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Top London Firms Win Over Junior Ranks as Morale Rebounds
Legal Week
June 20, 2008
The grim trends of plunging morale and droves of junior lawyers quitting the profession has been substantially reversed, according to Legal Week research that shows job satisfaction among U.K. associates is sharply rising.
Legal Week Intelligence's annual Employment Satisfaction Survey found that three years of heavy investment, a stream of quality-of-life initiatives and a little help from the credit crunch have collectively made junior lawyers distinctly happier with their lot.
The report, which canvassed nearly 3,200 U.K.-based lawyers below partner level, illustrates a reversal of long-term trends that had seen growing numbers of lawyers looking to leave the law.
Only 19 percent said their ambition was to move out of private practice, down from 31 percent when this survey was first conducted in 2005. This improvement was more pronounced among women lawyers, who have been widely perceived to be turning away from the profession, with 24 percent of female respondents aiming to leave private practice, down from 37 percent three years ago.
In another symbolic finding, the report found junior lawyers' lack of ambition for partnership has begun to reverse after a three-year decline. Fifty percent of respondents cited partnership at their own firm as their ultimate goal, against 47 percent last year. Assistants also generally cited partnership as more important than in previous years.
Commenting on the findings, senior lawyers said this showed the value of offering assistants a realistic chance of partnership.
Norton Rose chief executive Peter Martyr commented: "We have been making up a lot of partners quite deliberately recently. We want to encourage ambition among our associates."
Herbert Smith managing partner David Willis said: "If individual partners have got better at explaining their roles and showing to associates where they get a kick out of it, then that enthusiasm for the job will rub off."
Other findings in the report reinforce the theme of rising satisfaction levels. Key results include the following:
The number of lawyers looking for a new job has fallen from 14 percent in 2007 to 12 percent. For midlevel associates, job seekers have fallen from 16 percent last year to 10 percent.
Satisfaction with salaries has risen to an average score of 7.0 out of 10, against 6.6 in 2007.
Satisfaction with work-life balance has continued to improve, rising from an average score of 6.1 to 6.8 since 2005.
Partner alternatives are continuing to grow in popularity and appear to have been successful in stemming the flow of women from the profession. Thirteen percent cited such roles as their primary career goal, up from 10 percent in 2007. This figure grows to 17 percent for female respondents.
The report also confirms that some of London's top firms, which have traditionally lagged well behind their midtier rivals, have made significant improvements in their individual staff satisfaction rankings.
Anil Shah, managing director at LPA Legal Recruitment, said: "The bigger firms offer more stability in tricky economic conditions than the midtier firms. Associates are turning to them more often -- even if it means taking less money."
The question now is the extent to which leading London firms will remain committed to their progressive agenda during what is expected to be a sustained downturn in commercial activity.
Such slumps have previously seen law firms take a tougher line in performance reviews but it is uncertain whether top London firms will risk damaging their hard-won "good employer" credentials through aggressive measures.
The 200-page report, now in its fourth edition, is the most comprehensive snapshot of the attitudes and priorities of commercial lawyers working in the U.K.
