The end of 2015 saw continued growth in corporate and M&A recruitment but property law roles started to dry up, according to the Elias Legal Jobs Index for Q2 FY2016.
A change in Canberra bringing confidence?
Over Q2 FY2016m the total number of legal vacancies in the Sydney and Melbourne markets dropped from 229 to 183, which reflects the usual dip in hiring activity over the Christmas/New Year break.
That said, corporate/M&A vacancies saw an uptick of 2% to a total of 41.
To me, this shows a feeling of confidence in the Sydney and Melbourne corporate sectors, which could partly be explained by the change of leadership in Canberra.
Buzz in Sydney, but not for property roles
Around half of the corporate and commercial law roles this quarter were advertised in Sydney, which suggests Sydney firms are ramping up their hiring activity to prepare for deals in 2016.
Family law vacancies also slightly increased over the quarter, but openings for property roles saw a dramatic 10% dip to just 10 vacancies.
This is likely due to the slowdown in the domestic properly market – a result of China’s poor economic outlook.
Vacancies in banking and finance also dropped 3% from 31 to 27 openings.
And, if you were looking for a role in the tech/media field, this probably wasn’t the quarter to be job hunting – we saw a drop from 15 openings in Q1 to just 1 in Q2.
The full picture
See the table below for a complete breakdown of where each vacancy was across both Q1 and Q2 FY2016:
| Area | Q2 FY2016 | Q1 FY2016 | % of total: Q2 2015 | % of total: Q1 2015 |
| Corporate/M&A | 41 | 38 | 18.6 | 16.6 |
| Property | 10 | 34 | 4 | 14.8 |
| Banking/Finance | 27 | 31 | 10.4 | 13.5 |
| Litigation/Disputes | 31 | 30 | 14 | 13.1 |
| Insurance | 19 | 20 | 8.6 | 8.7 |
| Commercial | 14 | 17 | 6 | 7.4 |
| Tech/Media | 1 | 15 | 0.4 | 6.6 |
| Personal injury | 5 | 9 | 2.2 | 3.9 |
| Tax | 8 | 8 | 3.6 | 3.6 |
| Employment | 5 | 7 | 2.2 | 3.1 |
| Regulatory | 5 | 7 | 2.2 | 3.1 |
| Insolvency | 0 | 6 | – | 2.6 |
| Energy | 2 | 5 | 0.9 | 2.2 |
| Family | 4 | 2 | 1.8 | 0.9 |
| Construction | 6 | – | 2.7 | – |
| IP/IT | 5 | – | 2.2 | – |
| TOTAL | 220 | 229 |
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Jason Elias runs Elias Recruitment, a boutique legal recruitment consultancy specialising in finding lawyers for law firms, NFPs and corporate in house teams. Jason is also co-founder of Bulletpoints.com.au – a one-stop shop that simplifies CPD for lawyers. Get in touch at [email protected]
Source: Blog Posts
