A Career in Professional Support

PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE


Past:

 The role of the professional support lawyer was established over 10 years ago in order to utilise the skills of female fee earners looking for reduced hours due to family commitments. Primarily precedent based, the roles were usually part time and regarded more as an interim measure rather than a recognised career alternative.

Present:

 An amazing transformation has taken place over the last few years with most City and large regional firms developing a positive and proactive approach to professional support lawyers and the importance of their function within the firm.

 Support work is now a career in its own right and is proving extremely popular with lawyers making a positive decision to move away from fee earning yet remain within the legal world.

 It is no longer an exclusively female dominated profession and although it is certainly common to work flexible hours, many PSLs now work full time and are committed to a permanent career in the area.

Future:

 Partnership is no longer impossible for talented, high profile PSLs within certain progressive firms in the City and this should become more widespread as the role develops further over the years.

 Smaller City or regional firms will begin to look for experienced PSLs to set up firm-wide support functions.

 Opportunities are beginning to arise within the larger City firms for experienced PSLs to move laterally into specialist senior positions eg support strategy, information dissemination or IT projects.

 Some firms are now putting more emphasis on the business development aspect of their PSL roles, changing the stereotype of the “backroom” PSL.



COMMON QUESTIONS

The PSL Role – what does it involve?

Firms do not, as a matter of course, provide job specifications on each PSL vacancy as, to a certain extent, they are able to tailor the role to suit the candidate’s interests or experience. However, there are always certain key elements to any PSL role:

 Know how, precedents and standard forms: Drafting, managing and disseminating documents, setting up or dealing with on-line document systems.

 Research: Analysing new law and practice, researching points of law or directing fee earners to appropriate sources.

 Training: Organising internal lectures or seminars to trainees, solicitors groups or firm wide. Dealing with external training, building up relationships with speakers etc.

 Marketing and Business Development: Producing newsletters for clients, assisting on beauty parades, arranging client seminars or events.

 Information Technology: Working on IT specific projects eg setting up Internet deal rooms, creating/updating web sites, developing the firm’s infobank and intranet.

 Dealing with fee earner enquiries: Answering queries relating to the information maintained and new and complex areas of the law – these could be from members of a team at any level.

What is the current market like for PSLs?

 This varies enormously depending on the practice area. New PSL roles are appearing in areas such as projects, insolvency, energy and infrastructure. There are still a good number of vacancies for corporate and banking PSLs but fewer for property, employment and litigation specialists.

What salary could I expect?

 This is a grey area and is difficult to predict especially for lawyers who have taken sabbaticals or moved into different legal fields etc.

 Many firms do not have hard and fast rules on salary packages even for those moving directly from fee earning into support work. However, as a general rule of thumb a PSL might expect to receive 80 – 90% of his or her equivalent fee earner salary. Other firms are more flexible and for a very good candidate can offer full fee earning salaries including bonuses. As professional support work becomes a more established career pathway, larger firms are discounting the fee earner salary less, with 90% becoming more common than 80%.

 Although salaries do tend to hit a ceiling at the more senior end, it is certainly not unusual to find key PSLs at the top firms receiving around £90K pa with head of PSL roles and US firms paying £100K+.

Can I work regular hours or work from home?

 Part or full time hours are usually on offer, although anything less than 3 days a week can be hard to find. A greenfield site will normally require full time hours at least in the first instance.

 Firms are becoming increasingly flexible on PSLs working from home for part of the working week. A minimum of one day a week in the office is usually required.

What experience do I need?

 As an indication of the high profile nature of these positions, most firms require candidates to have a background equivalent to that of their fee earners, so good academics and experience are prerequisites.

 Subject to this, firms are not put off by career breaks or moves away from fee earning. Consequently lawyers who moved into lecturing or marketing would definitely still be of interest.

 As far as the level of experience goes, it is usual for firms to look for at least 3 years PQE, although they can be flexible on this for the right person. There is no upper limit and partners looking for a life style or career change are always of interest.

 Previous PSL experience is not normally required unless the role is to set up a support function from scratch, in which case it would be preferable.

What career path could I have?

Professional support is now an established career. As you become more senior, the kinds of options currently available to you are:

 Partnership – several firms in the City (Herbert Smith, Allen & Overy, Ashurst Morris Crisp and SJ Berwin) all have partners who are PSLs. This is likely to open up even further in the future.

 Greenfield Site – set up a support function firmwide in a smaller City or US firm. This would enable more involvement in strategic planning, an area in which many senior PSLs are interested.

 Knowledge Management – firms are increasingly interested in recruiting specialists to develop centralised knowledge systems.

 Fee Earning – providing you have kept up with legal developments in your practice area and have good academics and a strong fee earning background, it is certainly possible to make the move back into fee earning work.


For a confidential discussion about our Professional Support opportunities please contact Rosie Alexander or Jane Fry, our PSL specialists.

rosie@ll-j.com

jane@ll-j.com