The war for talent may be on a break, but reputation still matters

Since its launch five years ago, the Employee Satisfaction Survey - Legal Week's annual report on the attitudes, priorities and morale of lawyers at major law firms - has always been interesting reading. But for several reasons this year, it promises to be even more so. Firstly and most obviously, major law firms have engaged in an unprecedented round of job cuts since the last report was conducted. The long-term impact of that is as yet largely theoretical, as the legal industry has so little experience of widespread job losses. Law firms are quite logically calculating that tending to the whims of assistants is less pressing in a recession, when staff become less full of their own importance and rather happier to just have a job.

But you still have to strike a balance, and damaging your staff relations tends to have a shelf life that can last well into the upturn when it comes to matter much more. It will be interesting to see which firms have acquitted themselves well and, to put it bluntly, which haven't.

It will also been interesting to gauge the impact that the rapid change in economic circumstances has had on the mindset of assistants, who had become used to being assiduously courted. For a well-educated generation that until recently gave little thought to the idea that work might be scarce or that there would be a shortage of employers hoping to secure their services, it will have come as a shock.

There are also several other reasons the report promises to be particularly relevant this year. For one, the sheer number of responses, with more than 4,000 qualified solicitors below partner level taking part in the study, which means the 58 ranked law firms will have on average attracted more than 65 independent responses (firms have no role in the research process and cannot influence the outcome).

Going on the experience of previous years, many of the larger firms will attract well over 100 responses (last year DLA Piper had no less than 262). General readers will also get some scope to separate the stars from the less-than-stellar, since for the first time Legal Week will print a number of headline rankings for individual law firms. The report, which is produced by our independent research arm Legal Week Intelligence, will also this year place a stronger focus on assessing and comparing individual firms. Those firms that do well will have the distinction of being lauded by those that know them the best - their own staff.

Click here for more information on the Employee Satisfaction Survey.