What an Unfilled Legal Vacancy Actually Costs Your South Coast Law Firm

By Ben Holtom, Founder of RecQuest

An unfilled solicitor vacancy at a South Coast law firm typically costs between £8,000 and £15,000 per month in lost billing capacity alone, before factoring in the knock-on effects on existing staff and client service.

With UK permanent placements having fallen for 45 consecutive months according to the KPMG and REC Report on Jobs, many Hampshire, Dorset and Surrey firms are sitting on vacancies longer than they should, and the cost is compounding quietly.

The visible cost: lost billing

The simplest way to estimate the cost of an empty desk is lost billing. A mid-level solicitor with three to five years PQE billing at a modest £200 per hour and recording six chargeable hours a day generates roughly £6,000 per week in gross fees. Over a month, that is approximately £24,000 to £26,000.

Not all of that would be profit. Salary, overheads and write-offs reduce the net figure. But even at a conservative 30% margin, an unfilled mid-level vacancy represents around £7,000 to £8,000 in lost net contribution per month.

For a conveyancing fee earner in Bournemouth handling 60 to 80 completions a year, the calculation differs but the direction is the same. Every month the desk sits empty, five to seven completions do not happen. At £1,000 to £1,500 average revenue per completion, that is £5,000 to £10,000 in missed fees.

These are estimates, not audited figures. Every firm's rates, utilisation and overheads differ. But the point stands. Empty desks are not free.

The hidden cost: what happens to everyone else

The financial cost is the easiest to quantify and rarely the most damaging. When a role sits unfilled, the work does not disappear. It redistributes.

Other fee earners absorb the caseload. Secretaries and paralegals stretch across more files. The partner who should be developing client relationships is instead reviewing files that should have been handled by the departed associate.

On the South Coast, where many firms run lean teams of 10 to 30 staff, the impact is felt quickly. A two partner family team in Fareham losing one solicitor is not absorbing one third of a workload. They are absorbing it while also covering court attendances, client meetings and compliance obligations that do not reduce with headcount.

The Law Society's 2025 sector insights report for mid-sized firms found that difficulty recruiting and developing staff was the single biggest threat identified by respondents, at 41.3%. The same report found 30.9% felt office culture had worsened. Those two findings are connected.

The client cost: what you cannot invoice for

When a team is stretched, response times slow. File reviews take longer. Clients wait an extra day for a call back. None of this appears on a profit and loss statement, but it shows up in retention and referral rates.

A private client solicitor in Winchester managing 120 active files who should be managing 80 is not delivering poor work. They are delivering adequate work more slowly. The difference matters because clients talk. A conveyancing client who waits three days for an update tells their estate agent. A family client who cannot reach their solicitor tells their friends.

For South Coast firms competing against private equity backed consolidators with dedicated client service teams, this is not abstract. Our earlier piece on PE consolidation and independent firm hiring explored how the landscape is shifting. Leaving vacancies open while consolidators invest in capacity hands them the advantage.

Why vacancies stay open longer than they should

Three patterns come up repeatedly with hiring partners across Hampshire, Dorset and Surrey.

Salary benchmarked against the wrong year. A firm in Salisbury pricing a litigation solicitor at £38,000 because that is what they paid in 2022 will struggle in a market where the same role now commands considerably more. The market has moved. The salary needs to move with it. Worse, an under-priced role produces silence rather than rejections, so firms often never learn that pay was the problem.

Specifications that describe the ideal rather than the essential. A wills and probate role requiring 5+ years PQE, own following preferred, immediate start, at £42,000 is describing a candidate who has no reason to move. Flexibility on PQE, willingness to build a following together, and a competitive offer will fill it faster. Our guide on what legal candidates actually look for in a job advert covers this properly.

Decisions that take too long. Strong legal candidates are not waiting six weeks for a second interview. They are fielding multiple approaches. Around 62% of candidates lose interest when a process drags beyond what they expected. Our analysis of why commercial solicitors rarely apply for jobs explains the dynamic.

What to do about it

If you have a legal vacancy that has been open for more than eight weeks, four things are worth checking this week.

Check the salary against current market data, not what you paid previously. RecQuest can provide South Coast specific benchmarking for any legal role, and LawBoard's salary estimator gives a quick national comparison.

Review the specification honestly. Is every requirement genuinely essential, or are some on a wish list that is narrowing the pool for no real gain?

Shorten the process. If a strong candidate is available, can you interview within five working days and decide within three days of final interview? Speed is a competitive advantage. The fastest role we have run from brief to offer took five days. The slowest took nine weeks, and the difference was almost entirely process rather than candidate availability.

Calculate the actual cost of the vacancy. Run the billing calculation above for your specific role and share the number with whoever approves headcount. It changes the conversation from whether you can afford to hire into whether you can afford not to.

The SRA fee increase in 2026 is adding further pressure to firm budgets. Factoring vacancy cost alongside rising regulatory cost gives a clearer picture of the total financial impact of delayed hiring.

Find out what your hiring is really costing you

The Legal Hiring Health Check is a free five minute assessment. It benchmarks your salary levels, time to hire and process against what firms in your area are actually doing, and shows you where you are losing candidates.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How much does an unfilled solicitor vacancy cost per month?

For a mid-level solicitor billing at £200 an hour across six chargeable hours a day, gross lost billing is roughly £24,000 to £26,000 a month. At a conservative 30% margin that is around £7,000 to £8,000 in lost net contribution. For a conveyancing fee earner, five to seven missed completions a month equates to £5,000 to £10,000 in missed fees.

Is it cheaper to leave a role open than to pay a recruitment fee?

Almost never. A single month of lost billing on a mid-level fee earner typically exceeds the entire recruitment fee for the role. The comparison firms should be making is not fee against salary, it is fee against the monthly cost of the desk staying empty.

Why do legal vacancies take so long to fill?

Usually one of three reasons: the salary is benchmarked against an earlier year, the specification is written as a wish list rather than a set of essentials, or the process carries too many stages with too long between them. Candidate availability is rarely the actual constraint.

Should we use a locum instead?

Locum cover keeps files moving and can be the right answer short term, particularly for conveyancing. It is rarely cheaper over several months, and it does not build the client relationships a permanent fee earner would. It works best as a bridge rather than a substitute.

How quickly can a legal role realistically be filled?

A shortlist within a week of taking the brief is normal. From brief to offer, the fastest we have completed is five days and the longest around nine weeks. The variable is almost always interview structure and feedback speed.

Ben Holtom is the founder of RecQuest, a specialist legal recruitment consultancy covering Hampshire, Dorset, Surrey, West Sussex and Wiltshire. For a confidential conversation about your next hire, contact info@recquest.co.uk.