November is done and dusted…where did that go?!

Last year, 2020, was a strange vortex of a year, thanks to COVID-19.  Thankfully, the market started picking up late last year and that momentum continued in 2021.  

This year has been better, and busier for us, with consistent demands from companies needing to hire.  A notable bright spot of late has been an increase in hiring from law firms.  We’re not back at pre-covid levels yet but it feels like we’re getting close.  Well, that was my thinking until this week and the world was introduced to the Omicron strain of this virus…

Putting aside border closures, which will continue to dampen international attorney hiring and cross-border deals (to some extent), overall, the market is active and getting more so.  We will no doubt experience the usual year-end slowdown, however, with international travel over Christmas and New Year likely off the cards for many, I suspect that, like last year, the slowing down will be less than we would normally expect.

It’s clear now that most companies have not just learned to live with covid, they have learned to work around it and, in many ways, not miss a step when it comes to business.  Every law firm we speak with is busy.  Many of the attorneys who would have previously been open to speaking, even if they were not thinking of moving, are just too busy; they don’t have the mental space.  So many companies are hiring and, given a ‘seller’s market’ (candidate short), with fewer people open to a job move than we used to find (understandably; why take on more risk at this time?), it means more demand.  Particularly ‘hot’ are finance, healthcare, tech, and entertainment.

We remain bullish on the Japanese legal market.  While much still depends on this damn virus and how it mutates from here, the doom and gloom of spring/summer 2020 is thankfully behind us, and we expect to see continued increasing demand for attorneys in hiring in Japan in 2022.