Hiring Tips – Getting salary right in current market
(April 2024)

When I talk to General Counsels, Heads of Legal and hiring managers about their in-house legal teams, building a skilled, diverse, effective and thriving legal team with high retention levels is often of great importance....I thought it might be useful to therefore share what I’m seeing in the market at the moment, in case useful….

▶ More businesses seem to be looking to hire legal talent through a direct recruitment process without first getting the benefit of a legal recruiter’s insight on the in-house market e.g with regards to the current state of play re: in-house salaries.

▶ In parallel to this, I’m also seeing that more candidates in direct recruitment processes for in-house roles are being offered salaries below what they were hoping for and from a consultative perspective, I think they are often being offered salaries below market rate for the role on offer.

Although we are in an economic downturn, candidates who have taken up roles during this time, and who feel underpaid will likely be a flight risk when the market picks up again, leaving for a role in another company paying them more. This will likely cause disruption to the legal team and the need to re-hire, which takes up valuable time and increases workload whilst new talent is sourced.

If you are a General Counsel, Head of Legal or a Talent Acquisition Manager in a business hiring legal talent directly at the moment and are unsure whether you are offering a competitive salary, I’d be very happy to sense check this with you. And if you’re lawyer in a direct recruitment process and unsure what salary you can expect on a move in-house, please also reach out at kathryn@kathryncrosby.co.uk