7 Ways to Make Your Firm the First Choice for Legal Talent

When it comes to attracting top talent, a law firm’s prestige is, of course, still a key part of its appeal. But prestige alone is no longer enough. If you want to attract great candidates to your law firm, your hiring journey needs to clearly demonstrate inclusion, learning and development opportunities, and fair practice. Today’s candidates don’t want to be told this – they want evidence they can see and check for themselves.  

This guide offers seven practical changes you can make right now to your career pages, role pages and social channels. Each idea is simple to implement and refresh and is based on what candidates look for when deciding to apply for a role

We’ll cover:

• Prestige is only the beginning: show how you learn
• Progression and pay clarity candidates can trust 
• Make guidance visible: supervision and rotations in plain English 
• Show the work junior employees actually do, and how responsibility grows 
• Make your selection criteria visible and fair 
• Use your data: Share acceptance rates and why people chose your firm 
• Keep it updated. Small monthly changes beat annual overhauls 
• Feature Spotlight: How Reach ATS turns prestige into proof 

1. Prestige is only the beginning: show how you learn 

Prestige might well get a candidate to look at your firm, but showing progress is what keeps them interested. The firms that convert interest into applications don’t just brag about their pedigree, they show how their organisation is currently learning, adapting and improving in tangible ways that candidates will see.  

If prestige is the foundation of your employer brand, then what convinces candidates to apply is proof that your values and practices are evolving. You need to pair your heritage with proof of change. A short update on how you improved client onboarding, updated research tools or changed a mentoring programme tells a much stronger story than simply listing past awards. Be open about experiments that didn’t land first time, and what you did or changed next. This builds trust. Think texture and interest rather than polish.  

Actions to take: 

• Publish one dated example of improvement each quarter. Keep it short, specific and people focused.  

• For every claim of prestige (like a ranking perhaps) on your website, add a live signal of change. Outline the training or process you introduced to keep standards high.  

2. Progression and pay clarity candidates can trust 

We know that law is often more traditional and hierarchical than other sectors. That of course brings real constraints, from long-standing pay structures to regional salary differences and market pressure. If that feels all too familiar, don’t despair! There are still practical paths you can take to attract candidates while protecting the firm’s interests. 

Focus on clarity first. Start with what’s easiest to agree on – progression criteria. Write this up in plain English. Describe the skills and behaviours required to go from one level to the next and include a simple example for each one. This gives applicants a clear and fair picture of how they can grow at your firm, even if you can’t publish full salary details yet.  

Try piloting salary transparency. Consider publishing salary ranges just for two or three common roles where the market data is stable. If pay is different based on location (e.g. London weighting) say so and explain why. Candidates don’t expect everyone to be paid the same amount, but they do expect honesty and to see continuous improvement in your transparency.  

If transparency isn’t possible then consider committing to a review cycle and tell candidates (via your career pages) when you plan to update your compensation page/policy. Add a short FAQ section that answers the most common questions you get about things like hiring timelines, development, and how pay offers are calculated. You will still negotiate salaries, but you will be doing so within a clear framework. This reduces last-minute surprises for candidates and sets a tone of fairness from the start.  

Actions to take:  

• Publish your career progression criteria now 

• Pilot two salary ranges this quarter 

• Set a date for an annual pay-transparency review. This steady rhythm of improvement will earn a candidate’s trust without forcing a drastic or immediate change.  

3. Make guidance visible: supervision and rotations in plain English 

What early career candidates want to know is simple: who will guide me, how often will we connect and how will I move through the work. Rather than opening with facts and figures, describe the experience they will have. Talk about the shape of support a trainee can expect – that might be a named supervisor (and a deputy for cover), planned touchpoints each week or the way informal questions might be handled between meetings. Once that picture is clear you can add structure for those who want more detail.  

For training routes, explain how rotations work across the training period and how preferences are gathered. A small visual map can be helpful here, although a small paragraph can be equally effective. Be open about how choices are made for popular rotations and what happens if initial plans need to change. If your practices are small, explain why that’s a strength, for example, giving employees more exposure to clients or better access to responsibility (with sensible support in place).  

Build confidence in your firm with clarity. Date updates and clearly show what has been changed. If contact norms or support routines are likely to change during busy periods, be upfront about this. Say that it happens and explain how you maintain and protect time for learning during those periods.  Remember that lateral hires will read these pages as closely as potential trainees.  

Actions to take:  

• Publish an overview of supervision for every career path in plain English 

• Share a simple overview (or map) of the rotation process 

• Review both documents annually.  

4. Show the work junior employees actually do, and how responsibility grows 

No trainee solicitor or junior expects high-stakes or exciting work on day one of their new job. They do, however, want a clear picture of the work they will be doing, and a sense of how their responsibilities will increase over time. It’s well worth outlining the first six months for each entry route. Describe the real tasks they might be undertaking and the support around them, for example, drafting a client note, preparing a bundle with checklist, or running a first review of due diligence with a named supervisor.  

Next, show the growth curve. Explain what typically changes at months six, twelve and eighteen, and who signs off at each step. This helps early careers talent plan and helps lateral hires understand where they can take ownership.  

Use specific examples. Provide one or two short, but specific examples of someone progressing and taking on more responsibility; and demonstrate the support system that helped them proceed. By demonstrating a clear path, a safety net and a plan for practice-ready growth, progression pathways feel much more tangible to applicants than a page of generic claims.  

Actions to take:  

• Publish a six-month starter view and a three-step growth pathway for every career path. 

• Refresh this content with one new example of a team member stepping up after intake. 

5. Make your selection criteria visible and fair 

Being clear about your selection process isn’t just about inclusion. It’s a move that builds trust and credibility and also saves everyone time. You need to publish what you assess, and how you assess it.  

A short list of skills and behaviours, a light-touch note on weighting and two examples is plenty.  If you use assessment tasks, then state any time limits and demonstrate what “good” looks like. For interview panels, always explain who is likely to be in the room (e.g. a Partner and a Senior Associate) how notes will be recorded, and if feedback will be automatically delivered.  

To demonstrate fairness and mitigate bias early, state if you use legal firm recruitment software to conduct initial screening or blind shortlisting. Using an applicant tracking system (ATS for law firms) shows a commitment to inclusion from the very first step.  

This level of detail reduces candidate anxiety, cuts down on back-and-forth emails asking for clarity and helps your internal assessors focus on a candidate’s real ability.  

Some leaders have concerns that being too open will allow candidates to “game” the process. In reality, this level of clarity will raise the quality of preparation among serious applicants and allows weaker candidates to self-select out of the process sooner.  

If you’re not in a position to publish a full, detailed breakdown just yet, it’s still worth sharing at some of the main themes and your general approach to selection now. You can point applicants to your inclusion audit for further information on your timelines and process improvements.  

Actions to take:  

• Publish a one-page selection guide for applicants and a matching brief for your interview panel. Align both documents to a simple, consistent rating scale (e.g. 1-5). 

• Choose a single, named individual responsible for performing a quarterly review the selection criteria and keep a dated change log.  

6. Use your data: Share acceptance rates and why people chose your firm 

Numbers are only useful when they are offered with context. Share the acceptance rate for your most recent intake and the top reasons new hires chose your firm.  

Keep the tone measured and specific. Most firms are understandably concerned that publishing numbers creates risk if a cycle runs poorly. But the risk is manageable. Publish a range and add a short note on what you learned. If the feedback you get is initially vague, start by sharing only broad themes, such as culture, specialist work, mentoring etc., with the public, and use your hiring feedback workflows to dive deeper over time.  

In time you will start to see patterns in what works and doesn’t through this feedback. This allows you to easily adjust your career pages and job adverts with a much clearer focus on what candidates truly value.  

Sharing acceptance rates and reasoning is seen as openness, not spin. Internally it helps you move the debate from opinion to evidence, which makes partner-level discussions much easier to resolve. The goal isn’t to look perfect, it’s to show that you measure, learn and share results openly. 

Note: Dedicated ATS software can add feedback loops throughout your hiring and onboarding process for this exact purpose. You can start collecting the reasons people accept your offer by simply adding one extra field to your offer or onboarding documents.  

Actions to take:  

• Add a simple one-line question about the main reason for accepting the offer to your offer or onboarding process. 

• Publish a brief, dated summary of your findings annually 

• Set a simple privacy rule (a “threshold”) for publication, ensuring that small hiring groups remain anonymous and their personal data protected.  

7. Keep it updated. Small monthly changes beat annual overhauls 

Credibility fades when career pages go stale. A light maintenance rhythm is much more beneficial (and less labour intensive) than an annual overhaul. Get into good habits by scheduling a monthly task of adding one new staff profile, one short update (like a project completion perhaps) and one small copy improvement. Make sure you date each change clearly. This shows candidates you are regularly reviewing your external pages. Remove or archive items that are no longer true or relevant.  

Wherever possible build a simple checklist so the process does not rely upon one person or disappears completely if one individual leaves the firm or is absent. If you have a content team, give them a shortlist of sources and content owners. If you are a smaller firm, share the workload across teams and centralise the publishing.   

This steady approach keeps candidates engaged, because there is always something new to see. It also builds internal trust because leaders see you keep promises at a small scale – this makes it easier for them to approve larger improvements later. Prestige is built on the habits of telling the truth well and keeping your house in order –  not a once-a-year scramble to overhaul everything.  

Actions to take:  

• Run a monthly “proof pass” across all job and career pages, with a visible change log at the foot of the page 

• Retire content that’s more than a year old, unless you add an update note. This ensures all public-facing content feels current.  

Feature Spotlight: How Reach ATS turns prestige into proof 

Our flexible, bespoke applicant tracking software helps hiring teams attract the best legal talent.  

Career pages and microsites that show your culture. Reach ATS helps teams build career pages and campaign microsites that reflect real people, clear steps and visible progression. Our system uses reusable blocks that make it effortless to add stories, supervision snapshots, rotation maps and clear hiring timelines. We help you shine by turning proof into a simple and effective routine.  

Automating fairness and pay clarity. The Reach ATS system is focused on GDPR and fairness. We help turn your commitments into structured process: 

• Selection transparency – anonymise key fields (name, university, location etc.) to allow for blind shortlisting, ensuring your hiring is bias free from the start. 

• Data control and compliance – set retention rules by role and location, and show candidates exactly how their data is handled, building trust and demonstrating transparency and respect.  

• Pay & progression – Reach ATS is fully configurable, allowing you to add structured fields for pay ranges and progression criteria into the job spec, making it easier to publish the clarity candidates expect.  

Real time data and constant feedback loops. Reach ATS keeps your entire hiring process connected, accurate and provides the flexibility to add in valuable feedback loops. It helps with candidate engagement by providing scheduled, automated communications, offers adaptable onboarding workflows and clear source data so you can more precisely target job ads. Task alerts and notifications remind teams when it’s time to run monthly “proof passes” to check content, keeping your pages fresh and credible. Our central dashboard gives you clear oversight of the entire hiring process, syncs open roles instantly with your job pages, and makes it easy to keep your vacancies up to date and your careers content fresh.  

Ready to use templates. If you want to implement the seven practices immediately, we can load templates directly into your Reach ATS set up – this includes fields for:  

• Progression criteria 

• Supervision and rotation blocks 

• Selection guides 

• Reason for choosing surveys.   

This way every new job listing is launched with proof, not just polish.