Profile - Claire O'Gorman

Claire O’Gorman studied law at Birmingham University and was offered a place on the LPC at Guildford before deciding not to qualify as a lawyer.  After a successful 5 years at two recruitment consultancies, she set up O’Gorman Taylor with a colleague in  2006.  We spoke to her briefly about her career. 

mtl: Hi Claire, tell us why you decided not to qualify as a solicitor and why you chose recruitment instead? 

Claire After completing a couple of summer vacation schemes at law firms, I decided that being a lawyer would not be the right career for me.  Following this realisation and after a quick stint in PR, one of my best friends, who was working in recruitment at the time, opened my eyes to the fact that I could have the best of both worlds.  Recruitment enables me to mix my legal knowledge with my people-based skill set.  The rest, as they say, is history! 

mtl: What prompted you to set up by yourself? 

Claire: After working with Charlotte Taylor for 5 years, we were both at the point in our careers (with 14 years of recruitment experience under our belts), where we felt that it was the right time to take the next step.  Charlotte and I have always been sector specific within the legal recruitment market, which has allowed us to have a unique level of knowledge not only of the law firms but also of the different departments and personalities in those departments. 

All of our candidates are sourced through search or referrals and we have always won business as “Claire O’Gorman” or “Charlotte Taylor”, rather than having to rely on a big recruitment brand.  With this in mind, the barriers to entry to set up by ourselves seemed extremely low and we went for it.

 mtl: Why should a candidate come to O’GormanTaylor? 

Claire: For lawyers who want to move within private practice, we are the ideal choice as we are a boutique legal recruitment firm with a sole focus on private practice law firms. We only work with a small handful of candidates who usually work with us on an exclusive basis.  We are sector specific - Charlotte deals with the finance sectors and I deal with the non-finance sectors, with more specific discipline focus within each sector.

At O'GormanTaylor we represent lawyers at all levels of qualification.  As we are genuinely focused on building long term relationships, our approach is consultative and our advice is impartial.  It is important for us to invest time in a candidate to gain a thorough understanding of their professional ambitions, experience and personality. This enables us to work closely with our candidates to find the right law firm for their long- term future.

mtl: Having been brave twice, firstly by deciding against qualification and then to be self-employed, do you have any career tips for our readers?   

Claire: When I look back over my career, I do wonder how I managed to summon up the courage to jump ship not once but twice!  My advice would be that you have to trust your gut instinct and be true to yourself.  At the end of the day, life is short so you should be doing something you enjoy, especially as there are so many options out there to suit your strengths. 

Click here to see the O'GormanTaylor website. 

If you know any other ex-lawyers who have gone and done something interesting or unusual with their lives then please get in touch.

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