Adelaide Market Update March 2025: Demand for lawyers remains high despite slowing Eastern States market.
Former Adelaide lawyer Paul Burgess is the leading specialist legal recruiter in Adelaide. He focuses on recruiting lawyers from junior to partner/general counsel levels across Adelaide private practice, in-house and government/NFP’s. After a busy start to 2026 Paul shares his thoughts on the local market.
After a strong post-Covid period and a bullish 2024/25, the Adelaide market continues to show high demand despite a gentle slowdown in the Eastern States. Consultants in our Melbourne and Sydney offices report easing demand, as subdued M&A activity leaves large national firms operating below capacity. While there are areas which remain strong in those cities (such as energy, construction and employment law) broadly speaking those markets are much calmer and slower moving than we have seen post Covid.
The in-house market is similar – large corporates in the Eastern States are behaving conservatively with their in-house hiring and there have been sporadic redundancies in international teams.
There is also little demand in the UK, and with no lawyers being vacuumed up and into London, where the market is very subdued, there is less inherent demand in these cities. Even so, we are coming off a huge period of demand across Australia, so while the market has stepped back quite a bit, there is still reasonable demand and plenty of vacancies that we are finding hard to fill. On balance, it is still an employee’s market, particularly for good commercial, property or construction lawyers, employment lawyers and those with good private client experience in areas like wills and family. The demand spike is, as always, at the 4-7 year level, with these level lawyers able to contribute to firms and in-house teams cost effectively and with some autonomy.
Adelaide on the other hand remains a strong market for lawyers seeking new roles, and while there are initial signs of more cautious hiring, the market hasn’t stepped back at all. Less exposed to large M&A slowdowns and buoyed by growth in property, infrastructure, renewables and defence, the Adelaide market continues to perform strongly. While Adelaide also must contend with the usual attrition out of law, and from private practice into in-house, there is also a recommenced trickle of lawyers heading east seeking greater opportunities and higher packages, contributing to the solid demand for lawyers in the local market. Areas such as construction, property, projects, corporate, fin services, IP/IT, private client/family and employment are all strong, with a number of vacancies on the market and firms and in-house employers competing for lawyers.
Interestingly, local in-house teams have, for the first time, been feeling the pinch when hiring, with law firms doing better to retain lawyers. The reasons for this are simple – over a period of years many law firms have re-defined what it means to work in a practice, offering benefits such as increased flexibility, work from home, stronger salaries and bonus schemes, learning and development and parental leave. Perhaps led by some of the national firms, Adelaide firms have moved more quickly than their corporate counterparts, adapting to a changing environment and new breed of younger employee. In turn this has eroded what was in the past a fairly significant gap between employee satisfaction within law firms and in-house. Corporates too have been struggling to keep pace with salaries in law firms, with many in-house teams paying their lawyers at 10-20% lower than the top of the private practice market.
Last year I addressed the suggestion that the Adelaide market would follow the Eastern States by 6 months or so and improve for employers. I said that while this might well apply to real estate, I wasn’t convinced that it would apply to demand for lawyers here – and it didn’t. The reason for this is that I couldn’t see back then, and still don’t see now, that we have the same fundamentals in the legal market and the workflows and shortages in both professional and support staff in Adelaide.
As the economy and each of us finds the cost of living noticeably higher, both employers and employees are finding that they have increased costs and have to do more with less. In part, I suspect that what will happen with salaries might depend a lot on what happens in the economy. There is word on the street in Melbourne and Sydney to expect more M&A activity, but higher interest rates might lessen that impact and effect other areas of practice.
So, what does the mean for salaries in Adelaide? At a seminar we gave for SA Young Lawyers last year, I said we would see somewhat restrained growth for salaries in 2025. As it turned out, I was too pessimistic and a touch cautious! National firms continue to lead the way on salaries, and strong up-market boutique firms are competing hard with them to keep up, and as a result lawyers moving laterally achieved good increases in salary, while those who stayed put were perhaps still pretty well looked after. It’s always tricky to predict the months or years ahead, but for this year I see more of the same: reasonably strong appetite from local employers looking to hire and retain quality lawyers and therefore local lawyers can expect a decent year for salaries. Employers will no doubt be looking to rein in spending generally and with plenty of other rising costs to deal with should be motivated to keep a lid on wages. We are getting a lot of push-backs from corporate clients on salaries, but at the end of the day no one employer, whether firm or corporate, dictates the market, and lawyers will always factor in salary as one of the top motivators when considering a move. All in all, we are in for another very interesting year ahead!
If you are a lawyer looking for career advice or considering making a move, or an employer looking to hire, contact Paul Burgess on 0414 687 629 or [email protected]