Crime Solicitor Recruitment Consultants

Legal Recruitment Consultants for Crime Solicitors & Police Station Representatives

Welcome to Crime Solicitor Legal Recruitment, offering personal & confidential criminal law job search services online to criminal solicitors seeking positions in the UK. We recruit for duty solicitors with the MCQ qualification (duty solicitor status), solicitors and barristers with higher rights of audience, VHCC Supervisors, Serious Fraud panel members, white collar crime specialists, in house advocates, police station accredited representatives and solicitors with or without the police station accreditation qualification (PSQ). We have specialist knowledge of criminal law jobs and have been assisting crime lawyers since April 2000. As ex-criminal defence solicitors and now specialist legal recruitment consultants, we have a good knowledge of law firms and potential roles for a criminal solicitor across the UK.

Click Here to Register your Details for the Duty Solicitor Rota Slot Shop

Update December 3rd 2016: We saw the first "new contract savvy" vacancies coming in but it has now gone a bit quiet... A few new firms appear to be searching for crime supervisors to run their contracts. Firms are recruiting on the basis that you will need to be working for at least 2 days a week or 14 hours weekly for a firm so seek full and part time duty solicitors. We understand that the rota slots will be in the name of the firm rather than the duty solicitor but if we are wrong with this please let us know.

We have posted the relevant provisions from the 2017 crime contract for employment status of duty solicitors on the Ten Percent Legal Recruitment website - click here.

Drop us a CV over and we'll keep you posted with any roles coming in together with indicated rates.

Email us a CV across if you want to be kept informed of vacancies - email to cv@crime-solicitor.co.uk.

Looking to make a move? Read our Article : Should I Stay or Should I Go

This is the current position so far as the new contracts are concerned (taken in part from www.legalaidhandbook.com):

Contracts are going to be be awarded to all those meeting defined criteria, whether they hold a contract currently or not.

Mandatory criteria, eg professional standing, payment of taxes etc
Regulated by an appropriate professional body
Hold the SQM (at least passing a ‘desktop’ audit for new applicants) or Lexcel
Have an office meeting defined standards
Employ a full time supervisor (Criminal Investigations and Proceedings, Prison Law, Appeals and Reviews, depending on the area of law)
Meet a ratio of one supervisor to four other designated staff/caseworkers (six for prision law only)
Organisations wanting to expand duty solicitors by more than 50% or, where they currently have none, engage 10 or more duty solicitors need to submit additional financial information and their business plan

Timetable

November 2016 – Outcome notified of application to tender
12 December 2016 – Deadline to passs verification for inclusion on the rota from 1 April 2017
23.59 13 January 2017 – Deadline to submit Duty Solicitor information and CRM12s
28 February 2017 – Deadline to submit tender verification
1 April 2017 – Contract start date

This presumably means that there is going to be a frenzy to recruit duty solicitors between December 2016 and 13th January 2017. It looks as if most firms are likely to have a go at recruiting just under 50% more than their current number of duty solicitors.

Sign your Duty Solicitor rota slots over to a crime firm in return for a monthly retainer - this is the new way of working for a lot of duty solicitors as margins get tighter and opportunities to make a living from criminal law get slimmer. Since all the UK political parties worked out that yet again an easy behind to kick is that of criminal defence solicitors, redundancy rounds took place in March-Sept 2013 and continued into 2014. Everything dropped off in 2015, but now since February 2016 we are back to slots, rotas and monthly retainers/part time hours (min 14 per week).

Rates have fluctuated somewhat but have been around £800-£1,000 per month in recent times for the bare minimum of by duty solicitors work plus either an hourly rate for anything in addition, plus 70-90% of your own callout work. Salary levels currently around £30-35k for a duty solicitor. Please register for the Duty Solicitor Rota Slot Shop by clicking here or email us your CV to cv@crime-solicitor.co.uk. Suitable for salaried duty solicitors, freelance duty solicitors and duty solicitors looking to sign their rota slots to a firm.

There is a guidance letter from the Legal Services Commission here detailing the minimum requirements for these types of arrangements a few years ago. The LSC (now the LAA) very kindly wrote to us - not sure how they got the time, what with all the other pressures, like rebranding, working out where next to chop rates and discussing their performance...

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Crime Solicitor Legal Recruitment

Assisting Crime Solicitors and Police Station Representatives find new legal jobs across the UK at all levels including Partnership and law firms sales, offering a confidential service to Lawyers and Law Firms.

Thinking about a Career in Crime? Not recommended! But click here (if you are a hardy soul)| Salary Reviews for Crime Solicitors

We offer legal job vacancies, including our online searchable database, vacancy bulletins by email, market reports, CV advisory services, a legal careers centre, daily legal job articles and impartial careers advice. Duty solicitors are particularly welcomed, but we also assist recently & newly qualified solicitors, accredited police station representatives and all criminal law practitioners. We provide free and impartial careers advice to those starting out in the field, wanting salary reviews or career progression advice.

Crime Solicitor Legal Recruitment is part of the Ten-Percent Group of legal recruitment websites, and the company has a commitment to donating 10% of its net profits to charity each year via the Ten-Percent Foundation, a charitable trust.

For other types of law, please visit either Jonathan Fagan Legal Recruitment, www.chancerylane.co.uk - specialist legal job board, or the main www.ten-percent.co.uk website.

Crime Solicitor Recruitment : email cv@crime-solicitor.co.uk

For other types of law please visit the main www.ten-percent.co.uk website.

Updated 3rd December 2016

Crime-Solicitor.co.uk - specialists for freelance duty solicitors, salaried duty solicitors, police station representatives and crime solicitors across the UK - LSC funded, VHCC panel members, Grade A fee earners, Grade B fee earners, white collar, fraud, private crime and general crime positions for duty solicitors, police station accredited solicitors, NQ solicitors, barristers, in house advocates, solicitors with higher rights, overseas lawyers, police station reps, probationary police station reps, outdoor clerks and fee earners.