Perth partner Tim Lester heads up the recruitment drive. He could not confirm with Lawyers Weekly the specific number of employees who have already received this fee, but said the strategy has been helped the firm meet its Perth resourcing needs.

The $20,000 finder's fee was announced in October last year, doubling the amount offered for similar referrals in Melbourne and Sydney.

The Perth office is the only office to also offer a financial incentive for staff members who are able to source CVs and interviews for potential candidates - even if such candidates are not consequently hired.

"There have been a good number of phase one incentives where we've had a real upturn in the number of people we've been seeing in terms of CVs and interviews and we've hired several people which has led to referral payments being made," said Lester.

He added that the legal recruitment market has been tight in recent months, despite comments that the global financial crisis merely presented a "slight hiccup" for the region.

"WA didn't feel the effects of the financial crisis as acutely as other parts of Australia," said Lester.

"That was largely influenced by the large scale projects underway. While there was a hiccup in terms of activity and a slight slowdown in transaction execution, transactions weren't necessarily canned they were just slowed to allow the effects of the crisis to pass.

"Very quickly the market has once again become very tight so we do need to look beyond the available pool of resources here."

Lester added that the international nature of the work being undertaken by Allens in the Perth office means that the firm needs to look for lawyers with experience beyond Western Australia.