Building law firms and careers with transformational moves.
Group8 is an independent strategic advisory and search firm for the legal sector. Since 2017, law firms and senior lawyers have trusted our knowledge and judgement with their defining moves: the partner hire that opens a market, the team that builds a practice, the career decision that shapes the next decade.
From London, New York and Sydney, we have delivered projects in 13 cities across four continents. Most of our team have lived and worked in the legal sector around the world, from Sydney and Singapore to Dubai, London, New York and Milan, and between us we speak several European languages. Wherever the search leads, you work with experienced senior advisers who know the market first-hand, from the first conversation to the first day.
Whether you are building a firm or shaping a career, we treat your goals as our own. We work with clients in depth, often over many years, and represent them to the market with the same care they would. For senior lawyers, we are a discreet and trusted sounding board at every step, and 89% of the partners we place stay with their new firm.
Our first priority is understanding you: your firm's culture and strategy, or your practice and ambitions. That understanding, built over years rather than a single brief, is what lets us represent you with conviction. Our team brings more than 75 years' combined experience in the legal sector, but our clients tell us the real difference is how well we know them.
Every conversation begins with research. For law firms, our market mapping shows who is out there, what they bring and what it would take to move them. For senior lawyers, it puts you in control of a search tailored entirely to you. You built your career with care. Your next move deserves the same. Either way, we help you see avenues of potential others miss.
We go further on every brief, because the details are where the right outcome is won. We never stop asking “is there a better way?”, and we coach and support you at every step, because the journey matters as much as the destination. Success, for us, is measured by the impact growth has on people, firms and markets.
We question everything until we understand exactly what is needed, then deliver it through one integrated global team.
Group8 consistently delivers results and reflects a deep understanding of our firm’s needs and values.
“The level of knowledge, access, insight and care sets Group8 apart. It feels like a shared enterprise.”
“I struggle to trust recruiters… but I feel like I can say stuff to you guys and you’ll listen.”
“Warm, genuine, highly supportive and very effective.”
With hubs in London, New York and Sydney, we work with clients across every major legal market. Speak directly to the principal for your region.
For general enquiries, contact acceler8@groupeightglobal.com
Group8 Consulting Ltd is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your working relationship with us, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).It applies to all employees, workers, contractors, candidates and individuals at clients or potential clients of ours.
Group8 Consulting Ltd is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.This notice applies to current and former employees, workers, contractors, candidates and individuals at clients or potential clients of ours in respect of whom we hold personal data. This notice does not form part of any contract of employment, a contract to provide services or any other contract. We may update this notice at any time.It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.
We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).There are “special categories” of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection.
Depending on the circumstances, we may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:
We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information:
We may collect personal information about employees, workers, contactors, candidates and individuals at clients or potential clients of ours in a number of different ways. This includes through an application and recruitment process, either directly from candidates or sometimes from another employment agency, employment business or background check provider. We may sometimes collect information from third parties including former employers, credit reference agencies or other background check agencies. Individuals at clients may provide us with their contact details as part of a discussion about our services.We may also collect personal data which is publicly available on websites such as jobs boards, LinkedIn, or similar recruitment-related websites. We may use third-party applications which source their data from publicly-available websites.We may collect additional personal information in the course of job-related activities throughout the period of you working for us or where you undertake a placement.
We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we may use your personal information in the following circumstances:
We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:
We may need the categories of information (in the section ‘The kind of information we hold about you’) for the reasons set out above (‘How we may use information about you’). Primarily this will be where we are taking steps at your request prior to entering into a contract and to perform a contract we have entered into with you (or your employer or a company related to you), and in some cases we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
The situations in which we may process your personal information are listed below. The list below indicates the categories of data which may be involved in processing your personal information (depending on the circumstances). The list also indicates, by numbers at the end of each category corresponding to the list in the box above ‘How we may use information about you’, the purpose or purposes for which we may process your personal information (depending on the circumstances).
If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as paying you or providing a benefit), or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of our workers).
We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.We may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent where this is required or permitted by law.
“Special categories” of sensitive personal data require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:
Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public. We may also process such information about members or former members in the course of legitimate business activities with the appropriate safeguards.
We may use special categories of personal information in the following ways:
We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent. You should be aware that it is not a condition of your contract with us that you agree to any request for consent from us.
We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations and provided we do so in line with our data protection policy.
Less commonly, we may use information relating to criminal convictions where it is necessary in relation to legal claims, where it is necessary to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.
We envisage that we may hold information about criminal convictions.
We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so. Where appropriate, we will collect information about criminal convictions as part of the recruitment process or we may be notified of such information directly by you in the course of you working for us. We may use information about criminal convictions and offences in the following ways:
Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention. We are allowed to use automated decision-making in any of the following circumstances:
If we make an automated decision on the basis of any special category data, we must have either your explicit written consent or it must be justified in the public interest, and we must also put in place appropriate measures to safeguard your rights.You will not be subject to decisions which have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you.
We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other entities in the group.We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.We may transfer your personal information outside the EU.If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.
We may share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.
“Third parties” includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents) and other entities within our group. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: payroll, pension administration, benefits provision and administration, IT services, and recruitment services.
All our third-party service providers and other entities in the group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
We may share your personal information with other entities in our group as part of our regular reporting activities on company performance, in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise, for system maintenance support and hosting of data, or where we consider that another group entity is better placed to consider your suitability for a potential role.
We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business. We may also need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.
We may transfer the personal information we collect about you to the following countries outside the EU for the reasons we have set out above: India. There is not an adequacy decision by the European Commission in respect of that country. This means that the country’s domestic law or international commitments have not been determined by the European Commission to provide an adequate level of protection for your personal information.
However, to ensure that your personal information does receive an adequate level of protection we have put in place the following appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information is treated by those third parties in a way that is consistent with and which respects the EU and UK laws on data protection: (i) organisations to which your personal data is sent outside of the EU have a legally binding contract with us, governed by English Law, requiring them to comply with UK legislation relating to data protection; (ii) all personal data is kept strictly confidential and can only be disclosed as required by the contract; and (iii) only those staff who need to have access to personal data for the performance of their contractual obligations are permitted to have access to it.
We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information, for example to backup and protect the integrity of our electronic communications and data storage systems. Details of these measures are available upon request.Third parties may only process your personal information on our instructions and where they have agreed to treat the information confidentially and to keep it secure.
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They may only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.
We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you. Once you are no longer an employee, worker, contractor or candidate of the company or an individual working at a clients or potential client of ours, we will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.
Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:
If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please write to us.
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.
In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please write to us. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.
We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the DPO. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.
We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.If you have any questions about this data protection / privacy notice, please contact us.
Your use of this website is subject to the following terms and conditions, which you are deemed to accept each time you use the website.
Whilst Group8 try to ensure the standard of this website remains high and to maintain continuity of it, the internet is not an inherently stable medium, and errors, omissions, interruptions of service and delays may occur at any time. We do not accept any liability from any such errors, omissions, interruptions or delays or any ongoing obligation or responsibility to operate this website (or any particular part of it) or to provide the service offered on this website. We may vary the specification of this site from time to time without notice.
On this site you may be offered automatic links to other sites which we hope will be of interest to you. We do not accept any responsibility for or liability in respect of the content on those sites, the owners of which do not necessarily have any connection, commercial or otherwise, with us. Using automatic links to gain access to such sites is entirely at your own risk.
Whilst we make every effort to ensure that the information on this site is accurate and complete, some of the information is supplied to us by third parties and we are not able to check the accuracy or completeness of that information. We do not accept any liability arising from any inaccuracy or omission in any of the information on this site or any liability in respect of information on this site supplied by you, any other site user or any other person.
You may only use this website for lawful purposes when seeking investment, help with business expansion or employment. You must not under any circumstances seek to undermine the security of the site or any information submitted to or available through it. In particular, but without limitation, you must not seek to access, alter or delete any information to which you do not have authorised access, seek to overload the system via spamming or flooding, take any action or use any device, routine or software to crash, delay, damage or otherwise interfere with the operation of this site or attempt to decipher, disassemble or modify any of the software, coding or information comprised in the site.
You are solely responsible for any information submitted by you to this site. You are responsible for ensuring that all information supplied by you is true, accurate, up-to-date and not misleading or likely to mislead or deceive and that it is not discriminatory, obscene, offensive, defamatory or otherwise illegal, unlawful or in breach of any applicable legislation, regulations, guidelines or codes of practice or the copyright, trade mark, or other intellectual property rights of any person in any jurisdiction. You are also responsible for ensuring that all information, data and files are free of viruses or other routines or engines that may damage or interfere with any system or data prior to being submitted to this site. We reserve the right to remove any information supplied by you from the website at your sole discretion, at any time and for any reason without being required to give any explanation.
The rights in material on this site are protected by international copyright, software and trademark laws and you agree to use this site in a way which does not infringe these rights. You may copy material on this site for your own private or domestic purposes, but no copying for any commercial or business use is permitted.
We accept no liability for any loss (whether direct or indirect, for loss of business, revenue or profits, wasted expenditure, corruption or destruction of data or for any other indirect or consequential loss whatsoever) arising from your use of the site and we hereby exclude any such liability, whether in contract, tort (including for negligence) or otherwise. We hereby exclude all representations, warranties and conditions relating to this website and your use of it to the maximum extent permitted by law.
You agree to indemnify us and keep us indemnified against all costs, expenses, claims, losses, liabilities or proceedings arising from use or misuse by you of this site.
You must notify us immediately if anyone makes or threatens to make any claim against you relating to your use of this site.
The use of this website and any agreements entered into through this website are to be governed by and construed in accordance with English law. The courts of England are to have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute arising out of or in connection with the use of this website or any agreement made through this website.
Changes to terms and conditions and invalidity
These website terms and conditions may be changed by us at any time. You will be deemed to accept the terms and conditions (as amended) when you next use this site following any amendment.
If any provision of these terms and conditions is held to be invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction, such invalidity shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions, which shall remain in full force and effect.