Law Staff has been established since 4 October 1987 and is instructed by a range of employers to assist their organisation in the appointment of all levels of roles, including but not limited to Partners, Employed Solicitors at all levels, Share Services, and Legal Support.
As you can well imagine, the nature of the roles we handle for the legal profession is diverse, complex, and extremely sensitive. From a risk management perspective, we go to great lengths throughout the process to ensure all positions are afforded the same high level of confidentiality. We also have a comprehensive approach to make certain that we are not wasting a candidate's time nor the prospective employer’s time. By seeking the appropriate level of detail in our briefing sessions, as well as throughout our interview process, we will ensure appropriate skill sets to job requirements as well as attitudes to cultural values. Our process typically follows this path:
Briefing
We take our initial instructions from the prospective employer and determine the mandatory -v- ideal skill set they are seeking for that role, the breakdown of the work including key areas where there may be an emphasis and have these expressed as percentages so that the weighting can be determined.
We also identify the Team structure outlining the Manager, 2IC, support solicitors, para professional and other business support staff in that section and look at where this new vacancy fits into the team and why.
Remuneration is also determined and guidance is given to the employer to ensure that they are meeting the market.
Market Representation
We only ever advertise real and current vacancies. We view any other representations to be misleading and this is not a practice that we support.
We try to put in as much detail as possible to give the reader sufficient information.
You will understand that we need to use some discretion here as the prospective employer is seeking to have us streamline the process and filter misaligned applications and promote the role to ideally suited candidates.
Taking Your Application
We take initial applications by telephone or via e-mail for these specific roles.
Sometimes we will receive applications from candidates who are not necessarily responding to any advertised vacancy, but where he/she has an interest in seeing what the market may have to offer. We will still take these registrations, typically where the roles sought are positions for which we have a history of receiving regular instructions.
Our preferred process is to arrange a meeting with you face to face if you are living in or visiting Brisbane. Alternatively, we can conduct a detailed interview by telephone. We do not find communicating simply via e-mail as an effective means of an interview.
At our meeting with you, we will determine your skill set, your strengths as communicated to you through your annual employer performance appraisals (or your self assessment where you have not experienced a formal performance review previously), and what management style you relate best to, together with the level of mentoring and supervision you require. If it’s a leadership role, then we discuss the size of the team and resourcing you favour.
In addition, we conduct a portion of preference based questions to ensure that we are identifying your drivers. In this manner we hope to meet your realistically achievable objectives. To this end, we discuss your ideals, from your preferred position, to the size and style of your preferred employer, as well as requisite remuneration. We will of course provide feedback on whether the market is able to meet your expectations.
Once we have determined your compatibility to the expectations of the role, we then fully disclose the organisation that we are representing, outline the position in detail, identify the team structure, the level of appointment and how this position will fit into the team, the remuneration parameters, as well as any other information we feel you would benefit from knowing such as the culture, staff relations policies, commitment to ongoing skills development of their employees, etc.
We will encourage you to consider positions that we feel are in keeping with your ideals, however you always maintain the right not to pursue any position for whatever reason.
It is crucial that you understand that we will never disclose your details to any prospective employer nor contact your referees without asking you and for which you have authorised us to proceed. You need to provide us with clear instructions in that regard otherwise we will not make contact with those people.
If you are uncertain whether you should move forward, we will encourage you to go away and research the organisation and consider the role further before deciding to proceed.
Progressing Your Application
For those prospective employers of interest to you, we compile our comprehensive report which supplements your original resume and supporting documents. This is put forward to the HR Manager or Staff Partner and that person of authority is taken into our confidence insofar as all communications are directed through Law Staff and no referees are contacted without your express permission.
We have an analytical dialogue with the prospective employer to discuss further your worthiness of interview and our recommendations support this.
We discreetly co-ordinate interviews and provide confirmation on who will participate on that meeting, together with the location and time.
We look to gain constructive post-interview feedback from both parties and endeavour to keep things moving along once you have convinced us that it is something that you would like to pursue.
We assist both parties in negotiating an appropriate remuneration package, and when requested we draft a detailed letter of offer or employment agreement.
All this is done without any fee to the candidate, and is on the basis of absolute and uncompromising confidentiality. We go to great lengths to ensure your current employment is not jeopardised in any way.
To this end, we will never leave messages for you via your work number or communicate with you via your work email.
If you are made an offer, then it is absolutely your decision as to whether you would like to accept. Remember, this is your career, not ours. We will provide you with as much information as we can to allow you to make an informed decision. If the answer is to decline the offer, then we are more than happy to advise the employer of your decision.
As you can see we take our role and responsibility very seriously. Now that you know a little more about us and the way we work, we do hope this engenders your confidence and establishes trust. We do have your specific interests in mind at all times.
We are highly optimistic that your experience with Law Staff will be a memorable one. All our staff are trained fully in handling these matters with the utmost discretion. Any feedback on your personal experience with us would be greatly received.