Law firms and in-house legal departments are stepping up their efforts to compete for junior level attorneys, paralegals and legal admin talent. The use of contract legal professionals continues to rise as these organizations are under increasing pressure from their clients to achieve more while reducing costs. Seventy-seven percent of the 200 highest grossing U.S. law firms say they have increased their use of contract lawyers in the past 12 months.

As class actions, securities fraud investigations, and other complex matters is leading to the inability of firms to handle a landslide of electronic documents, they are delegating more sophisticated duties to their support staff; junior attorneys are taking on more duties traditionally performed by more senior attorneys, paralegals are taking on more duties traditionally performed by junior attorneys, and LAAs are taking on what have traditionally been junior paralegal duties.

WalkerSearchGroup has responded by searching for candidates with more professional savvy and having an expectation that in most cases candidates exhibit the same level of "polish" and professionalism maintained in the department or law firm. We are also raising the bar for the minimum requirements on soft skills and technological proficiency.

We place a major recruiting emphasis specific requirements such as:

Attorneys:

• Lateral candidates with 2-4 solid years prior corporate or legal project experience especially in contracts and transactional work
• Large-Scale litigation project experience
• Antitrust
• Banking
• Environmental
• Insurance
• Intellectual Property
• Labor and Employment
• Litigation
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Project Finance
• Real Estate
• Securities
• Tax

Paralegals:
Same skill set as Legal Secretaries (below) plus,

• Some form of continuing education
• Ability to maintain cross-functional relationships with partners, board, executive management and staff
• Experience with day-to-day administration of claims, law suits, litigation, filings, etc.
• Case management
• Experience assisting with management of outside counsel
• Experience with supervision of administrative staff
• 3-5 years solid experience in drafting and review of contracts

Legal Secretaries and Legal Support Staff:

• Moderately skilled in litigation, transactional work
• Requirements for specific certification, technical degree, or even 4-year college degrees.
• Ability to anticipate the needs of the attorneys they support
• Adaptable and flexible with a polished, positive attitude
• Experience in SEC filing
• Bilingualism . Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese
• Technical Proficiency . Word, PowerPoint, Excel, litigation case management programs (i.e., WorldDocs, iManage, Concordance and Summation), research tools such as LexisNexis, and programs utilized for electronic filing
• Knowledge of Sarbanes-Oxley
• Strong ECF systems knowledge