Articles From the Team

How important is location?

Having been born and bred in Birmingham and only ever living away from home for three years in Nottingham to complete my undergraduate degree in law, I returned to the only place I call home... Birmingham!

Here I went on to successfully complete my LPC, train and qualify as a solicitor and transition into my new career as a legal recruitment consultant specialising in insurance and personal injury recruitment across the Midlands.

I appreciate that not everyone is attached to their birthplace like I am (I have so much here: my family, my friends and a job I thoroughly enjoy with the added bonus of having fantastic colleagues to work with!), and often reach a crossroad in their life and/or career where they need to consider relocation: a change in personal circumstances or a secondment/transfer. 

In my line of work, I speak to many solicitors and paralegals who are open to relocation, either due to a change in their personal life but largely down to the fact that the legal market, in particular the insurance market which has changed significantly. The decline in areas of work such as fraud for example, has meant that fee earners have had to consider relocating to other cities where they will have access to other areas of work that will provide them with long term stability and opportunity to progress.

Having said this, when relocating to another city one must consider the practicality of doing this i.e. do you have any links to the area, family/friends based there, did you go to university there, would having these links make the move easier for you? I have personally helped solicitors secure their perfect role with leading defendant clinical negligence teams in the Midlands which meant relocating from their current location, some hundred miles away! What made it easier for these individuals to accept their jobs was that the city they were relocating to, they had either family or friends in the area which made them feel more comfortable.

We often think about our career in isolation but it is difficult to do this when combined with the prospect of relocation as there is a lot more to think about. At BCL Legal we can advise and guide you through this process to help you make the right decision and ensure you have factored in not only what is best for your career but what is best for you on a personal level also.

If you are keen to discuss new insurance, claimant and defendant clinical negligence/personal injury roles in the Midlands, Oxford, Bristol and Hampshire please contact BCL Legal or call 0161 819 7475 for a private and confidential chat.