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The SSQ Podcast
Join us as we journey through all things legal recruitment, exploring market trends in legal hubs across the world, discussing the realities of life in different firms and in-house teams, and sharing insights from the people shaping the legal profession.
The SSQ Podcast
From Sydney to the world: how lawyers build global careers
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In this episode of The SSQ Podcast, host Ben Quarry is joined by Kumara Mallikaaratchi, Head of SSQ Australia, to explore how Australian and New Zealand lawyers build international careers — and what really determines whether a relocation succeeds.
Kumara shares insight from launching SSQ’s Sydney office and from more than a decade advising lawyers on moves to London, New York, the UAE and beyond. Together, they discuss why Australians are uniquely mobile, how market conditions shape relocation opportunities, and why global career moves require far more than simply sending a CV to overseas firms.
Together they explore:
- Why Australians are among the most internationally mobile lawyers
- Which jurisdictions and practice areas travel best
- Why some firms consistently hire Australian lawyers (and others don't)
- How SSQ’s global network gives candidates an advantage
- What lawyers should realistically expect from elite US and UK firms
- Why timing, fit and long-term thinking matter more than ever
Drawing on thousands of real-world conversations, Ben and Kumara share the perspective SSQ uses every day to help lawyers and firms navigate an increasingly global legal market.
Find us at ssq.com and subscribe to us here or on our other socials below for more legal recruitment and market insights:
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Hi, my name is Ben Quarry and I'm the host of the SSQ podcast. Today I'm joined by Kimaro Malacarachi, the head of our Australia team. Kimaro, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Ben. Pleasure to be here. Now, Kimara, you are no longer the head of the newest business unit of SSQ, but certainly one of the newest. Launched in Australia at the beginning of this year, based in Sydney. Tell me a little bit about you, tell me a little bit about your practice and really the kind of cool things that you guys cover in the Australian market and beyond.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sure. So I used to be a lawyer in London about 12 years ago now. And moved into recruitment and in fact joined SSQ in London and worked with you guys in the London market for two years, working with the sort of magic circle in US law firms that we do in London. I then relocated out to Australia, worked for a different agency for six years, and then was given the opportunity to rejoin SSQ early this year to set up the Australian office for the business. Nice.
SPEAKER_02And now we we obviously we well not obviously but but in London it's not uncommon to see Australian lawyers making and and Kiwi lawyers as well, and lawyers from all over, but particularly common law qualified lawyers coming over to London. Obviously that is part of what we do, but having someone on the ground in Oz means that we open up the domestic market as well. So I guess in terms of jurisdiction that you spend most of your time talking to your people about, um, domestically, internationally, again, let's let's talk about sort of the range of what SSQ Australia can offer someone who is based in the Australian market.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think um for me the opportunity to join SSQ is purely based on the fact that it's the global business that it is. Um so SSQ has obviously got the most well-established global network of offices across the globe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um in the domestic market, um, I basically work with the majority of the top tier law firms, uh, predominantly work at the partner level. Yep. Um and the the benefit of being with SSQ as you're as you've rightly picked up on, is that there is an increasing demand for Australian lawyers in different jurisdictions around the globe, but also very importantly, I think Australians are probably the most likely lawyers to want to relocate to a different jurisdiction. Um I myself have moved the other direction and chase the sun. Love living by the beach, love surfing. Um, but and I find it bizarre having moved from London to Sydney uh and living right by the beach that a lot of the lawyers that we work with want to leave the beach and hot winters to London and uh sit on the northern line from Clapham Conman. But um uh an abundance of lawyers want to relocate.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and so the majority of my time actually, and it's great to be in London actually at the moment. Um at the moment, as you know, we've we're sort of all in the London office for the Christmas party. Uh, one of the things that I've really enjoyed over the last couple of days is connecting with the people in those offices. Um I think I'm probably the person at SSQ who speaks with everyone in the network the most often, um, but I've not had the opportunity to meet all of those people. So being in London at the moment, it's been really useful to be able to sit down with yourself as the head of LA, um, you know, James Newton, head of New York, um, the head of the London team, the the UAE business, um, and really understand their markets, what's going on in those jurisdictions. Um, and to the point around what we're speaking to our lawyers about. Well, in Australia, uh, the majority of lawyers at a certain point in their careers, round about the two-year PQE mark, yeah, all start considering a move abroad.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, I think the advantage we have is that because we're so integrated and I'm on the ground in Australia, I'm able to connect those lawyers with those jurisdictions really well. Um, I think we're probably the only agency that can boast the depth of the network that we have across the across the globe. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Nice. And I guess in terms of kind of why an Australian lawyer, beyond a little bit of wanderlust, beyond a little bit of you know being closer to travel to other things, obviously Australia is a massive country, but it's a long way away from lots of things. So international travel, uh, you should travel vast distances to get there. So I know you know I have plenty of Australian friends who love the idea of going to Europe for the weekend. Some of them do literally go to Europe for the weekend, a way that I, you know, probably ignorantly never did just for the weekend. I always thought you say holiday for it. But um, beyond the obvious sort of idea of moving around, from a career progression perspective for an Aussie lawyer uh or a Kiwi lawyer, of course, um, I mean, what sort of things are they looking for with these moves and and where are they looking at? Is it is it predominantly London? Is it a mixture of everywhere? You know, what jurisdictions so I guess why would they move or why would they want to move uh for professional reasons? And then also sort of where are you finding actually that these guys are getting traction around the globe?
SPEAKER_01Sure. So uh in terms of the moves internationally, I think one of the most important parts is actually finding that balance between the personal reasons and the professional reasons. Um, I always actually, when I'm speaking, so I always talk about the sliding scale. Yeah, so um you've got some lawyers that you sit down with who are on the I want to go to travel Europe on the weekends side of that spectrum. Um, and then you've got the others who are at the opposite end of that spectrum, which is I want to go and work in the most um developed markets globally and you know get the most challenging work globally, working the cutting-edge transact transactions, etc. Uh, so as a facilitator of those moves, it's really important to understand that balance. Um, because as we all know, when you're looking to move internationally for Australians moving anywhere in the world, it's always going to be a much more difficult role than in Australia. That's just the fact of the matter. Um, and so what you don't want is to, for example, relocate someone to a US elite law firm in London who wants to spend the majority of their time going to Europe on the weekends.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say this probably is one of the advantages of you know the SSQ network, not just geographically, but actually in terms of the range of the clients that we work with. That yes, we work with the elite US who you know are at the very top of the market. We work with the Magic Circle, very top of the market, people who are paying, and we'll come onto this in a second, one of the key differences is a lot more money than you potentially would be able to get access to in Australia. But there is often a slight quid pro quo that comes with that, that the hours tend to be a bit, a bit, um, a bit longer, a bit tougher. But obviously, as you say, not everyone wants that, and sometimes the international move coming to a mid-market UK firm or moving to somewhere somewhere elsewhere around the world that does allow you to have that capability to to spend some time outside the office to actually you know enjoy your your free time a little bit more because of the range of who we work with around the market, actually, we are able to help them move in every direction, both geographically but also in terms of the type of opportunity.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that that's completely correct. And and so um a story I usually tell to lawyers when I'm I'm sort of discussing uh relocation is if you look at the domestic market on Australia and you were looking to make a move in Australia, uh myself and a lawyer would sit down, we'd talk about the teams, we talk about the work, we talk about the the partners, the culture of law firms. Uh and to an extent, I think when lawyers are relocating, that piece is lost slightly. Um I think Australians, you know, they tend to want to relocate and they they will often say, look, I will go to London and will work in any kind of uh law firm or any kind of business to just get myself into that jurisdiction.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um so one of the things I've really benefited from from returning to SSQ and also to be honest, having trained at SSQ all those years ago, is actually understanding the differences between law firms in those jurisdictions. So um, as we know, uh the London business has got uh six consultants who operate in the London market at the associate level. Each of those has got their own client pool um or accounts that they sort of manage. Yeah, um, and each of them has been become embedded in those clients. Uh so a real key difference that I'm finding is um when we're speaking to lawyers, we're not just talking about law firms from the outside, we're not looking at job specs and sort of saying that there's a role at XYZ, would you be interested? Let's send you a CV.
SPEAKER_02Partner link and just reading out from that. It's exactly that.
SPEAKER_01And and you can tell that. So when we speak with lawyers who've maybe spoken to other recruiters earlier on in the search, they tend to know a name of a law firm, but they might not be able to tell you the details of those firms. Um, and one of the real advantages we have is if I don't already know that information, I can easily pick the phone up to whoever is in is managing that client, whether that's in London, New York, UAE, and get the specific details on that particular client, partner's role, everything down to work-life balance, you know, how often are they working from home, how many of the associates that we've placed there are working on the weekends. And so it allows us to be a little bit more strategic in the kind of information we're providing the lawyers that we work with. Um, also importantly, going back to your initial question around the professional reasons for moving, uh, I think everyone's got their own reasons in terms of um the professional side of things. So uh a lot of people, for example, are looking for that quality of work point. Now, quality of work can come in very many different forms. Um, I find that the Australian market, we will all sort of appreciate, is sometimes quite far behind, say, somewhere like New York or London. So when we're looking at the quality of work, what does that actually mean? Is it that you want to do cross-juris cross-jurisdictional transactions in say London, or do you want to work on a much more challenging matter, which is a higher value matter, for example, or a trans or a deal that has um far more stakeholders involved? Um, so there's a real nuance to what that can look like. And again, because of the detail that we have at SSQ, um, we're able to make sure that when we are talking to lawyers, we can give them that kind of far more catered advice to what their actual uh expectations are. Um, and a really important factor, actually, that's worth mentioning is the fact that particularly in London, the SSQ team is the most established partner recruitment team in London.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And what I've really benefited from is when talking to those lawyers, not only do I have the details uh from my colleagues in London around the roles, but I can actually say to those lawyers, you know, we've moved three of the partners to this law firm. Uh so we know exactly what their expectations are, how they're operating. We know the partners, um, which is is a is a massive factor when it comes to say the interview process. Um often Australian lawyers are concerned, I guess, about interviewing with um, let's say, Inverted comers, more elite partners in in either any of the jurisdictions we're we're discussing. Um, and so having the ability to say, look, we've actually moved that lawyer, that partner, and we know them, and this is what they're like, just gives that lawyer that element of comfort going into the interview process. Um, and it's those extra elements that maybe lawyers aren't thinking about at the early stages of a search that when they get into a process, they really value from benefit uh or benefit from from working with SSQ.
SPEAKER_02Well, and and and just to build on that, I think it's really it's the depth of the relationship at every point in that journey, right? It's the understanding what is important to the lawyer on the ground in Australia in terms of what are their push factors going to be. It's understanding the law firm, the teams who are hiring, you know, what's actually involved, not just the job descriptions you say, but actually a little bit more. And at the top end also, the hirers, if we know them, uh, which very often we do, and as you say, very often we have actually been involved in getting them to wherever they are now. So, you know, we we don't just know who they are, we actually know them. That almost certainly is is probably you know now makes you incredibly unique in the Australian market. That you're not someone who just goes, Oh, here are ten names of firms that I've just googled, I'll just flick your CV off to all of them and see what sticks. Because I mean, again, tell me if I'm wrong, but I imagine that there are probably some cowboys out there who will feign relationships with others on the basis that if they can place one, two people a year with people in other jurisdictions, that's extra money for them, but they're not really thinking about what's going to be the better long-term connection. Is it is that fair?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. Um, I think that a crucial factor for lawyers that are looking to relocate is to understand that at SSQ, because I'm on the ground in Australia, I view them as individuals, as the lawyers that they are. And you know, we will sit down, we'll talk about their preferences, and I'll get to understand them uh as individuals and what they are looking to do. Yeah, uh, then we can rely on the network to provide them with the right information. I think that um, you know, certain agencies in the Australian market are a lot smaller than SSQ, um, you know, might not have the historical track record into those uh jurisdictions outside of Australia. Quite a few one-man bands or quite a lot of um a lot of agencies of of um of people who've set up recently. Yeah. Um and you're right, in that scenario, you know, um, well, what is a recruiter trying to do? You know, at the end of the day, a recruiter is trying to give you advice in your career so that you can, you know, benefit from that advice, but at the end of the day, they're also looking to make money.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and I think no dispress no disrespect at all to to age other agencies. Um that those that don't have the the long-standing historical um track record that SSQ has, it's often a case of building new relationships in new markets. Yeah. So, for example, if you're an Australian-based recruitment agency, um, maybe in its infancy, you're unlikely to have the 25 years of experience working with US law firms in London, Magic Circle law firms in London that SSQ has. Yeah. Um, so yes, in that sense, you'll find that people in that market will look to just scatter gun uh CVs across the market. Um, I think an also interesting point is the other way around. So often you'll find that um recruiters based in those jurisdictions will reach out to Australia Australian lawyers.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, so that would be a London-based recruiter, LinkedIn messaging you saying, Hey, fantastic role at this law firm. Now, in that scenario, they probably do have a relationship with that law firm. Uh, but what they don't get is the interaction with you as an individual.
SPEAKER_02Or necessarily understand the nuances of the Australian market because again, certainly having having worked in recruitment in London for a number of years, uh, albeit I'm now sort of on the west coast of the US instead, yeah, there are lots of people who just learnt certain Australian, you know, top domestic firm names. They would know who those people, who they firms were, they would know that they were the top firms in the jurisdiction, but they wouldn't know that actually this firm is really well known for its energy work or this firm is better known for some of its sort of more kind of corporate P essentially some of the PE stuff. And and again, I want to come onto some of the different practice areas because I appreciate that different jurisdictions will have different focuses and they have different uh elements of it. But certainly the idea that you know the reach out goes both ways is something that we're very familiar with, and and actually that's exactly why SSQ wanted to you know have someone on the ground in Australia, even better to have someone coming home, uh yeah, sort of see how see how uh how other places do it and then decide to to come home. Because actually, you know, that global footprint and that strength of relationship everywhere, it means that of course it strengthens our ability to get people out there, but actually also the domestic market, it means that suddenly, you know, whereas it used to be that Australians and Kiwis would come over to London, they'd sometimes spend a few years here, then decide they'd had enough of the winters, they want to kind of go back and basically do what you what what you've kind of all the reason why you wanted to move to Australia, and we used to have to say, sorry, we you know we don't really do anything with in the domestic market in Australia, so you know, we can't really help you. Whereas now actually we've got that pipeline that can go both ways because obviously a lot of these lawyers maybe one day want to go home and actually being able to facilitate facilitate that can be incredibly useful in terms of just opening up more opportunities for the people we're talking to wherever wherever they are in the world.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean that's exactly right. What we want to be able to do is provide lawyers a full service. I often say, I think we all say, um, you know, when you're working with someone, it's not about getting them a job, yeah, it's about giving them career advice to make good moves, not only right now, but in the future. And actually, often, you know, how often are we speaking to people that you know we've met and we've realized that the market's not right or um you know moves not quite right for them in their career right now. So it's it's a case of being in contact with them for a few years. Um to your point, you know, when when we've moved lawyers to London, uh we obviously have Danny Dequino who's sit sat in London, who co-heads a team and is focused on uh to an extent Australian relocations as well. Um and so you'll have that kind of two-way process of once you're in in London, you've got someone in London who will also value as an individual and advise you in your career whilst you're in London and also therefore be able to advise you when you're returning as well. Um, and on that point around uh London-based recruiters, what I'm finding is that they tend to just see Australians as a CV. Yeah, um, you know, for them it's a case of I've got these roles, my clients may have said I'll hire Australians, I will message someone on LinkedIn, I will send them to one role. If they don't get traction, you're relatively confident that they're not speaking to you again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um versus myself on the ground there, you know that you're working with someone operating in a way to benefit your career as a whole. Um, and another point I think it's worth um focusing on is that SSQ, because of the the depth and the the history of the of the agency, we've got a lot of data points. Um, so another really important factor is that you know other agencies will say there are XYZ roles at these law firms, um, but often they don't know whether those firms will hire Australians, um, whether there's an appetite for relocation or paying for the relocation of a lawyer. Um, whereas we've got a lot of data points internally, we know which firms are hiring Australians uh consistently. We we know exactly what they offer those um Australian lawyers when they do relocate when it comes to things like relocation packages. Yeah, it's incredibly important when you're you know moving your life literally from one side of the world to the other to know that you're looked after by certain firms in different ways. Yeah, and I also have a sort of stockpile of data that kind of tells me, right, that there's certain firms in London, for example, who just don't hire Australians. Uh, you know, it's just part of their policy. So um, if we're speaking to an Australian about a role, we're not only instructed on that role, we not only know all the information about that role, we're also going that bit further and asking, will you hire Australians? And only ever speaking to Australian lawyers when we know that those firms will hire Australians. Yeah. Uh which is I think is again very important because you find that there's a um uh an ability to lose a lot of time or waste a lot of time talking to lawyers about roles where actually they send a CV in and actually we've always known that, or another agency might not know that that firm's not going to hire an Australian. Yeah. It's a waste of everyone's time at that point.
SPEAKER_02A waste of everyone's time. Yeah. Nice. And they're obviously the I think the other thing that is quite useful about, and it's partly to how long we've been doing this, right, is that depending on what the market conditions are, sometimes certain moves are possible, sometimes they're not. Um, you know, I know I remember, for example, pre-COVID, it was very common for uh you know for common law qualified, whether they be Aussie, whether they be Kiwi, sometimes South African lawyers, to come over predominantly into the Magic Circle initially. A lot of people, you know, that was the pathway in, and uh it was perhaps partly because the Magic Circle reputation over there was better known than some of the US firms who, you know, because they weren't in Australia, uh I know some are, but because a lot of them weren't in Australia, they perhaps didn't have the same brand recognition. And it used to be that Aussies would come into the undermarket through magical silver circle firms, uh sometimes through a training contract, uh, even if they were already qualified sometimes. Um and then once they'd been there for a couple of years, they might get picked up by a by a US firm or by a firm who otherwise wouldn't ordinarily fish out of the uh the Aussie market. Now, certainly from a London perspective, I saw that change in 2021, 2020, 2011, post-COVID, when we were in that mad rush where to be perfectly honest, there probably weren't enough lawyers in the world for the number of roles there were in each jurisdiction. But and we saw US firms, for example, start to go, actually, let's we've dealt with a lot of people who have come out of X, Y, Z firm in Australia via somewhere else. Um they're great, they're they're fantastically well trained, uh, they fit in really well, um, it's an amazing kind of hire. Why don't we go straight to the Australian market? And that's something that I've seen open up, but I've also seen it have times since then where perhaps the market's been a little bit quieter and uh firms haven't been the same firms who previously were happy to hire haven't been as interested. So I guess sort of in terms of kind of being able to tap into the the sent the you know the sentiments of the market with Australians, presumably that London link and and and again the US link as well, increasingly because obviously when it comes to visa perspective from a visa perspective, Aussies often are eligible for a different to go down. We're not gonna give visa visa advice, immigration advice, but you know, they are eligible for a different type of visa, which means you can avoid the the lottery in the same, you know, in the way that a UK or a UK national couldn't. Um so I mean how how have you found tapping into that network and and that sort of mood music and and what trends have you seen in terms of the last yeah, obviously you've been back with us for a year, but you obviously have been in Australia doing this for a lot longer. How have you seen that sort of fluctuate over time?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think um on relocation it very much is peaks and troughs. Yeah. Um I think it's very clear, it's easy to create or to discuss patterns in relocation. So to your point around pre-COVID, um, it there was a sort of an appetite, but not a massive demand, to relocate Australians. It tended to be in particular court areas, corporate, private equity, etc. Um, 100% after COVID, obviously in 2021, we saw what we refer to in Australia as the golden years of relocation, where literally anyone and everyone could get a job in another jurisdiction. Um, and obviously that's completely down to the market conditions. You know, it is very evident that firms weren't hiring during COVID, they then needed to hire people. Everybody in the their home jurisdictions, the US, the UK, moved. And then at some stage, the firms were then in a position to expand. And we all know that you know, most law firms were in expansion mode most of the time. Yeah. And at that stage, to your point, they'd run out of options in those jurisdictions. They came to Australia, everyone had what we call the conveyance. Belt out of Australia. But yeah, completely to that point, that hasn't happened since. There's been a steady flow, I would say, out of Australia. And I think that's again, it's all partly down to macroeconomic conditions. I think it really does depend on what's going on in the world. So this year, what we've seen is definitely a lot of activity for relocators earlier on in the year. For the last two years, I think a lot of Australian recruiters and the market has generally seen that we're starting to see that uptick again in terms of that appetite for Australians. We were expecting this year to be the year where it kind of maybe not blew up like 2021, but there was sort of that bit more ease, I guess, to move. But I think two months into being back at SSQ, Trump was elected in the US, uh, targeted US law firms. And as we all know, when there is a bit of uncertainty in the market, law firms tend to not need to hire or not want to spend money on recruitment. Um they are conservative beasts after all, isn't it? Conservative beasts. And that filters down through all of recruitment, right? So that filtered from New York down to London to an extent at associate level. And then what we started to see is um a bit more specificity as to who they wanted to hire, which tended to be locally qualified lawyers. Yeah. So this year, um, what we've seen is around 33 lawyers moved from Australia to the New York market. Is that it? Only 33 lawyers this year, and we've run various different searches through our very nifty softwares and AIs, etc. And uh that's the kind of general 32 of them you, right? Yeah, something like that. Um yeah, a very small number of people. And and that makes again natural sense given that there's been quite a lot of conversation in the world, or in the US in particular, around immigration and uh and again, you know, targeting of the US law firms in that market.
SPEAKER_02But and I think it also it goes to the point as well that having someone who understands both sides of where someone's moving from and where someone's moving to, and the mood music of kind of what market sentiment is is really important because again, there will be so many people who go, Oh, I've got a friend who made the move, and they won't factor in the fact that the person made the move in 21 or the person made the move at a time when it was a boom market or whatever. So actually having someone who can and uh deliberately using the word advise rather than recruit, but to have someone who can kind of act as your advisor and be like, hey, look, that's what the conditions were like then. We're now looking at something where it's slightly different. So, yes, we can, you know, if you want to run at this, we can run at it, but actually, maybe you're better keeping your powder dry, which to a lot of recruiters, you know, a lot of people talking to talking about recruitment, they go, but that's daft. You're a recruiter saying don't move right now. But it kind of goes down to our long-term relationships that we want to have with people, we want to advise people that they want to keep on talking to us. Um it really, I think it really does kind of talk again to the strength of what our global platform can offer. Um you spoke about corporate lawyers finding it easier than certain other practice areas. Where would you say, you know, not again anyone can move not within reason, anyone can move uh anywhere just finding the right fit or whatever? But what practice areas do you find there's more movement between different jurisdictions? And is that different to sort of what you see in terms of activity levels within the domestic market as well? Yeah, do you find that actually transactional lawyers often will leave and then you have other things getting hotter in the domestic market? I mean, what what what sort of trends do you see?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think the the trends on practice area really ties back into the trends globally. So to the point about this year, where there's been a sort of um a slowdown in in the need or the demand for Australians internationally, it goes back to core areas of business. So uh the area that's had the highest demand in New York this year has been energy for Australian relocators. Yeah. Makes complete sense because in Australia right now, it's the biggest um is the biggest booming sector of the economy is the renewable energy market. So of those 33 lawyers I mentioned, the majority were either corporate MA lawyers in energy, project development lawyers in energy, and project finance lawyers in energy. Um, to the point around jurisdictions as well, you know, the core areas that Australians want to move to tend to be New York, London, and the UAE. And so when you're looking at those markets, for example, at the UAE, and we're looking at the sort of uptick in workflows from the Saudi market, again, it's down that construction route. And Australians having been part of construction for 10 years now in terms of development in the country, those always have an incredible skill set that's then sought after internationally.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, when you're looking at London, I think there's a bit more of an openness to various different types of practice area. You know, in a good market, again, going back to that conditions point, if there is a high demand, then you can see real uh relocators moving in areas like insurance, employment, litigation, which tend to be quite difficult in a slow market. This year, um, the the main areas that have been hired for in London are corporate banking, I mean, realistically, finance. Um, you know, if you're looking at um the area with the most demands. And again, you know, uh it's all dependent on the uh demands of the jurisdiction. So um we we know as a business that we're spoken to from our clients continually about areas like uh the secondary's market, uh data centers now being a massive focus internationally, and so that then creates this demand for real estate lawyers, real estate finance lawyers on the financing of those data centers, again, energy lawyers with a tie-in with renewable energy on data centers. Yeah, and so those Australians who work in those areas in Australia are suddenly super high demand internationally. Um, in fact, I spoke to a lawyer recently who's a real estate lawyer who had been told, you know, it'd be quite difficult to move or relocate as a real estate lawyer. Uh but then when I went through their practice and realized it had done quite a lot of data center work, immediately light bulbs go off in my mind and say, look, actually, that's the one topic we're talking about pretty much every day in any jurisdiction that we're working in. So uh I guess the summary of that is is when you're looking at a relocation, often lawyers say, I just want to move to London, I just want to move to New York, I just want to move to the UAE. But it all depends on the demands of their practice area, the the current market conditions for the appetite for relocators. To know those things inside out, you need to work with uh an agency that understands those jurisdictions really well, understands what's going on the market, and also the the final point I'd make is to not waste people's time. Um, you know, I actually really enjoy saying to lawyers that now's not the time to move in your practice area, or now's not the time to move to the UAE. Yeah, um, let's sit tight, let's stay in contact, and when the market picks back up, you'll have a much higher chance of getting a role, but also a much higher chance of getting a role that suits you. Yeah. You know, not just the role to get to that jurisdiction.
SPEAKER_02Not just a role, but actually the right role.
SPEAKER_01Because it's incredibly difficult when you relocate from Australia, and it's important to put the effort in to try and find a role that suits your preference as much as possible, of course.
SPEAKER_02Now, Kamara, thank you so much for joining me. It's been great to have you on the podcast, and I hope that we'll get you on again soon to talk about everything odds and uh other things as well. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Ben. Thanks.