Leaked SJs memo suggests it would have been good to talk

As own goals go, the one SJ Berwin’s management scored when it unveiled its new bonus scheme is looking ever more spectacular. A memo compiled by assistants in response to the scheme - which has been leaked to Legal Week - highlights the anger and disillusionment that the new system has generated within the firm

In case your attention has been elsewhere, the controversy blew up when the firm proudly unveiled a new bonus scheme that offered assistants up to 75% of their salary. But only - and here’s the catch - if they billed 2,500 hours (see story).

“To get any type of bonus you basically have to give up your life,” complains one assistant in the memo.

Another says: “Surely on a health and safety front they should not be seen to be encouraging these sorts of hours….someone who is consistently working those sorts of hours is bound to make bad decisions/choices and/or have a nervous breakdown.”

The memo summarises the views of assistants under the following headings:

• lack of prior consultation;
• concern the scheme only benefits corporate assistants;
• lack of understanding over how it actually works; and
• the way the scheme was ‘sold’ to the press.

In other words, there is a feeling among at least some assistants at the firm that they have been let down.

Given how desperate every firm is to keep hold of its assistants - let alone attract new ones - it seems barely believable that the firm would put together a brand new bonus scheme without substantial input from the troops. What is more, internal disquiet over aspects of the scheme is not confined to the firm. In this week’s issue of Legal Week, Barclays general counsel Mark Harding says the bank would be concerned “if any firm was working its associates so hard they could not perform” (see feature).

SJ Berwin’s managing partner, Ralph Cohen, has stressed that the new scheme is designed to reward hard work already carried out, as opposed to spurring fee earners on to bill such an extreme number of hours in the future.

Nevertheless, there are similarities between this memo and one that sparked the 'padding-gate' scandal back in October 2002, (see Comment). But the comparisons go only so far. The CC memo painted the picture of an office in the throes of a major crisis, while the SJ Berwin memo is considerably more measured document, and contains a number of sensible suggestions.

For example, the associates query why the bonus is only triggered after they have recorded 1,750 hours, given that the target is 1,575 hours. That means associates must achieve a utilisation rate of 110% before the bonus kicks in.

You get the sense that it would only have taken a modicum of consultation and a few tweaks to the scheme and much of the sting would have been taken out of the subsequent criticism.

But as one assistant notes drily in the memo: “Given the discussion about a new name for the ASF [assistant solicitors forum]…what about the ‘mushroom forum’ (seeing as we are kept in the dark and fed on bullsh*t)."