As law firms look at offering increasingly “joined-up legal advice”, specialisation of individual employees to create teams specific to a sector is key, according to Colette Stevens, HR director of law firm Michelmores.

Stevens, speaking to Recruiter for the legal sector focus in the upcoming September edition of the magazine, says: “I wouldn’t say it’s as vital right now, but I think certainly as we tend to go more down the sector route, I think having that sector knowledge and expertise is going to become more important for legal organisations.”

This means recruiting and developing people across legal disciplines, such as commercial, corporate or employment, who are “trying to develop a real understanding of those business areas”, she says.

“That’s certainly something I see from the conversations I’m having with recruitment agents but also, from my view of the market, that’s becoming much more of a way to go in terms of offering joined-up legal advice.”

She adds: “Where we’re recruiting at the moment, the areas where we’ve seen the most activity and perhaps where it’s been more challenging to find high calibre candidates have been the areas of corporate and commercial, commercial property, projects, and then TMC [technology, media and communication].”

• For more from Stevens and other recruiters and employers in the sector, see p14 of the new issue of Recruiter, out this Friday (15 September).