Can you tell me about working in legal recruitment?

[luckyjimm]

I'm looking to get into the field of legal recruitment, finding jobs for lawyers. I wonder if any of you could tell me about this industry?

I'd be coming into it fairly late - but I figure this isn't that unusual. I'm 29 and tried various things in my twenties. I took a BA, MA and half a PhD in English literature. I did quite a bit of temping, including the last year where I've been a PA in a couple of law firms, working for senior lawyers. I'm personable, articulate, confident, and of course count many more lawyers among my friends than I do secretaries. I'd like a job where I feel I'm working with people from similar backgrounds to my own, I'm rewarded if I work hard, and if I'm successful I can earn a lot more money. (By comparison, my current position is a dead-end). My recruitment agency asked if I'd like to work for them, but in interview told me they thought I'd be more suited in recruiting lawyers, whereas they only deal with secretaries. So I've found out who the big firms are, and am setting out to write them letters. The main weakness in my CV would be lack of sales experience, but other aspects such as high standard of education, time spent in law firms and with lawyers, research skills etc might mitigate that.

How much do you tend to specialise in recruiting one particular type of lawyer, e.g. tax, investment funds, pensions, leveraged finance? Or is it broader than that and you would recruit across all of corporate, or all of finance, etc? What level of legal knowledge is needed to be able to understand a candidate's CV and understand the demands of a job? If you're trying to talk a lawyer into taking a job I'm sure you need to know the jargon.

What's more important - understanding law, or understanding people?

Is the volume of appointments you'd be looking to make a lot lower than in legal secretarial recruitment? How much does this sort of job pay in the States (just out of interest, since I'll be in the UK) and how much do you have to do before you start earning commission?

Is it a rewarding career in which you can make a killing if you're halfway decent, or is it a very over-saturated market, hard to make a placement, you spend all day on the phone and the talked-of earnings potential is misleading?

Thanks in advance for your help!