Busy Firms, Bigger In-House Teams?
Sustained growth at the big firms is a sign in-house teams are stretched, and stretched teams eventually get bigger.
In-House Legal Job Market Update Video – May 2025
Transcript:
Hi this is Andrew Murdoch from Dovetail Legal Solutions with a May 2025 in-house legal job market update. I have six main takeaways.
The first takeaway is that this has been the busiest start to a year that I’ve seen in 15 years of doing in-house legal recruitment, and that’s across all sectors and locations.
The second takeaway is that the stream of private practice lawyers moving to in house that we typically see at the mid-to-junior level has dried up to a trickle. That means there are very few lawyers, in the under five category. If you’re a lawyer at this stage in private practice, now would be a really good time to look to move in-house.
The third takeaway is that the in-house legal job market has become city centric. Lawyers are seldom moving interstate or into city. That means when looking to recruit the pool of lawyers accessible to those roles are those that are already living in that city.
The fourth takeaway is that we have seen salaries over the past year, increase by about 5% across all levels. So if you’re on $200,000 including super, you’re now looking at $210,000 including super.
The fifth takeaway is that working from home is here to stay. Despite articles saying otherwise, we’re finding that three in the office and two from home is now the typical workweek.
The sixth takeaway is that July is the quietest month of the year for us. It’s the end of the financial year its school holidays, and people are waiting for their bonuses to be paid out before they move, and budgets are reset. We typically find it picks up from, early to mid-August, and then from that time right the way through to Christmas Eve is the busiest time of the year for us.
That’s it from Dovetail, but if you’re thinking about changing jobs or looking for a member for your team, please give us a call and see how we can help. Thanks.
