Stormclouds for Recruiters and their Clients

Here's a few things the legal recruitment business (and their clients) has to worry about.

1. Market Fragmentation - There are probably well over 350 legal recruitment firms working for the Global 100 and AMLAW 200 tier of lawfirms, worldwide. (This information is based on the accidentally revealed distribution list of a very large New York based international consumer of legal recruitment services.) The cost of setting up a solo-operation is still relatively cheap - meaning that this number is constantly growing.
   
2. No Fixed Business Standards - According to the website of NALSC (the US-based trade organization for legal recruiters), only about 181 firms consider themselves members, and therefore bound by that organization's Code of Ethics. This means that about the same amount of recruiting firms do not consider themselves so bound.
   
3. Lousy Image and Mutual Mistrust - The caricatures abound. We are the people lawyers and law firms love to hate - and hate to need as much as they do. And yet - for every unflattering story about a recruiter is another story about how a law firm client jilts a recruiter on a fee.
   
4. As the market gets bigger (and the profits that much greater) the potential for problems will only grow. What is needed, clearly, is a discussion on standards, on accepted business practices - and a way of resolving disputes in a reasonable way. Ultimately, an efficient market in the supply of experienced legal talent is in everyone's interest. Unfortunately - neither NALSC (representing only half of the recruitment population) nor its clients seem ready or able to address these problems concretely. Not yet.