role!
Jane and I enjoy the little wins along the way, and hopefully this shows and makes a difference to the candidate and client experience. We’re pleased to spend the time chatting to you and getting to know what is important to you as well as your pain points. We love advising and being consultative, we love building relationships and getting your feedback.
Focusing solely on major achievements can be overwhelming and demotivating in recruitment. Celebrating little wins provides a balance between our ambitious aspirations and realistic progress, making the journey to success more enjoyable whilst providing a stress free and personable experience for our industry network.
What will give you a smile at work today?
Nov 2023
The success of any in-house legal department depends on its ability to attract and retain top talent. One crucial aspect of this process is writing well-defined job specifications for the positions you seek to fill, and we are regularly surprised by how empty a job spec can be, or worse, how full of words they are when they don’t seem to say anything at all. Often they are re-hashed from old job specs or are obviously company wide templates that are hardly altered and could be describing any position at the organisation. And this is assuming we even receive a job spec! Sometimes we are asked to use a previous job spec, or to just given information verbally.
But a good job description is essential. It creates a good first impression by showing you are serious about hiring and you have put thought into what you are looking for. By clearly outlining the expectations, responsibilities, and qualifications required, the applicant can imagine themselves working for your company. It will save you time by weeding out those who don’t fit the bill, but more importantly by injecting some culture, personality and even fun into the job spec you can stand out from your competitors and attract someone who otherwise might not apply. And let’s admit it – the best candidates are fussy about which roles they apply for.
The success of any in-house legal department depends on its ability to attract and retain top talent. One crucial aspect of this process is writing well-defined job specifications for the positions you seek to fill, and we are regularly surprised by how empty a job spec can be, or worse, how full of words they are when they don’t seem to say anything at all. Often they are re-hashed from old job specs or are obviously company wide templates that are hardly altered and could be describing any position at the organisation. And this is assuming we even receive a job spec! Sometimes we are asked to use a previous job spec, or to just given information verbally.
But a good job description is essential. It creates a good first impression by showing you are serious about hiring and you have put thought into what you are looking for. By clearly outlining the expectations, responsibilities, and qualifications required, the applicant can imagine themselves working for your company. It will save you time by weeding out those who don’t fit the bill, but more importantly by injecting some culture, personality and even fun into the job spec you can stand out from your competitors and attract someone who otherwise might not apply. And let’s admit it – the best candidates are fussy about which roles they apply for.
A good job spec is an important element of a seamless hiring process enabling you to find the right candidate who will contribute to your team’s success. So what should you include?
It is really important to get this right. The title is going to be on the job holder’s signature, business card, CV and their LinkedIn profile. It will be visible internally and externally and whilst many people aren’t precious about title per se, most will want it to show a step up from their current position and a step towards their future ambition. It needs to be accurate for the responsibilities and reflect the right seniority level, both inside the organisation and externally. Think about making the title attractive to the level of candidate you are wanting to hire rather than one that will feel like a sideways move.
You might not want to disclose a full organisational chart but some information about the size and international coverage of the organisation as well as the size of the legal department will save applicants needing to research before they even consider the role. You should include who the role reports into, either by name or title and any reports the post holder will manage. It is also useful to outline any stakeholders and back office teams that the employee will collaborate with regularly. Information on the structure helps candidates understand their place within the organisational hierarchy and promotes transparency.
A brief summary should highlight the purpose of the role and it’s significance within the legal department. This will allow candidates to quickly assess whether they have the right experience and whether there is any interest. Busy lawyers don’t have the time to read through heaps of job specs so you need to get to the crux of the position within the first few lines to entice them to continue reading and apply.
Clearly outline the core responsibilities associated with the role. Break them down into specific tasks and functions, allowing potential applicants to understand the full scope of the position. Order them according to weighting but also think about putting some of the most exciting aspects of the role first, leaving the BAU elements towards the bottom of the list. Be specific and realistic, avoiding generic statements that could apply to multiple roles. We read many a job description where you can get to the bottom and still not know what the role entails. Be careful not to list what you are looking for at this point and think more about what is important to the candidate than what is important to you. Use short bullet points.
This is your opportunity to outline what is important to you. Don’t just think about what you are looking for, consider who is likely to apply. We all know that regardless of what you put here, you are likely to get far more unsuitable than suitable candidates apply. So be specific about essential requirements – such as “Must be a qualified Solicitor in England and Wales or other common law jurisdiction”.
But on the reverse side of this, be careful not to include any language that dissuades good candidates from applying. Assuming you’re looking for a diverse shortlist you don’t want to write anything that might create any bias or exclude any demographic group such as mothers returning to work for example. There are online apps that can help you check that your job spec for any kind of unconscious bias.
If you are aware that this is a difficult role to fill think about how you can be flexible. We suggest listing the ideal skills you are looking for but also the alternative skills you will consider. If you include post qualification levels make sure this is a guide only, you wouldn’t want to exclude more junior, over-achievers.
Personal Attributes and Soft Skills: Beyond technical qualifications, listing the personal skills that would contribute to the candidate’s success in the role not only helps attract the right fit, but gives the applicant an insight into the culture in the team. It can also help give colour to roles with specific stakeholder responsibilities or those that are sat with the business.
While it is common to save detailed compensation discussions for later stages of the hiring process, consider providing some details on the benefits. Salary bandings can exclude candidates that you might be prepared to pay more for. You may also find that applicants always expect the maximum available, especially in this market. Instead, highlight the benefits offered – especially if they are good. This information will help candidates compare packages and stops difficult negotiations at offer stage.
Crafting effective job specifications for your legal team is a crucial step in attracting and selecting the right candidates. By providing clear expectations, responsibilities, and qualifications, you enhance the hiring process and increase the likelihood of finding top-notch professionals who will contribute to your team’s success. Remember, job specifications should be accurate, concise, and reflective of the specific needs and goals of your legal department or law firm.
For more help with getting your job spec right contact us on team@fryandbrown.com
Are you a lawyer, paralegal or other legal professional wondering if you’re earning a fair wage? Or perhaps you’re considering the possibility of a change in jobs and want to ensure you’re offered an appropriate salary. Benchmarking your legal salary is a great way to gauge your worth in the legal market. This blog will provide an overview of the benchmarking process and tips on researching and evaluating the market and negotiating a salary that reflects your experience, value, and contributions.
Benchmarking your legal compensation is the process of researching and comparing salaries offered for similar positions to better understand the salary range in your market. There are several steps for benchmarking a salary, from exploring the market, evaluating your contributions, and negotiating. In addition to the basic skills and qualifications you bring to an employer, understanding your value in the market is critical to creating a reasonable salary structure.
The first step in benchmarking your salary is to research the relevant legal market. Knowing what professionals in similar positions in your geographical area are typically paid is key to helping you gauge your own worth.
The best place to start is to review public sources of salary surveys. Look for websites that provide reliable salary reports and data from online sources, such as PayScale, Glassdoor, and SalaryExpert. You can also look to industry publications like journal articles and professional magazines, as well as trade organisations like NALP which offer breakdowns of what lawyers make in various practice areas and geographical locations.
Additionally, it’s essential to consider the local employment market. Take into account economic factors such as the health of the legal industry in your area and the cost of living. A local market can be better or worse than a national average, so it’s important to be aware of these differences.
After researching the legal market in your area, it’s important to assess your own value and contributions. To get a good idea of your worth, consider your experience, the type of legal work you do, and any specialisations and professional development courses you’ve taken. When looking at job responsibilities, think about your workload and any other tasks you have taken on that have contributed positively to your organisation. Another way to gauge your worth is to look at client feedback, awards and other accolades you’ve received.
Now that you have an idea of what a reasonable salary should be, you can prepare for negotiations. It’s important to determine your bottom line when discussing compensation and have a good understanding of the employer’s budget. Make sure to practice your pitch in order to explain your value in the legal market and how it would benefit the organisation. It can be helpful to identify sources of leverage, such as outside offers and compare this to the employer’s current offering.
Be prepared for counteroffers from the employer, and use your benchmarking research to inform your decision. Accessing reliable sources to back up your negotiation is necessary for securing a fair salary.
Benchmarking your legal salary is a great way to gauge your worth compared to other legal professionals in the market. Being proactive in understanding your value and gaining the knowledge necessary to negotiate your salary is vital to ensuring you are paid fairly.
Apr 2023
A recent conversation with an excellent lawyer who is “open to work” this week led us to fully debate the pros and cons of taking a contract position when you’d really prefer a permanent job. I thought it worth sharing some points to consider.
Contract positions come up for different reasons – maternity covers, waiting for permanent hires to start, project work, sabbatical cover, budget restrictions and head count freezes.
Although mostly an option for immediately available lawyers, some permanent employees are also considering contracts and employers will sometimes wait for the 1 or 3 months’ notice. Whilst a maternity cover isn’t likely to wait, if employers plan well ahead, or can delay the start of the project, these roles can be open to permanent employees too.
In previous times some saw contracting as second rate, but thanks to the likes of Axiom, Peerpoint Simmons Adaptive etc., contracting or consulting is now an alternative career and can offer quality legal skills to employers.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Our Advice
To discuss your options please contact Tracy or Jane for a confidential discussion.
Feb 2023
The world around us has changed dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic. With many of us now working from home and communicating virtually, it’s been a huge shift from the way we used to communicate. As Fry & Brown have moved forward, we as individuals have certainly had a feeling that something has been missing. When the rest of the household goes back to school or work after Christmas there is certainly a very empty feeling in my home office.
Jane and I both have a strong preference for home working. Being able to be home for the children and avoiding the long commute (both living outside London) is a large part of the reason we set up our business. But despite embracing technology and consistently arranging meetings, we still haven’t quite been able to put our finger on what it is that is missing, and how mentally tough it can be.
We’ve been able to come up with a few little tips worth sharing that helped us during 2022:
The way we communicate will continue to evolve and it’s up to us to embrace the changes and make the most of it.
#communication #VirtualNetworking #AdaptToChange #legalnetworking #legalrecruitment
Jan 2023
The Legal Business Awards on 27th September at the Grosvenor House Hotel was one of the first black tie events in the legal industry for quite sometime and you could tell… Most of our clients jumped at the chance to attend, arrived early and were on great form, and we were very excited to be hosting a table.
We chose to sponsor the “Insurance Team of the Year”. Recruitment into the insurance industry forms a large part of what we cover and we have some great insurance clients regularly hiring, from Lloyds insurers looking for specialist experience, insuretech and start-ups looking for their first lawyers, through to the largest global insurers hiring corporate, commercial and regulatory insurance lawyers. With so much regulatory change affecting the industry recently, especially in the sustainability and ESG space, there has been a big uptick in the amount of opportunities for talented lawyers looking to move from private practice to in-house.
The winners EVERSHEDS SUTHERLAND were presented with the award by LOUISE MINCHIN and our own Director, Tracy Brown and it was great for our table to share a drink with the winning team following the 3 course dinner and wine. The band played, the after party started and the event went on into the early hours.
Congratulations to all the evening’s winners and you can see more pictures on our LinkedIn company page here – https://www.linkedin.com/company/fry-brown/ .
