As specialists in business services in the legal sector, we know roles across management functions in law have evolved massively. Since we started recruiting into business services functions over 20 years ago, we have seen HR, BD and marketing, IT and finance functions flourish into sophisticated and often global divisions.
We recently conducted a piece of research, ‘Recruitment Trends in Law Firm Business Services’, analysing all business services job vacancies advertised in the sector from 2015 to 2018. The findings show that business services roles across all functions have increased – they now account for over 15% of law firm vacancies.
Not only that, but further research we conducted in 2018 show that we have also made more leadership placements at Board level – of the top 50 UK law firms, for instance, half now have a chief operating officer (COO) or equivalent. Many of these roles did not exist just 10 years ago, and it is testament to the role business professionals now play in the running of law firms.

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