Truly wonderful times coming soon for temporary employment lawyers

If you're an employment lawyer given to working on short term contracts in investment banks, your time is most probably about to come.

As another outcome of the FSA's new remuneration code, banks will be required to comb employees' existing employment contracts for clauses that might prevent them from 'complying with the Code's general requirement.'

All contracts must be amended by the end of December 2010, but if possible they must be amended by March 2010. The FSA's already taken to conducting spot checks to ensure new contracts don't contravene its intentions.

Legal recruiters say employment lawyers working in or for investment banks were doing rather well even before this windfall.

"Certainly since the whole financial crisis started there's been more work for employment lawyers," says Siobhan Lewington at Fox Rodney Search. She adds that MD-level employment lawyers in banks can earn around 400k.

Given that additional work created by the FSA's requirements is likely to be a temporary phenomenon, Lewington says any new jobs are likely to be short term only.

Chris Hickey at Robert Walters agrees. "A lot of banks are currently using secondees, but we'd expect them to bring in project people once the FSA requirements become an issue."

Hickey says three year qualified employment lawyers working in banks can earn around 35 per hour. Unlike contract roles in IT and accounting, pay for temporary employment lawyers has been rising in line with their popularity.