Many legal recruitment agencies are also specialty agencies. Some deal with only lawyers, while others deal solely with either paralegals or legal secretaries. Some of the larger legal recruitment agencies have different divisions. Instead of only dealing with one legal career or another, the entire agency places all legal professionals, but has one division that places lawyers, one that places paralegals, and another than places legal secretaries.
There are also some legal recruitment agencies that are truly specialized recruitment agencies. Specialized recruitment agencies only place one, specific type of career in one location, and as a specialized recruiter, some recruitment agencies will only recruit for law firms looking for one, specific law specialty. For example, a recruiter might only work with firms looking for candidates whose legal specialty is corporate law. And with that specialty, this agency might only operate within Manhattan. This is a benefit for the law firms since the agency will know the corporate law firms and will also know all of the corporate lawyers in the area.
Some legal recruitment agencies even go so far as to specialize in one type of legal professional and one type of employment. The most common of these scenarios is a recruitment agency that places legal secretaries or law clerks with temporary work in law firms. Sometimes a law form might need this service if a secretary, clerk, or other legal professional has gone on leave for pregnancy, illness, vacation, or any number of reasons.
One problem that some potential law professionals might run into is that many legal recruitment agencies in the United States do not advertise on the internet as readily as recruitment agencies for other careers. And while candidates can always utilize a general recruiter, they will probably have more luck using a specialized legal recruitment agency because of their intimate relationship with law firms in the desired location.
In order to find legal recruitment agencies, candidates may have to use recruitment agency search engines. These will usually be organized by the specialization of the recruiter, such as paralegals, legal executives, solicitors, or legal secretaries. Within these categories, the candidate will often find skills sets he or she will need to acquire the desired job. This will help the candidate decide whether or not he or she is a good match for the job. Recruiters use this process to deter unqualified candidates from applying to the agency only to be turned down. Specialized legal recruitment agencies try not to deal with unqualified candidates to prevent them from being matched incorrectly with a law firm.
