Key skills and trends in today’s legal sector

This year started off as a very uncertain one for law firms and businesses alike due to changing conditions in the city, such as the introduction of GDPR, and the uncertainty surrounding the UK’s exit from the EU. Perhaps in response to the latter, we have seen firms focus much more heavily on increasing and strengthening their global presences and the collaborative relationship between offices. We have also seen a recognisable cultural shift with businesses focusing much more on a relaxed culture and more flexible working.

Cross-border collaboration

• The race to expand globally continues with firms looking to expand their presence in key markets. Predominantly the Middle East, South East Asia and Ireland. Examples: Pinsent Masons in Saudi Arabia, Simmons & Simmons expanding in Dublin. Also, Simpson Thatcher, and Shearman & Sterling opening offices in Seoul.
• Teams are also becoming much more cross-jurisdictional and collaborative with firms often keen to hire candidates with specific cross-qualification in order to help bridge the gap between offices.
   

Multilingual law

• A knock on effect of this has been the increased demand for candidates that have additional language skills.
• Alongside bringing in candidates with languages such as Mandarin, Korean and Arabic, we have also seen a demand for more European languages than we have in the past.
• With the uncertainty of Brexit, firms are keen to strengthen the bonds with their European offices and ensure that they can continue to offer global solutions to clients.
   

Cultural shifts

• The needs of the workforce are evolving and we are seeing firms make fundamental changes in order to keep up with this.
• Whilst, the hours’ culture of some firms are always going to remain high, we are seeing firms make cultural shifts to meet the demands of a modern workforce.
• Flexible working – firms are beginning to recognise that there is no benefit to being inflexible. We are seeing an increase in the number of firms offering flexible working and working from home at short notice.
• Downtime – a lot of firms have introduced areas for associates and paralegals to enjoy some downtime. Table tennis tables, table football and relocation areas are all now becoming much more commonplace.
• Performance-based bonuses – Whilst billable hours will always have a bearing on the bonus that an associate can earn, there is now much greater emphasis placed on measuring performance through other means; such as BD success.