3,000 students rank A&O, Eversheds and Bird & Bird as stand-out firms
Author: Friederike Heine
15 Apr 2010 | 00:29 | 13 comments
Flagship Legal Week research shows trio of law firms winning hearts and minds among top UK universities
Allen & Overy (A&O) has edged past Clifford Chance (CC) to be rated as the most prestigious global law firm, according to a major study of student perceptions, with Bird & Bird and Eversheds also topping their respective categories.
The flagship report from Legal Week's research arm asked students at leading universities and Graduate Diploma in Law course providers to identify the single firm they regarded as the ‘most prestigious' in three primary categories: international law firms, City and national and regional.
The 3,186 responding students were asked to cite a single firm in each of the three groups, benchmarking them against a range of criteria, including which firm is best for training, career development, work/life balance and female promotion prospects.
In the international law firm category, A&O was cited by a quarter (25%) of respondents, three percentage points ahead of CC. Third-ranked Slaughter and May was cited by 14% of students.
"Our position in the ranking highlights the value students place on our career opportunities and the quality of our training, as well as our ongoing commitment on campus," said A&O graduate recruitment partner Richard Hough (pictured).
Among the category for City firms, Bird & Bird was highlighted as the most prestigious by 16% of respondents, followed closely by Macfarlanes (15%) and Olswang (13%).
Bird & Bird HR director Johnny Nichols commented: "We feel that recruiting graduates is a long-term investment, but we recognise that they are a vulnerable group. We have been very careful to be realistic and take on only those that we know have a good chance of a job at the end of it."
Macfarlanes graduate recruitment partner John Hornby said: "We offer a genuine alternative to the magic circle. We hope that our continued efforts to maintain regular contact with students on campus contributes to our strong reputation."
Eversheds was the top-rated by students in the group of major national and regionally represented law firms, cited by 25% of respondents, narrowly ahead of Addleshaw Goddard.
The report offers little evidence that firms that conducted major redundancy programmes in 2009 have suffered material damage to their drawing power, with firms such as A&O, CC and Eversheds that made well-published job cuts still scoring well.
With the debate about women's limited role at the senior end of the legal profession increasingly impacting on students' perceptions of law firms, the research also asked which firms offered the best opportunities for females. In this category, A&O was voted the best international firm (19%), although only 19% of its UK partnership is currently made up of women. Among City firms, Bird & Bird was voted top - according to Legal Week research, one in five of its 75 UK partners are female.
The report, which is based on research conducted in February and March, suggests gender balance will be increasingly important in future as growing numbers of women flock to the legal profession. Two-thirds (66%) of the 3,186 respondents were female, while 28% classed themselves as other than white.
The report, which canvassed law students at the Russell Group universities plus Exeter, Reading and Newcastle and GDL students at BPP, Kaplan and College of Law, will be published later this month.
Additional reporting by Suzanna Ring.
- For more details, contact Paul Birk on 0207 316 9864 or email paul.birk@incisivemedia.com.
COMMENTS(TOTAL 13 COMMENTS)
A student survey
Are these survey results even worth writing about? Students will not know an awful lot about the "training, career development, work/life balance and female promotion prospects" at many, if any, firms. All the majority of students care about is which firm gives the best freebies.
So essentially A&O, Eversheds and Bird & Bird only rank as the "stand-out firms" in student PR terms. And lets face it, Eversheds in particular need to get some people liking them again.
Blue NQ -15 Apr 2010 | 09:49
Do the views of students give an accurate indication of which is the best law firm? Not really, they're not close enough to working realities. Do the views of students give a decent indication of which firms are likely to attract the best students? Probably yes.
Alex -15 Apr 2010 | 10:29
Graduate Perspective
It gives a good indication where upper echelon graduates will apply. I think work/life balance should be taken off the survey....
Paul -15 Apr 2010 | 14:11
I would disagree with Alex
In fact, I would argue that this survey does not even indicate which law firms are likely to attract the best students. The survey invited all students to participate which means that 'the best' students would only make a fraction of the participants; a fraction that is very unlikely to affect the total. Thus, the survey is just worth its face value and does not provide any deeper insights. That does not mean its an irrelevant survey. It provides interesting insights into the effectiveness of marketing strategies.
Antonio -15 Apr 2010 | 14:13
Useful PR feedback
I agree with the comments highlighting the use of such surveys in gauging to which firms the best students will apply. Even more useful would be an indication of the firms that came bottom of the survey, as no doubt they would wish to take the opportunity to improve their position. I would be interested to know the identity of those firms...
anonymous -15 Apr 2010 | 14:19
Grand Poobah
A&O Rule :)
Arctic -15 Apr 2010 | 14:26
Most law students are nowhere near as clued in as they would like people to think.
IHateBPP -15 Apr 2010 | 14:27
In other news, toddlers have voted on their favourite universities across a range of categories blah...
Big Dave -15 Apr 2010 | 14:57
Ranking Eversheds so highly is a worrying sign that students judge firms by their websites and freebies. They're obviously not paying any attention to the legal press.
lolEversheds -15 Apr 2010 | 15:00
Regions
I think the inclusion of Eversheds is reflective of the fact that a lot of students are more focused on the regions than on the City, rather than that anyone considers Eversheds to be prestigious in comparison to other City firms...
Fair Comment -15 Apr 2010 | 15:33
LMAO at Slaughters in the "international" category!!
Brown_Out -15 Apr 2010 | 22:17
To Antonio, the report did not ask all students to respond. It was law students at the Russell Group, plus Newcastle, Exeter and Reading and GDLs at Kaplan, BPP and College of Law.
Legal Week -16 Apr 2010 | 15:32
Did the author just say "increasingly impacting"?
Sounds like something going on in his bowels.
- -16 Apr 2010 | 19:19
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