Banks urged to look at lawyers

Investment banks are said to be eager to hire Anthony Salz, the recently retired senior partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. But recruiters say banks are considerably less enthusiastic when it comes to hiring junior corporate lawyers.

Salz, a venerable corporate lawyer who spent ten years as senior partner at law firm Freshfields, is being pursued by the likes of NM Rothschild and JP Morgan Cazenove, according to The Telegraph.

With contacts at the likes of General Electric and E.ON, speculation suggests that Salz's appeal lies in his rolodex rather than his mastery of corporate law.

Noel Marshall, managing director at recruitment firm Finance Professionals and sister firm Law Professionals, says client contacts are a passport for senior corporate lawyers like Salz to migrate to banks' corporate finance departments.

But Marshall says most City of London banks are less eager to open their doors to junior lawyers who want to become corporate financiers. He says this is all down to the following issues:

• Cost: "A newly qualified accountant costs 50,000. A newly qualified lawyer costs 55,000 - 60,000."
• Numeracy: "Most lawyers have arts degrees and haven't proven their ability to work with the spreadsheets and numerical data."
• Fear of the unknown: "Few people working in corporate finance have a legal background, so lawyers are an unknown quantity."

City banks' unwillingness to recruit junior lawyers comes despite the current dearth of junior corporate finance talent. It also flies in the face of recruitment policies in the US, where lawyers are a much favoured source of corporate finance talent.

"US law courses are more practical than in the UK," explains Marshall. "UK legal training is seen as too academic and too generalist."

Marshall says a few corporate finance boutiques, such as Investec and Close Brothers, are beginning to embrace corporate lawyers who want to make a move into banking.

He is encouraging other banks to do the same: "It's an untapped pool of talent. If banks were open to it, I think a lot of lawyers would put themselves forward."