A&O Shearman
Legal Recruitment Manager
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Legal Recruitment Manager
Talent Acquisition team - London
The Legal Recruitment Manager sits within the UK recruiting team that is responsible for legal and fee-earner hiring in the UK, Middle East, and Singapore. As part of the ongoing global transformation, the team is expected to eventually manage or support recruiting in additional jurisdictions. The role holder will be responsible for delivering high-quality legal recruitment across A&O Shearman's international network. The role combines proactive sourcing, candidate engagement, recruitment delivery, and close business partnering with partners, practice group leaders, local HR and recruitment teams, Resource Management, and other senior stakeholders.
The successful candidate will identify, engage, and secure outstanding legal talent across multiple jurisdictions, practice groups, and levels of seniority from paralegal and associate hiring through to counsel and other qualified lawyer roles. Working closely with partners to understand strategic resourcing priorities, they will translate those into targeted sourcing strategies and effective recruitment campaigns that strengthen the firm's ability to attract top legal talent globally.
What you will do
Legal talent acquisition and sourcing
- Partner with internal stakeholders and local HR and Resourcing teams to understand resourcing needs and strategic growth plans, managing the full recruitment lifecycle from role approval and briefing through sourcing, assessment, and offer to onboarding handover.
- Design and execute targeted sourcing strategies across jurisdictions, leveraging direct sourcing channels such as social media, referrals, talent pools, and professional networks to build market maps and qualified candidate pipelines, particularly in priority practice areas, growth markets, and hard-to-fill roles.
- Engage prospective candidates credibly, articulating the firm's strategy, practice strengths, culture, and employee value proposition, while providing stakeholders with market intelligence on competitor activity, candidate availability, compensation trends, and talent movement.
- Coordinate with local HR and recruitment teams to align activity with local processes, regulatory requirements, and compensation frameworks, and ensure international campaigns reflect the firm's employer brand consistently.
- Manage agency relationships, ensuring use is targeted, cost-effective, and aligned with procurement and performance expectations.
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Business partnering and stakeholder management
- Act as a trusted recruitment partner to partners and senior stakeholders, providing commercial and practical advice on hiring strategy, candidate attraction, and market positioning, and drawing on a strong understanding of the firm's practice groups, offices, and talent needs to anticipate demand and support workforce planning alongside local Resource Management teams.
- Support stakeholders in preparing for interviews and selection, and influence adoption of best practice including structured assessment, technical testing, and timely, constructive feedback. Attend interviews when needed.
- Foster collaboration and transparency across the global recruitment team, ensuring legal recruitment activity is aligned with broader talent priorities.
Operational excellence and candidate experience
- Ensure recruitment processes are efficient, compliant, and inclusive across all relevant jurisdictions, managing activity through the firm's ATS (Kenexa), CRM (Radancy), and HR platform (PeopleSoft) with accurate data and timely reporting.
- Monitor and report on key recruitment metrics including pipeline strength, conversion rates, time to hire, agency usage, direct sourcing effectiveness, and hiring outcomes.
- Support complex offer processes in partnership with local HR, Reward, and partners, ensuring offers are commercially appropriate, properly approved, and sensitively managed.
- Maintain a high-quality candidate experience in line with the firm's global candidate charter, with clear communication, timely feedback, and a professional impression throughout.
- Drive continuous improvement and champion inclusive hiring practices, advocating for enhanced global recruitment systems, tools, and processes.
Leadership and broader contribution
- Contribute to global recruitment initiatives.
- Share legal market knowledge, sourcing techniques, and best practice across the global recruiting and fee-earning teams.
- Develop and maintain talent pools through the firm's CRM, market maps, and knowledge resources to enable faster responses to hiring needs, and provide informal coaching to colleagues on recruitment delivery, sourcing, and candidate engagement.
- Represent the recruitment function as a credible, commercial, and solutions-focused partner to the firm.
What you will have
- Significant experience in legal recruitment, ideally gained in a global law firm, international professional services environment, legal search firm, or similarly complex organization.
- Strong understanding of the legal talent market, including experience recruiting qualified lawyers across different practice areas, seniority levels, and jurisdictions.
- Proven track record in direct sourcing, with demonstrable success identifying, approaching, and engaging high-calibre passive candidates.
- Experience advising partners, senior lawyers, or senior business stakeholders, with the confidence and credibility to challenge and influence effectively.
- Comfortable operating with ambiguity; able to connect disparate information and handle challenging, bespoke queries from partners, candidates, and agencies.
- Excellent stakeholder management and relationship-building skills across cultures, offices, and time zones.
- Strong knowledge of recruitment technologies, applicant tracking systems, sourcing tools, market mapping techniques, and data-led recruitment practices.
- Commercial understanding of legal recruitment dynamics, including candidate motivations, compensation considerations, competitor activity, and jurisdiction-specific market factors.
- Strong organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple roles, stakeholders, and jurisdictions simultaneously.
- Analytical mindset with the ability to use recruitment data and market insight to inform decisions and identify opportunities for improvement.
- Collaborative, proactive, and resilient working style, with the ability to operate effectively in a global, matrixed, and fast-paced environment.
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What we can offer you
To learn more about the culture and benefits available at A&O Shearman, please visit: [Culture and benefits | A&O Shearman careers](Culture and benefits | A&O Shearman careers)
Should you require additional support at any stage of the recruitment process due to a disability or a health condition, please do not hesitate to contact a member of our recruitment team who will work with you to provide any adjustments as required.
We are an equal opportunities recruiter and do not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or any other protected characteristic.
NO AGENCIES PLEASE - A&O Shearman does not accept unsolicited CVs. For further information, please see our [UK Recruitment Agency Policy](UK Recruitment Agency Policy) and our commitment to direct sourcing here.
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