Deloitte says law firms need to change recruitment policies to meet challenges of changing legal landscape
With the ongoing transformation of the legal services sector, law firms need to review the skills required of their employees if they are to succeed. They also need to be more open to taking on “non-traditional and transient employees”.
These are among the key recommendations by Deloitte in a new report, Developing Legal Talent, Stepping into the Future Law Firm. The report says, “We believe that the most successful law firms will be those that are agile enough to flex resources in order to meet client needs at an efficient price. They will need access to lawyers who have a broader skill set and are not just technically competent lawyers.”
The report identifies three “talent pools” to form the structure of front-office employees within the future law firm. These comprise:
Partners and leaders; Traditional, permanent staff (primarily fee-earning lawyers); and Non-traditional and transient employees. In this last group will be project managers, sales executives, dealmakers, and data and technology experts.
The report concludes by identifying a number of key trends:
- there will be fewer traditional lawyers in law firms
- there will be a new mix of skills among the elite lawyers
- there will be greater flexibility and mobility with continued expansion internationally
- there will be a greater range of career paths within law firms
- there will be a greater willingness among law firms to recruit people from other industries.
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