So here we are, one year on, peering through the looking-glass from the other end. The position as we approach the looming non-event of this year’s pay round has totally reversed, but we are still looking at the same thing: the contradictory, sometimes resentful relationship between partners and assistants.
So while last year hard-worked assistants vocally asserted demands for higher pay and work-life balance, this year partners are sizing up a far more challenging environment. And, in many cases, as can be seen from comments in this week’s Big Question, partners feel it is high time to deliver a reality check to what they view as pampered Generation Y assistants.
To an extent, partners have a point. It is unrealistic for junior assistants to expect market conditions to have no negative impact on them since they benefited during the boom and many assistants will be in line for above-inflation deals under the assistant track. Neither is it credible to view junior lawyers as the exploited downtrodden when they are very well paid and have a decent shot at being millionaires within a decade.
A wake-up call is coming. I have argued before that the profession is well-placed to ride out the crunch and that the apocalyptic claims regarding the economy have been overdone, and I stand by both points, but that does not make City firms immune. There is no evidence yet of law firms gearing up for major cutbacks but the dynamic has changed. That will mean law firms will be tougher on reviews after a period when low performers were tolerated. Hiring will also shift from the junior ranks to the quality mid-level associates and partners that can service and win business.
That said, some partners’ comments that assistants are more vulnerable as they are overpaid smack of the pot calling the kettle black. Partners, who have seen their income rise dramatically, will be likewise under pressure to justify those £1m-a-year packages. But therein lies the rub: for all the mutual resentment, partners and assistants are part of the same beast.
Indeed, despite being supposedly free-market bodies, corporate law firms are curiously communistic in their attitudes as they operate a model in which the workers are groomed to become the owners. Associates got their pay rises because they were in demand and partners got their drawings because they turned professional services demand into highly profitable businesses. Both sides benefited and will benefit again.
However, now it is the juniors who will have to get used to a weakening of their bargaining position. It’s nothing personal, strictly business, so both sides should keep this polite.
Stay up to speed with all the latest salary changes with the Legal Week Wiki pay league.