Anyone had experience with staffing agencies for legal jobs?

[Marclegal]

Going to post this here because I think posting it on Applications wasn't topic-related.

Here's what I asked on that post:

Hey everyone,

I'm thinking about signing up with a staffing agency that specializes in legal positions, but I'm not sure how common it is for law firms to hire through them. Has anyone here gone that route before? Do law firms actually use staffing agencies to find paralegals and other support staff? I've heard some good things but don't have any firsthand experience.

 

[Andrei Radu]

Going to post this here because I think posting it on Applications wasn't topic-related.

Here's what I asked on that post:

Hey everyone,

I'm thinking about signing up with a staffing agency that specializes in legal positions, but I'm not sure how common it is for law firms to hire through them. Has anyone here gone that route before? Do law firms actually use staffing agencies to find paralegals and other support staff? I've heard some good things but don't have any firsthand experience.

Hey @Marclegal, unfortunately I do not know much about paralegal recruiting, but I just thought to tag @Jessica Booker here as she might be able to answer your question.

 

[Jessica Booker]

I recommend registering with a small number of recruitment agencies if you are looking for such work. Some law firms still use recruitment agencies due to lack of capacity in their own recruitment teams, while others will have dedicated recruiters who actively promote and recruit their own roles. This is why using multiple methods of trying to find work is likely to be a better approach. Going solely through agencies will limit you, but only applying directly to firms will limit you as well.

This thread on Reddit (we used to have the same post, but it seems to have disappeared) gives some useful agency names to potentially use:

https://www.reddit.com/r/uklaw/comments/k2kvzd

General rule will be you won't need to register with more than 3 or 4 agencies unless you are looking in very different geographical regions:

 

[Marclegal]

I recommend registering with a small number of recruitment agencies if you are looking for such work. Some law firms still use recruitment agencies due to lack of capacity in their own recruitment teams, while others will have dedicated recruiters who actively promote and recruit their own roles. This is why using multiple methods of trying to find work is likely to be a better approach. Going solely through agencies will limit you, but only applying directly to firms will limit you as well.

This thread on Reddit (we used to have the same post, but it seems to have disappeared) gives some useful agency names to potentially use:

https://www.reddit.com/r/uklaw/comments/k2kvzd

General rule will be you won't need to register with more than 3 or 4 agencies unless you are looking in very different geographical regions:

This is very useful, thank you!

And yes, it makes to not limit yourself to agencies because it's best to cover as much ground as possible.