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After a year where legal recruitment in Australia virtually halted on most fronts, there are definite signs of a slow but sure recovery  which bodes well for the first half of 2010. Overall, the Australian economy survived the crisis relatively unscathed vis a vis other first world countries with only short term, small negative growth recorded. It never dived into full scale recession. Official Australian Reserve Bank interest rates went through a downward spiral in the first part of 2009 down to their lowest point in decades, around 3%, but for the last three consecutive months have consistently risen and unemployment did not balloon out as expected. Transactional practice areas such as banking, corporate and property were the hardest hit, like in other locations but practice areas like employment / workplace relations, litigation and insolvency remained relatively buoyant. That didn’t result in more recruitment though as firms tended to utilise their existing resources before going to market.  As business confidence and foreign interest continues to grow in Australia and new transactional instructions gain added momentum in terms of volume, firms will begin to require adequate leveraging again resulting in more recruitment. Many of those made redundant were those lawyers at the mid level. There will also be some effect to the recruitment market of lawyers who would have normally moved in 2009, but couldn’t, leaving gaps as they move on to other opportunities as they arise. That is yet to be seen. Australian client firms that Marsden International has recently spoken to have generally expressed cautious optimism for legal recruitment in 2010. For the short term at least as things begin to balance out Australian qualified lawyers who do not require sponsorship into Australia will be preferred as firms consider that "local" talent is abundant and can’t justify the added cost that sponsorship and requalification brings. However, exceptional foreign qualified lawyers will be at least considered if they have a particular "value ad" in terms of experience. So, overall it is well worth exploring Australian options as the market is likely to recover relatively quickly particularly in the transactional practice areas. Other practice areas that will become very much in demand across states will be litigation, insolvency, environment and planning, energy, employment and insolvency.