Leadership undoubtedly makes a difference to a law firm’s performance, as well as morale among staff. Depending on their style, a managing or senior partner considers factors such as job satisfaction, commitment to the firm, levels of innovation and fee income in their leadership approach. Encouraging a supportive culture within a firm is crucial to keep retention rates down, whether that is done by the managing partner walking the floor regularly, or by holding regular firm-wide meetings for staff to air their grievances.
Knowing what the leadership culture of a firm is like before you join, or consider joining, is also vital — to help you decide whether it is the right place to work.
Clifford Chance
The figurehead of the world’s largest law firm is global managing partner David Childs, who took the helm from departing Peter Cornell in May 2006.
As Childs has only been in the top job for just over a year of the four-year term, you would be forgiven for assuming that he has yet to really assert his influence over the firm. But you would be wrong. Childs has already taken under his wing a number of projects that his predecessor had turned to committees for, including a look at the broader strategy of the firm in a global context.
Childs was head of corporate at Clifford Chance before coming into his own as chief operating officer in October 2003, where he began a round of cost-cutting that would come to define his leadership.
It has been suggested that the firm, said to be fairly collegiate despite its size, needs someone to take aggressive measures towards under-performing partners and that Childs may be the man for the job.
The last couple of years have been viewed externally as a stable and highly productive period for the firm as its international offices, in particular
Linklaters
The name that is synonymous with management at Linklaters is Tony Angel. As the firm’s outgoing managing partner, it would be no exaggeration to say that his name alone has struck fear into the hearts of underperforming associates and partners alike. Under his leadership the firm has broken through the £1bn turnover milestone and seen average annual partner profits rise significantly above £1m.
It is questionable just how collegiate any of the magic circle firms can be, given their size, but externally it is perceived that Linklaters’ collegiality has been damaged by a sustained focus on profits and cutting the fat. Having said that, the firm is working well across its practice areas and in the last round of promotions to partnership it made up 38 associates, a sign for ambitious lawyers that the partnership carrot is a real one at Linklaters. What is more, a recent poll of senior lawyers carried out by Legal Week rated Linklaters as having the best management of all the top 10
A mention should be made to newly-appointed managing partner Simon Davies, who, at 39, was elected in January as the firm’s youngest-ever managing partner alongside senior partner David Cheyne.
It is yet to be seen how the Davies-Cheyne combo will work. Davies is known to be a smooth operator and has scotched suggestions that he will be unable to assert himself against strong-willed corporate partner Cheyne.
During the past year Freshfields has been going through one of the most tumultuous times in its long history, with no-one yet sure what the culture at the hitherto fiercely collegiate firm will be once the changes have bedded down. Joint senior partners Bob Morton and Konstantin Mettenheimer, together with managing partner Peter Jeffcote, have overseen a radical restructuring of its partnership. Around 40 partners have taken early retirement to take advantage of more lucrative terms, while the firm has introduced a rank of ‘salaried partner’ and is understood to have demoted around 30 partners to this role.
Now, the firm has been left unsettled, albeit leaner and more focused. It is keen to show its associates that it is listening to their needs. In a now-famous incident earlier this year, a group of 200 associates met with partners for a brainstorming session, during which they complained about the ‘80s chic’ carpet in reception. Within hours, the carpet was changed. Further associate conferences are planned for the future, with the firm clearly taking its duty to listen to associates seriously.
Allen & Overy
Since 2003, David Morley and Guy Beringer have operated as a managing partner/senior partner team. The firm claims to be collegiate and prides itself on this, but Allen & Overy (A&O) did famously have one of the worst associate attrition rates in the City.
However, just as the other members of the magic circle have keenly felt the pinch of departing associates, A&O’s management has, to its credit, given a significant amount of headroom to its human resources team, leading the magic circle with a series of measures aimed at keeping associates happy. Associate representatives have been included in the partnership’s monthly management meetings, to give younger lawyers a voice. The firm is now paying its assistants a very decent bonus — currently worth up to around £48k for a senior associate — and offer a two-year sabbatical; arguably a good mix of rewards addressing the bottom line and Generation Y’s changed career needs.
Beringer has recently raised his head above the parapet with two widely-publicised missives claiming that profit is not the be-all and end-all for a firm and that it should focus more on the needs of its people. He retires as senior partner in April next year and it is highly likely — if not inevitable — that Morley will run for the top job. Morley is a very popular figure and inspires great loyalty. It remains to be seen what dynamic the new managing partner will bring to the firm.
DLA Piper
DLA has transmuted over the past 10 years from a cosy national firm with its roots in Yorkshire and the northwest to a transatlantic giant with a
Knowles took the top job at legacy firm Dibb Lupton Alsop in 1996 and in 1998 boldly announced a plan to be “top 10 in the City, predominant in the regions and with a credible practice in
The firm is still not financially integrated with its
The firm’s appetite for growth seems to show no bounds and, on top of lateral hires, it has rewarded its own associates by promoting more partners than any other top
Lovells
Lovells is a classic example of a law firm where its culture is shaped by its management — two partners in the shape of former head of international John Pheasant and managing partner Lesley MacDonagh. The pair oversaw a string of mergers between 1999 and 2002, including sizeable deals in
However, following Lovells’ rapid expansion at the end of the millennium, the firm has struggled to define itself over recent years. Lovells now senior partner John Young took over in 2004 and managing partner David Harris was installed in the top spot shortly afterwards. An aggressive initial cull of around 25 equity partners followed, but since then there have been numerous strategy reviews and there is still a sense that the firm is performing below its capability.
In May this year, Lovells introduced a bonus and increased its newly-qualified pay to £63,500, following an initial rise of £2,000 last November. The move followed news that almost a third of its trainees taken on in March 2005 chose to leave the firm rather than apply for a permanent position.
That said, the firm maintains its reputation as a friendly place to work and for treating its assistants well.
Slaughter and May
The precise make-up of Slaughter and May’s management can seem almost irrelevant to the culture of the most profitable firm in the City. With respect to senior partner Tim Clark, practice partner David Frank and executive partner Melvyn Hughes, it probably would not matter too much who was in charge of this M&A giant, as long as they did things in the way they have always been done. The firm makes no lateral hires — it only promotes associates to fill ‘dead-men’s shoes’ — and its management is selected from the old guard. Clark and Hughes, for example, both joined the
firm in 1974, while David Frank has the shortest service record at the blue-blooded firm, having joined in 1977.
Slaughters is just about the only true partnership left in the City, with all decisions taken by a vote, rather than central management.
The culture, especially at the senior end but endemic throughout the firm, is regulated by significant peer pressure. Fee earners are expected to work hard and to like it, so do not expect a firm that puts a work-life balance at the very top of its agenda.
That said, Slaughters recognises it must still compete to recruit the best associates, and last year unveiled a new pay package for junior lawyers in the City, with salary increases of up to 15% as well as introducing a flat-rate bonus payment of 15% of salary.
Eversheds
Eversheds has grown rapidly with a number of mergers under its belt and is still hard to pin down culturally as a result. However since David Gray took over in 2003 as managing partner he has made it his mission to integrate the firm’s merger partners financially and set up a strong central management.
Following an overhaul of the management structure, Gray was appointed as chief executive for a second three-year term on 1 May, 2006. His management style is ambitious and aims to take City firms head on.
He is currently overseeing the creation of a three-year strategy document, under which the firm is aiming for average equity partner profits of £600,000 and a
The firm’s ambitions have led it to ditch lockstep arrangements between partners that saw them automatically promoted and paid more each year to a more rigorous US-style ‘eat what you kill’ system, where they will get paid according to the business they bring in. This will inevitably have a knock-on effect for associates, who already claim they have to work City hours for less pay. However, sceptics claim that the firm competes on salary and that associates have a far better work-life balance than they admit to.
Prospects for making partner at the firm are good. The firm promoted a record 30 lawyers this year and made up 24 the year before.
Herbert Smith
Litigation giant Herbert Smith stands out from its top 10 City corporate and finance counterparts because it is litigation-driven. It is therefore less surprising that it also stands out for having aggressive litigator David Gold at its helm as managing partner.
Gold’s time in management has come as litigation in the
Despite its litigation prowess, Herbies has always had a good corporate practice — partners count themselves within the magic circle and get annoyed if it is suggested otherwise.
It could be argued though that under Gold, the firm has perhaps not used its already respected corporate base to raise its profile further in what has been one of the most sustained bull markets in recent times.
Ashurst
Ashurst senior partner Geoffrey Green and managing partner Simon Bromwich head up one of the most blue-blooded firms in the City.
The firm — founded in 1822 — has long been synonymous with collegiality and a good working environment for its associates.
Green was at the helm when the firm took the historic decision to call time on its merger talks with US Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson in 2003. Since then the firm has decided to focus instead on developing its European network.
The firm recently added an extra post on its management committee for continental Europe, with
Bromwich was re-elected for a second three-year term in October 2006 and Green is up for election next year. The pair have overseen a strong increase in profits at the firm, with a massive 36% surge in average profits per equity partner to just below the £1m mark in the last financial year.
The firm has also begun to review its partner lockstep arrangements in a move that could see it further reward star performers at the top of the
equity — a subject that was a bone of contention among Ashurst partners in the failed talks with Fried Frank.
legalweekassistantsseptember2007
