December turned out to be a fruitful month for lawyers as the number of both private practice and in-house ads listed on www.legaljobscentre.com rose during the period from 1-20 December. Each of the job categories except litigation have had new ads posted since 1 December. Recruiters have also reported an increase in interest from employers wanting to fill jobs before the new year break, or at least get the process started before then, so the news is encouraging for job seekers working on a CV thinking about whether to submit it.

The areas with the most ads were corporate, banking and finance and compliance. As at 20 December 2010 there are 1337 private practice jobs listed – including 316 for corporate, 245 for banking & finance (14 new jobs since last month), and 78 in compliance (an additional 11 jobs added this month). There are also still 141 litigation jobs listed.

For in-house roles there are a total of 373 listed, including 139 in banking & finance (up 10 since 1 December), 130 in commercial, 116 in corporate and 122 in the ‘other’ category.
The number of CV’s listed has also been steadily going up with the total now at 1219, up from just 1071 at the end of November.

Below is the breakdown of job ads on www.legaljobscentre.com as at Monday, 20 December

Private practice jobs (1337)

Corporate (316)

Banking & finance (245)

Other (155)

Litigation (141)

Capital markets (112)

Mergers & acquisitions (107)

Construction (84)

Insurance/Risk mgmnt (83)

In-house jobs (373)

Banking & finance (139)

Commercial (130)

Other (122)

Corporate (116)

Compliance (78)

Information technology (53)

Regulatory (46)

Capital markets (45)

To see the full list of jobs available, click here.

[NB All the figures refer to legal jobs advertised on the ALB Legal Jobs Centre website as at 20 December 2010; the website covers vacancies across Asia-Pacific, Australia/NZ and the Middle-East]