US heavyweight Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy could well have fired the starting pistol on another summer pay war after upping the salaries of its London-based newly qualified (NQ) lawyers to £143,000 ($190,000).
The Wall Street firm, which dishes out around five City training contracts annually, confirmed the staggering pay boost in an internal memo to its lawyers yesterday. Prior to the uplift, Milbank’s NQs received a salary of roughly £124,000. The new remuneration levels — in full below — are pegged against the dollar and effective from July 1.
The 12-office outfit confirmed to Legal Cheek that London trainee pay remains unchanged: £42,000 in year one, rising to £46,000 in year two. It provides an £8,000 grant for both the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and Legal Practice Course (LPC), too.
Don’t expect it to remain on its own at the top for long.
In 2016, New York-headquartered stalwart Cravath, Swaine & Moore bumped US junior lawyer pay from $160,000 (then £110,000) to $180,000 (then £124,000). Triggering a MoneyLaw pay war across the pond, a host of US firms quickly followed Cravath’s lead and chucked the same increases at their London lawyers.
Milbank’s new salary levels:
1st year — $190,000 (£143,000)
2nd year — $200,000 (£150,000)
3rd year — $220,000 (£165,000)
4th year — $250,000 (£188,000)
5th year — $275,000 (£207,000)
6th year — $295,000 (£222,000)
7th year — $315,000 (£237,000)
8th year — $330,000 (£248,000)
A newly qualified solicitor has reportedly put her legal career on hold to take part in ITV2’s popular sun-soaked reality TV show Love Island.
Rosie Williams, 26, from Rhondda in South Wales, is understood to be one of two new not-so-secret contestants entering the villa this week, despite only fulfilling her dream of becoming a solicitor three months ago.
Amid media speculation, the Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed to Legal Cheek this afternoon that Williams was at Manchester-based outfit Just Costs Solicitors (JCS). She qualified as a solicitor on March 1 and is no longer an employee of the firm.
A quick scan of the JCS website does however throw up what appears to be an old blog post of Williams’ during her time as a trainee. The topic? The implementation of fixed fees in clinical negligence cases — so a far cry from your standard Love Island chat.
Williams, who refers to herself as “Legally Brunette” in several of her Instagram posts, completed her Legal Practice Course (LPC) at the University of Law. Legal Cheek has been unable to verify which university she attended for her undergraduate degree.
In one Insta-shot, Williams can be seen posing in front of balloons spelling out the word “solicitor”. Having just qualified, the accompanying caption reads: “I left school 8 years ago with the dream of becoming a lawyer. I actually cannot believe that I stand here today able to call myself a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England & Wales!!”
In another social media snap, part-time bikini model Williams is pictured at the Manchester office of international law firm Clyde & Co. The caption indicates she completed a “secondment” at the firm.
“Rosie ticks all the boxes of a Love Island contestant. She’s young, glamorous and up for some fun,” a source reportedly told The Sun. They added: “She quit her job to go on the show, but it’s thought she didn’t tell them why — just that she wanted a change of direction.”
Williams previously dated 25-year-old TV star Jordan Davies, from ITV2 reality show Ibiza Weekender. Her brother-in-law is the Welsh champion boxer Liam Williams.
Don’t listen to anyone who tells you it’s impossible
When he was hanging around in the park when he should have been at school, little did this young lawyer at a US firm in London know that in just a few years he would be negotiating multi-million pound deals. He shares some advice.
I got a handful of GCSEs from a less than average state school. Between the ages of 13 to 18, being around the taking and selling of Class A drugs was an everyday occurrence. Now looking back, more than half of my school friends have since done at least one stint in prison. That could so easily have been me too but fast forward down the line a few years and I’m living life as an associate at one of the top US firms in the City of London. I live in Zone 1 and have been fortunate to spend two six month secondments living and working abroad on international secondment. As a result I am a passionate believer in no matter what your background, upbringing or where you are from you can make it as a lawyer. So here are my top tips:
Never lose sight
Be in it for the right reasons. These reasons need to be right for you. There is nothing wrong with being in it for the money and aspiring to be a partner by your mid-30s at a US firm in the City purely for the pay cheque. Or perhaps you want to work with FTSE100 companies and run your owns deals which will showcase the front page of the FT or even work with human rights cases and make a real difference. When I was hanging around in the park when I should have been at school, little did I know in just a few years I would be negotiating multi-million pound deals from a skyscraper in central Europe.
Play the long game
It is possible to train outside of London and then make the move in to a top firm. You can move to a US firm without having time at the magic circle and with grades from an ex-poly. Sometimes you need to plan where you want to be in several years from now and figure out what preliminary steps you can take to help you get there. For example if you work at small un-heard of firm but want to move to a US firm a preliminary step could be to make a move to a large mid-market London firm with a strong brand.
Rules can always be broken
Don’t listen to anyone who tells you it cannot be done. There is no ‘stereotypical’ lawyer. I hate politics and I’m fed up with the Brexit debate. I’d rather be drinking and dancing in Dalston. You can still party like crazy at the weekends (and even in the week!) and be a ‘City lawyer’. The media and the legal press like to portray law as a career choice and lifestyle which is exclusive and not open to everyone. This simply isn’t the case and some of the best lawyers I have worked with and opposite are from the most humble of beginnings.
The writer is a lawyer at a leading US law firm in London, who trained at a small regional firm.
We’ve come a long way since the 1970s — but not far enough
Fiona Woolf
When Fiona Woolf became the second ever woman to be Lord Mayor of London, it was hardly the City solicitor’s first foray into a male-dominated environment. Early in her career, the energy specialist joined the corporate law department at Clifford Chance at a time when there were only three female solicitors in the whole firm.
Nowadays, there are actually more women than men practising as solicitors. The Law Society revealed earlier this month that the profession is now 50.2% female. But partnership is still dominated by men, and Woolf — who became the first ever female partner at CMS in 1981 — thinks that it’s no longer good enough.
Speaking to the new Thomson Reuters legal podcast The Hearing (embedded above and also available on iTunes and Spotify), hosted by Kevin Poulter, the former Lord Mayor said: “The statistics on female partners actually fell back during my time in office [she was President of the Law Society in 2006/07] from 25% to 22%”. Over a decade on, two thirds of partners are still male.
Woolf blames the “intense law firm focus on chargeable hours” rather than “talent development” — particularly when it comes to women who have had children.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do on that front”, Woolf says. “There was a period when it was considered career suicide to take a break. If you said you were going off to have a baby you would be put into some sort of siding, and the siding never got you back on track. It was a complete waste of talent”.
One organisation that does better than most, apparently, is the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The CPS rarely comes in for praise, but Woolf says that they “really value the talent that they have and keep people engaged when they’re on career breaks”. There’s “no excuse”, in this day and age, for other organisations not to keep up with the public sector on retaining female talent.
She told Poulter that as a student, the young Woolf was down to study chemistry and geology at Keele University but took up studying law after running into a law professor down the pub and being convinced to attend his lectures. It sounds like more fun than UCAS applications anyway.
And she reveals that it’s not just today’s law grads who obsess over which firm has the sweetest office. With offers from several big firms, Woolf says that she chose Clifford Chance “because they had the best view of St Paul’s Cathedral from the 16th floor”.
There were only a handful of other women working at Clifford Chance then. Woolf can still remember the names of all the other female associates at the time she joined the firm: there were two. She was the only woman doing corporate work, but didn’t find it particularly lonely or isolating: “everybody treated me as one of the boys”, Woolf says happily.
Nor did she experience any direct, dramatic discrimination — but plenty of stereotyping. Woolf recalls her interview for the council of the Law Society, who assumed she was a family lawyer.
They said, ‘but you’ve been nominated by the Association of Women Solicitors? That was why we asked the AWS to nominate someone — we were looking for a family lawyer’.
On being informed that she was in fact a corporate lawyer working on a massive energy project, “their jaws dropped”.
The sight of a woman making corporate deals wouldn’t drop jaws or raise eyebrows now, but it’s still particularly challenging for women to get ahead. Young female solicitors could do worse than heed Woolf life motto: “Get lucky and say yes”.
“It makes people laugh”, Woolfe admits, but “the serious message behind it is that you can actually create your own luck. You can, if you think about it, be in the right place at the right time. I’m a big fan of development plans. And the message behind saying yes is that it involves you getting out of your comfort zone. There’s nothing more delicious than feeling that you have, by rising to a challenge, learnt something, and you’re now in a different place than you were before you said yes”.
You can download The Hearing — with Kevin Poulter for free via iTunes, SoundCloud and Spotify
Glamorous staff eatery scores only 1 out 5 after food safety officer inspection
Food hygiene inspectors have given the canteen at Mishcon de Reya a lowly 1 out of 5 rating in a blow to the firm’s reputation for outstanding staff facilities.
Camden Council’s clipboard-wielding inspectors pulled up at the Holborn outfit on 21 March and found it lacking in “hygienic food handling”, “cleanliness and condition of facilities and building” and “management of food safety”. An overall rating of 1, while not the lowest possible score (you can get a zero) means that “major improvement is necessary”.
Mishcon de Reya has not responded to Legal Cheek‘s requests for comment.
The revelation is all the more awkward given the firm’s reputation for glitzy facilities. Insiders describe the swanky office in Africa House, Holborn, as “completely incredible”.
The 450-lawyer outfit won the coveted Most Admired Law Firm of 2018 at this year’s Legal Cheek awards, picking up the gong for being the top rated among trainees and junior lawyers asked to pick a favourite firm apart from their own. Its canteen won an A rating in the same survey.
But Mishcon de Reya has already attracted negative headlines this month. The outfit was accused by the family of murdered Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia of harassing the investigative reporter with libel demands.
Andrew Davies was struck off in 2016 after taking client cash and forging documents to cover his tracks
Bolton Crown Court
A former solicitor has been jailed for seven-and-a-half years after he duped an ex-dungeon master into believing he’d successfully secured over £700,000 in damages following an appearance on a Channel 4 documentary.
Andrew Davies, 34, falsely told Shaun O’Driscoll he was in line for a six-figure windfall from the broadcaster following a complaint about Me and my slaves — a documentary about S&M he was in.
However, according to Metro, Davies never pursued his client’s claim and then “forged documents” in an attempt to prove the payout was legit. The 58-year-old claimant only discovered he’d been misled after he asked court officials for the judgment.
Davies — who was the sole equity partner at Manchester-based conveyancing practice Robert Meaton & Co — “scammed other clients, colleagues and friends” out of £500,000, including thousands from a “man for whom he was best man”.
Bolton Crown Court heard how Davies used the cash to pay off the firm’s debts and then tried to blame staff when he was caught out. Robert Meaton & Co collapsed in 2014 costing 14 jobs, according to the report, while Davies was struck off the roll in 2016. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) judgment reads:
“[Davies] was entirely culpable for his actions. It appeared that the motivation for his conduct was for personal, financial gain… He acted in breach of a position of trust. [He] had complete control and responsibility for the circumstances giving rise to the misconduct. At the time in question he had sufficient experience to be able to run a firm properly but chose to run it dishonestly.”
Last month, the ex-solicitor, whose LinkedIn states he studied law at the University of Leicester, was due to return to court for criminal sentencing but failed to appear. He claimed he was going to take his own life, and was eventually found by police officers in a nearby café drinking coffee.
Prosecutor Stuart Neale reportedly described Davies’ actions as “severely negligent and fraudulent”. Davies’ barrister, Lincoln House Chambers’ Peter Warne, reportedly told the court:
“[Davies] was going through a mental meltdown and has offered his remorse for his action. When he entered the firm he found out the financial position was not as good as expected and he soon found out the trouble in running the firm at a young age. He did not have the experience and when he ran into difficulty he did not do the right thing by asking for help.”
Davies, who started life at Robert Meaton & Co as a trainee and took over the firm in 2012 following the death of Mr Meaton, admitted theft and forgery and was last week jailed for seven-and-a-half years.
Judge Timothy Stead told Davies: “Your offending was dishonest and astonishingly extreme and the impact upon victims is especially significant. This is a man who lies so often that it is clearly part of his make up.”
There is also a facility to comment on news stories, and a mode that allows users to continue browsing while offline.
Legal Cheek publisher Alex Aldridge said:
“We spoke to our core readership — undergraduate law students — and the consensus was that they wanted an enhanced app that integrated our news, independent law firm and chambers profiles and Key Deadlines Calendar in a more convenient and usable way. I then handed over large parts of the project to our young team, who with the help of our expert app designer have come up with a brilliant product that works very smoothly and is completely free.”
Firm currently undertaking ‘detailed review’ of staffing levels
Ince & Co is set to make a number of redundancies across the firm, but has told Legal Cheek this won’t affect its most junior lawyers.
It’s understood the shipping specialist will be making about 35 lawyers and support staff redundant following a “very detailed review” of staff numbers, but a spokesperson for Ince & Co has told us this sifting will have “no impact” on the number of newly qualified (NQ) positions available. A high proportion of second year trainees will be offered places, the spokesperson continued, just like in recent years. Last autumn, the firm retained a solid 90% of its NQ talent.
Whether this development will impact trainee numbers at Ince & Co — which takes on around ten trainees each year on a starting salary of £37,750 — remains to be seen. The spokesperson continued:
“We are currently finalising details of our trainee intake for this September and will be in a position to confirm exact numbers at the appropriate time.”
The City middleweight cited the need to adapt to ever-changing market conditions and the demand for legal services from its clients when announcing the impending overhaul. This move follows a number of recent developments to the business, including the restructure of its partnership model and investment in IT.
The firm is yet to disclose the exact split between lawyers and support staff in the firing line and which of its offices will take the hit. Legal Cheek‘s Firms Most List shows Ince & Co has 13 offices in eight countries.
In a statement, the firm said it wants to review staff numbers to ensure it has the right people in the right location. Andrew Jameson, head of Ince & Co’s London office and global HR director, said:
“While the proposed changes that we are making are for the good of our business and the ongoing success of our firm, we recognise that this will be unsettling for our people, who we will be fully supporting during this difficult period.”
This news comes just weeks after Legal Cheek reported that a first-year Ince & Co trainee was given the sack. The firm said the trainee was let go “purely for reasons of professional standards” and the decision “was not taken lightly and followed careful consideration”.
Alan Blacker, aka Lord Harley, has been charged with a benefits offence, two years after the eccentric solicitor was struck off the roll.
Blacker has been charged with “dishonestly failing to notify a change of circumstances affecting his entitlement to benefits, namely the improvement in his physical capabilities”. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said: “The allegation relates to claims for Disability Living Allowance.”
Blacker was notified of the charge in February 2018 and the case has already had its first spell in the courtroom.
The plea and trial preparation hearing took place at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court on 2 May, and has been listed for trial on 7 January 2019. The case is also listed for an application to dismiss on 13 July 2018, when, dependent on the outcome of this hearing, Blacker is expected to enter a plea. Legal Cheek has reached out to Blacker for comment.
Blacker hit headlines in 2014 during a bust-up with a judge at Cardiff Crown Court. Unhappy with the then solicitor-advocate’s appearance, the judge described Blacker as “like something out of Harry Potter”.
Then, Blacker’s incredible ‘Lord Harley’ LinkedIn profile came to light, which included claims he was a Transactional Analysis Psychoanalytical Psychologist, a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London a Licensed Boiler Examiner, and a Stanford University graduate (among many other things). A LinkedIn page, ‘Dr Alan Blacker Lord Harley KGCSt.J. DPhil’, is still live.
A screenshot from LinkedIn
Blacker was struck off in 2016 after multiple misconduct charges were proven.
Harley is being represented by Dominic D’Souza, a Goldsmith Chambers barrister who himself has quite an interesting LinkedIn profile. Highlights include court building selfies, inspirational quotes, nightclub antics and exchanges with yes, you guessed it, Harley.
Comments on this article are closed for legal reasons.
Rosie Williams has a law degree, an LPC and an LLM
Image credit: Instagram – Rosie Williams and Megan Barton-Hanson
A junior solicitor was left in tears in yesterday’s Love Island after the man she’s coupled up with flirted with a new contestant. Like newly qualified solicitor Rosie Williams, newbie Megan Barton-Hanson has experience working in a law firm, having been a legal secretary for three years.
Adam Collard is currently coupled up with Williams, but was seen seemingly trying to make moves on former legal PA Barton-Hanson. Collard told fellow islanders he thought Barton-Hanson was “fit”, and later asked her why she didn’t choose to go on a date with him. He later said of his current relationship with law graduate Williams:
“It’s good, don’t get me wrong, it’s good. But sometimes she can be a bit on top of us.”
This didn’t sit well with legal secretary turned glamour model Barton-Hanson, who described Collard’s behaviour as “sneaky” before confronting Williams about it. The feisty junior solicitor was having none of it, approaching Collard in front of everyone and asking: “Who else have you been slagging me off to?”
Williams left her job at Just Costs Solicitors in Manchester to enter the famous Love Island villa. Until very recently, what appeared to be an old blog post of Williams’ from her time as a trainee remained on the firm’s website. The topic was the implementation of fixed fees in clinical negligence cases — but it’s now been removed.
We also know that Williams has experience at Clyde & Co, as well as a Legal Practice Course (LPC) and a masters.
Barton-Hanson’s dabble with the law is less extensive than Williams’. She worked at a law firm for three years but, “struggling for money”, started stripping on the side. “Then I realised I was earning the same money that I did in a month in two days,” Barton-Hanson said.
Though having not one but two Love Island contestants with experience inside a law firm is unusual, stars of the ITV2 show have had a vast array of jobs. These include: A&E doctor, pen salesman, bomb disposal expert, dental nurse, circus performer and careers adviser.
A trainee City lawyer and self-confessed ASOS addict has revealed her mother still foots her phone bill — despite earning a salary of £45,000.
The anonymous 24-year-old rookie has recently graduated and is now working at a “swanky firm” in London, according to a piece she’s written in lifestyle website Refinery 29. She adds: “Yes, I have sold my soul to the corporate world.”
The trainee, who takes home around £2,580 after tax each month, lives in London with her boyfriend (also a lawyer) and pays £745 per month for her half of the rent. As for her other monthly expenses:
“I try very hard to avoid keeping track of what I spend (usually an obscene amount on ASOS and Deliveroo). I am very generous with money and find stingy people very hard to deal with.”
After providing a breakdown of her monthly expenses — including a £135 student loan repayment, £200 towards a Help to Buy ISA and £450 in other savings — she confesses that her mother still covers the cost of her phone bill. The trainee says:
“Yes, I am 24 and yes, my mother still pays for my phone bill (love you Mum). We have agreed that she will continue to pay until my contract is up in a year’s time.”
This helps free up the trainee to spend, in her words, “a vast amount on drinks with friends after work and food”. Other monthly expenses she does cover include: an £80 subsidised gym membership, £9.99 for Spotify, £15 on a Beauty Box membership, £10.42 for a subscription to The Times and £2.49 for storage on iTunes.
Money aside, the newbie solicitor explains life at the corporate coal face is unpredictable and often includes “all-nighters” at the office. She continues:
“It is also highly stressful and there is a lot of pressure. I regularly spend periods of time sitting at my desk mooting the idea of packing it all in and moving abroad. Alas, I don’t think I would be able to survive on a reduced salary.”
This isn’t the first time a lawyer has, anonymously, gone public with money matters.
In 2016, one high-flying City solicitor revealed that she struggles to save despite earning a hefty £72,000 a year. Equating to take home income of £3,184 each month, the London-based international dispute resolution specialist confessed to putting aside just £600. Her monthly spending log includes: housing costs (£950), a cleaner (£72), gym membership (£99), and that all important Netflix subscription (£9).
Artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and smart contracts are the buzzwords of the moment. And some reckon that their combined force could be about to disrupt the legal profession as we know it.
In the latest episode of The Hearing podcast, Child & Child solicitor Kevin Poulter discusses the practical impact of these technological developments with legal futurist Joe Raczynski.
While conceding that the noise around tech right now is almost at ‘Dotcom era’ levels, Raczynski argues that the rapid development of computer processor speed means that disruption of conventional legal service models is inevitable.
In particular, he identifies law firms’ partnering with universities and legal tech start-ups as a strong indicator that significant change could be just around the corner.
Associate consultant and footballer Eniola Aluko heads to Russia
Eniola Aluko. Image credit: Instagram (@enialuko)
A lawyer at elite magic circle player Slaughter and May is part of ITV’s World Cup punditry team in Russia, Legal Cheek can reveal.
Eniola Aluko, an associate consultant in Slaughters’ corporate team, is set to join regular pundits Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Ian Wright and Lee Dixon in ITV’s studio in Moscow later today. The World Cup officially gets underway this afternoon with the hosts Russia taking on Saudi Arabia at the Luzhniki Stadium.
According to her LinkedIn, Aluko studied law at Brunel University London before going on to complete the accelerated Legal Practice Course (LPC) at the College of Law (now The University of Law) in Moorgate. Law Society records show the 31-year-old qualified as a solicitor in 2015.
Law aside, Aluko is also an incredibly successful footballer. Having joined Birmingham City Ladies aged 15, the hot-shot striker went on to play for a plethora of clubs including Charlton Athletic, Saint Louis Athletica and Chelsea. Aluko — who played at international level for both England and Team GB — recently signed for Italian giants Juventus.
Having flown out to Russia earlier this week, Nigerian-born Aluko wasted no time in soaking up the pre-tournament atmosphere:
The World cup is here!!! Amazing atmosphere building here in Moscow. Catch me with Ryan Giggs & @JacquiOatley on @itvfootball for the opening game Russia v Saudia Arabia from 2.30pm (UK) pic.twitter.com/Ke1vf56GCa
Last year, Aluko was involved in a high-profile discrimination case against former England women’s manager Mark Sampson. The Football Association issued an apology to Aluko in October for “racially discriminatory remarks” made by Sampson in 2014.
Who needs a law degree? Not Ian Bond. Now a trainee solicitor with Burges Salmon, the Cardiff economics graduate worked for a biotechnology company before realising his original dream of a switch into legal practice — and he’s brimming with advice for those now on the hunt for a training contract of their own.
“I originally considered studying either law or economics at uni and chose economics — partly because I thought it would be easier to get a job!” Bond reveals. “I took up a grad role with a biotechnology company because I thought it would be a good career start in an interesting industry with big growth. In my head I thought I’d do three years in business and take the Graduate Diploma in Law after that”. Three years became more like ten as Bond moved steadily up the ranks with Thermo Fisher Scientific to a business development role in China. Eventually, though, he made it home to join the ranks of would-be lawyers.
Like many, he found the road to success “riddled with hurdles”, despite having a relatively smooth path through the application process. Bond puts his success down to meticulous preparation: the Winchester man consulted widely before going anywhere near an application form.
“My approach was to speak everybody I knew who was working in the law or had worked in law previously. Some of them were colleagues from our in-house legal team. Some were old university friends who’d gone into law. I even went to the solicitor who’d acted on family house purchases. I went through my address book to find anybody I knew who worked in the law, or who knew somebody else who worked in the law and could make an introduction. I met 20 or 30 people. It obviously didn’t get me a job per se because everybody has to go through the formal process — there are no shortcuts — but I was so much more informed when I applied,” he says.
Armed with some “really good advice” on suitable firms, Bond’s personal preference for a workplace outside London helped focus his application efforts on a handful of outfits. “The advice I was given as someone who wanted to live outside the capital was to go for a firm that’s based outside of London but has a London office. That way you pick up work that’s national and international rather than just regional,” he explains. Top of the list was Burges Salmon, Bristol-based but with a physical presence in the City of London too.
With a better understanding of the industry and three or four targets identified, it was time for some more preparation. Despite his proven track record in business, even Bond needed to make sure he was ready for the inevitable commercial awareness discussion. He continues:
“I’d spent years working in commercial roles but I was still trying to understand what was meant by ‘commercial awareness’. Even though I had the experience, I still had to do a fair bit of homework to understand what firms wanted from me in response to those sort of questions. Law firms are a service industry, which was different to what I’d been working in, so I had to figure out how they operate and what the business model is for a law firm. It’s very different to a biotechnology company and it wasn’t as simple as I thought! Everyone likes to think that they know what solicitors do — a bit like teachers — but in reality I didn’t know enough. It took some hard work: online research and talking to people in private practice.”
Burges Salmon’s Bristol headquarters
The basics can’t be stressed enough. “I knew it would be very, very important to show in the application form, at the assessment centre and obviously during the interview that I understood what Burges Salmon did. Speaking to other applicants, I was amazed at how few people knew the real basics about what the firm does and how it’s set up. You don’t need to know every deal we’re working on but you need to know what matters: who we work with, what size we are and what the strategy is,” says Bond.
While avoiding that particular pitfall, Bond admits that he wasn’t the model candidate at the start of his quest for a contract. “I look back at the first application I did and it was an absolute shocker. It involved online written tests — I thought I could just nip over to the computer and get them done in half an hour. That was a learning curve: I realised that completing these tests is a specific skill”. Learn from your mistakes and you’ll do better next time, then.
The fruit of Bond’s labour is a six-seat training contract and, just last month, confirmation that he’ll be staying on as a newly qualified lawyer. He’s specialising in technology and data privacy, dealing with the likes of IT outsourcing and GDPR (you may have heard of it). When we speak, Legal Cheek has interrupted him in the process of finalising a 300-page IT outsourcing contract — a pretty useful commercial skill.
Burges Salmon takes on a couple of dozen trainees every year, which means that you get to know everybody without it feeling claustrophobic. There’s a good trainee mix, Bond says, of university graduates and others like him with previous professional experience.
And outside the office, he’s loving the lifestyle. “It’s a brilliant city with an interesting cultural identity. There’s always things going on but it’s of a size that you can get around without having to stress out. I can’t fault it — it’s just getting better every year”. Best of all, there’s no getting acquainted with fellow commuters’ armpits on the Central Line — Bond’s commute is a 15-minute cycle to work.
Burges Salmon has also delivered in terms of work-life balance (the firm scored an A in the latest Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey). Bond says that “I’ve worked ‘til the early hours of the morning on transactions, but at the same time, come 5:30 or 6pm on a Friday I can be pretty confident that I’ll be out the door”.
He’s clearly a good fit at the Bristol outfit — and Bond is keen to advise would-be solicitors not to get so caught up in the desperate scramble for a job that they accept an offer that really isn’t for them. “If you somehow manage to talk your way into a firm that you’re just not suited to — and they do an incredibly good job of filtering out people who don’t fit the culture — but even if you happen to do that, it would not benefit you. You’d risk having a very tough experience and getting off to a bad start with your career,” he says. It may not exactly feel that way at times, but “fit” cuts both ways.
Global giant’s top brass could be handed £10 million share windfall… each!
Global outfit DWF is gearing up to float on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in a move expected to make up to £1 billion.
If given the go-ahead by the firm’s partnership, the flotation will be the largest in legal history and could see a small number of DWF’s top brass trouser £10 million each in shares, The Times (£) reports. In a statement issued today, DWF said it was considering “a number of strategic options for our business”, including the “possibility” of an IPO (initial public offering). It continued:
“If we were to proceed with an IPO, we believe that it would enable us to achieve our strategic objectives more quickly, while also enhancing our ability to attract and retain the best talent and to incentivise our people by aligning them through offering ownership within the business.”
Slater and Gordon was the first law firm to float. The personal injury specialist went public with a listing on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2007.
Since then, a raft of UK firms have followed suit, including Birmingham-based Gateley, national outfit Keystone Law and London duo Gordon Dadds and Rosenblatt Solicitors. Earlier this month, regional law firm Knights also announced its intention to list on the LSE.
DWF’s seven-figure flotation estimate is a far cry from its early life as a humble northern upstart.
The Manchester-headquartered firm — which boasts flashy office space high up in London’s iconic Walkie Talkie building — quickly grew though a series of domestic and international mergers. Legal Cheek’s Firms Most List shows DWF now has 23 offices in nine countries, and offers around 40 training contracts annually.
The City firm released a mean hourly pay gap of 19.8% and a median of 27.4% earlier this year, this non-inclusive of partners. These figures, and those released by other major employers this year, relate to pay stats from the year previous (spring 2017). Many companies are now preparing new reports using more up-to-date stats, and it seems this is where Allen & Overy’s focus lies. A firm spokesperson told us:
“We had not included partners’ compensation in the calculations for our first report, based on data to 5 April 2017. However, we are currently working on a gender pay gap report for the year ended 5 April 2018, which will include information on our partners, and have already committed to publish it in September.”
The firm’s statement ends with a note that it’s “keen to receive advice on how best to calculate these figures so that there is consistency of approach between firms”. Indeed, gender pay gap reporting among law firms has been muddled to say the least.
The law compelling major businesses to release their pay stats, the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017, specified firms releaseemployee data. As law firm partners aren’t employed, many firms didn’t include them.
Then, people began to question whether this was fair, given major retailers and other employers were posting pay gaps inclusive of their mega-earning directors. In one particularly heated committee meeting, Rachel Reeves MP told Slaughter and May’s head of human resources that by not including partners the firm had published “bogus numbers” which “masked the true gender pay gap”.
A number of firms have now posted partner data — for example Reed Smith, Travers Smith and Pinsent Masons — but have done so in myriad ways. Many others, however, have stood by their employee-only figures, which makes it difficult to compare firms’ pay gaps.
He literally applauded Eniola Aluko’s football knowledge
Image credit: ITV
French footballer Patrice Evra has been accused of “patronising” Slaughter and May lawyer and England international Eniola Aluko during a live World Cup broadcast.
Evra, a 37-year-old West Ham United left-back, clapped Aluko’s analysis ahead of Serbia’s World Cup opener against Costa Rica. Aluko, who is a professional footballer as well as an associate consultant in Slaughters’ corporate team, appeared on ITV alongside fellow pundits Evra and ex-Celtic marksman Henrik Larsson yesterday.
Following Aluko’s in-depth analysis of Costa Rica’s attacking prowess, Evra sounded surprised and complimented her excellent evaluation. He then began awkwardly clapping Aluko, triggering a social media reaction:
Following more footballing insight from Aluko, ITV presenter Jacqui Oatley asked Evra: “Are you going to sit here applauding Eni’s punditry all day?” The ex-Manchester United player responded:
“This is just amazing, I think we should leave Henrik, because she knows about more football than us! I’m really impressed you know.”
While continuing to berate Evra, viewers were also keen to point out Aluko’s formidable sporting and legal credentials:
@EniAlu has 102 England caps & 33 goals, is a qualified lawyer and has a first class degree. After offering way more informed commentary on the match than any fellow pundits managed, Patrice Evra applauds her? So patronising & sexist
Juventus striker Aluko studied law at Brunel University London before completing the accelerated Legal Practice Course (LPC) at the College of Law (now The University of Law) in Moorgate, her LinkedIn shows. Law Society records say the 31-year-old qualified as a solicitor in 2015.
US litigation boutique Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has upped the salaries of its London-based newly qualified (NQ) lawyers to £125,000. The move, which equates to a rise of £10,000 or 9%, follows a series of monster pay hikes across the pond over the past fortnight.
Last week, Quinn matched fellow US stalwart Milbank and upped the salaries of its American newbie associates to $190,000 (£143,000). A host of firms have gone on to do the same in their US offices, including Freshfields and Clifford Chance.
This magic circle duo have not, however, extended these pay hikes to lawyers at their London offices. As things stand only Milbank and Simpson Thacher have matched these increases globally, including in London.
As Quinn’s rises hit press, Legal Cheek reached out to the firm to find out whether it was upping London pay too. Keeping its cards close to its chest, Quinn would only confirm it paid its London solicitors in sterling and that its salaries remain very competitive.
Several days on, Quinn has now said it’s bumped London NQ salaries to £125,000.
Legal Cheek’sFirms Most List shows Quinn’s NQs are now £1,000 better off than their counterparts at Latham & Watkins, and a full £5,000 above those plying their trade at Cleary Gottlieb or Sidley Austin. However, aspiring lawyers take note: Quinn doesn’t currently offer training contacts in its London office. So if you’re looking to land a six-figure role at the firm, you’re going to have qualify elsewhere first.
But training contract numbers remain static since last year
More aspiring lawyers started their training contract in London last year than in the rest of the country, according to the Law Society.
New stats show that of the 5,719 aspiring solicitors who commenced their legal training between 2016-17, over a third (1,923) did so in the City of London. Meanwhile, a further 18% (1,002) started their life as a trainee in the “rest of London”, the Law Society’s Annual Statistical Report says. This means over half (52%) of all new trainee solicitors in 2016 have learned the legal ropes in the capital.
Away from London, 11% of newbies were based in the North West, 7% in the South East and 6% in Yorkshire and Humberside. Just 3% (175) trained in the East Midlands and 3% (159) in Wales.
The figures, although interesting, are perhaps unsurprising. A quick glance at our Firms Most List shows that big corporate players take in trainees in their droves every year. At Linklaters, for example, around 110 City-based training contract positions are available annually. Just 17% more than that, 129, started training contracts in 2016 in the whole of the North East of England.
Location aside, the number of new trainees registering in 2016-17 fell by 0.2%, from 5,728 to 5,719. Of these new starters, 38% were male and 62% were female.
The report notes that training numbers hit a high of 6,300 in 2007-8, before dipping as low as 4,869 following the 2008 financial crash. The numbers have recovered gradually, the report says:
“The growth over recent years has been due to increased numbers of female trainees. The share of male trainees fell to 37.7% in 2017 as male numbers edged lower while female registrations showed a slight increase.”
A whopping 35,500 students applied for undergraduate law degrees in 2017 (up 4% on 2016), with 23,605 eventually accepting places. A rise in the number of female students accepted onto law courses (6%) accounted for almost all of the growth: earlier this year, we revealed new female law students outnumbered males two to one.
Follows moves by US players Milbank and Simpson Thacher
Kirkland & Ellis has bumped the salaries of its US lawyers by $10,000. This means the firm’s London-based junior lawyers, whose salaries are pegged to the dollar, are now on an eye-watering £143,000.
Last week, Kirkland confirmed it was upping the salaries of its US cohort from $180,000 (£135,500 based on today’s conversion) to $190,000 (£143,000). This saw the firm match moves by big US players including: Milbank, Quinn Emanuel, Simpson Thacher, Weil Gotshal, Jones Day, Debevoise and Plimpton, and Sullivan & Cromwell.
Milbank, which kicked off the stateside rises earlier this month, confirmed to Legal Cheek at the time that its London lot would be handed the same dollar-pegged salary uplifts. Just 48 hours later, Simpson Thacher announced the same global increases.
And now Kirkland has confirmed to Legal Cheek that it has done the same. This means the firm’s Gherkin-based City trainees, who earn £55,000 in their second year, will see their salaries rise by a crazy 160% on qualification.
Kirkland became one of the first US firms to peg its UK salaries against the dollar following a series of similar pay hikes in 2016. However, with the sterling hitting a new 31-year low against the dollar at the time, the firm’s City NQs saw their salaries swell from £124,000 to a high of £142,000 in just a matter of months. Kirkland — which offers around ten London training contract positions annually — later implemented an upper and lower limit on currency exchanges to stem the massive salary fluctuations.
