Tatiana Gracheva, Manager of Legal Department at Antal Russia
Anna Tarnavskaya, Consultant of the Legal Department at Antal Russia
Read in Russian. The situation in the Russia legal market has stabilised in comparison with winter – spring 2009, and development strategies have become clearer for most companies. The number of legal vacancies has risen over the last months, and legal specialists and managers themselves feel more confident about and are moving to new employees once again, especially in retail, FMCG, and pharmaceutical sectors.
Companies which have never had their own legal department – and have traditionally outsourced this function to legal companies – are now opening vacancies for and attracting people to work in-house. The typical first step for companies undertaking this new approach is to hire one multifunctional lawyer, who is able to build the role from scratch. This person may well be partly responsible for the HR function too. Employers looking to fill such a role tend to consider experienced in-house lawyers or lawyers with 3-4 years of various experience in consultancy, while candidates will consider it as a career step that affords them the opportunity to build and develop a legal department within a recovering economy.
With the number of bad debts and non payments growing all the time, demand now is highest for lawyers specializing in litigation and/or arbitration. The market also needs qualified specialists in labour legislation as well as intellectual property lawyers. Meanwhile banks in debts through obtaining non core assets need the help of professionals, including lawyers, to carry out due diligence, analysis, and to formulate their asset management strategy.
Recruitment activity is once again rowing gradually in legal firms, and they like so many other in the current economic state demand candidates of a very high calibre, looking to hire real stars with excellent education, wide working experience, good references and a hard working attitude.
The key to being successful in the market now is to be flexible and creative in taking personal professional experience and relating it to the requirements of employers with vacancies available. Many professionals have adapted their mindset so whereas before the downturn they would only consider options in their preferred sphere of choice, they are now ready to try new areas where they can use or reinvent their experience. Real career value at the moment comes in the quality of the experience a professional can get, rather than in the race for ever higher salaries. At the moment lawyers should be using this time looking several steps forward and planning for their long term career prospects.
