[BretWeir]

I'm not a legal recruiter, but I am a lawyer with big firm experience, and have worked with them.

Basically what eviljeff said -- there are two types of recruiters: recruiting coordinators at big firms and outside agencies.

In-house recruiters are essentially support staff. They field contacts and help arrange interviews for attorneys looking to make a move to the firm, and also coordinate the firm's law student recruiting program. It's not really a salesmanship position, and the substantive interviews themselves are done by lawyers and not recruiters. There's more logistics than anything else: making travel arrangements, setting up interview schedules, coordinating everything with the hiring partner, etc. My understanding is that most resumes get passed on to the hiring partner or hiring committee, who makes the initial decision of whether to interview a candidate. In-house recruiting offices also sometimes arrange social, wine-and-dine-type events for summer associates, which could be fun. Most of these positions are salaried, with no commission.

Outside legal headhunters are a completely different animal. These are firms who are hired to help fill positions (usually for mid-level or more experienced attorneys) at different firms, or by lawyers looking to make a move to find suitable positions. There's a lot of cold-calling of third- and fourth-year big firm associates to see who's getting burned out and looknig to move. This kind of position probably requires much more familiarity with the larger legal market, since there's quite a bit of matchying individual resumes to particular openings. Firms typically pay a bounty to headhunters who fill particular positions -- something along the lines of $10-20k, from what I've been told. I imagine compensation is much more commission-based, and that top headhunters could do quite well financially.

One thing I should mention: the majority of outside recruiters I've dealt with have been former lawyers. Many spent a year or two at a mid-size or large firm, and decided the law wasn't for them, so went into recruiting for the better hours. It might be harder for someone without a law degree or attorney experience to break into the field, though your resume sounds pretty impressive and well-suited for it from what you've said.