We are thrilled to be sponsoring the Law Society rugby 7s and netball tournament again this year. Its a great event so hope to see you there. More details here soon!

Law Society RFC 7s & Netball Tournament 2023: Sponsorship Announcement | New Law Journal | The leading weekly legal magazine

When speaking to Associates at the start of their search for a new role, I am still surprised by how many are inclined to rule out US firms in their entirety. This is often based on a concern around hours and expectations.

I find this is a sentiment held by many junior Associates and Trainees in particular, and a large portion of those who are coming from overseas jurisdictions.

After a bit of probing, it is apparent that these opinions are heavily (if not entirely) based on hearsay and the same horror stories that have been passed down from one contact to another, rather than being based on any real or recent first-hand experience.

I spend a lot of time myth-busting around this point, and actively encouraging these Associates to take a more open-minded approach to their search.

The reality is that whilst Associates at US firms do work hard (they often service the biggest clients on the most complex and cutting-edge transactions/disputes) the expectations are really not much different to Magic Circle and other international outfits too.

In many cases the hours are the same.

For US firms quoting 1,900 or 2,000 hours you will find that some allow 200 of those hours to be a combination of client development / pro bono, know-how work etc, (i.e. not just client billings). So in reality, you are looking at 1,700 chargeable hours as the gateway to  eligibility for a bonus – directly competing with non-US headquartered firms.

After recognising that there is often little to no difference in the hours, the stark difference in pay scales between UK and US headquartered law firms in the City makes the latter an extremely attractive option.

US firms also tend to operate with much leaner teams, providing Associates with higher levels of responsibility and the opportunity to work directly with Partners and clients at a much earlier stage in your career. This dynamic can propel your professional development forward, at a pace unmatched by large UK teams, where Associates can feel like small cogs in a big wheel.

The key message here is to take other peoples’ opinions with a pinch of salt and always do your due diligence / make your own mind up.

More often than not, Associates for whom US firms were not instinctively what they thought they wanted, come away from these interview processes feeling incredibly enthusiastic and excited by the prospect of joining them.

If you are a Trainee or Associate interested in having an honest and confidential chat about opportunities available to you, get in touch with myself or one of my colleagues on the LTN Associate team.

To discuss this topic or talk about a potential move please contact aoife@ltnpartners.com

Gender diversity – a hot topic of conversation among legal industry insiders and analysts.

One that is never too far away from the pages of the legal, business, and mainstream press.

Law firms have understandably been at pains to promote the efforts they put into diversity, equality, and inclusion. This is readily apparent these days from the law firm websites, marketing materials, or their rankings in various surveys and publications. This push is not only a recognition that they still lag other industries but is increasingly a result of direct client pressure.

According to the latest figures from The Law Society, in July this year there were 153,282 solicitors practising in England and Wales, a 2% rise over the previous year. The number has more than doubled over the past 25 years. The research reports that women account for 53% of practising solicitors.

But looking at the statistics at partner level there is still some way to go.

So, where do we see the opportunities to further redress the balance.

In the era of flexible working, organisations should now be reaping the benefits of a more open-minded approach to the way their workforce want to work. In theory, this provides firms with access to an untapped pool of talent that they have neglected up until now – namely, lawyers who have left the law (for various reasons but largely to start a family) and feel there is no clear path or encouragement to return.

A talent pool they seem tentative to try and access. Many firms (US as well as UK) have in the past flown to far-flung jurisdictions to unearth well trained- common law qualified lawyers. Granted, this would normally focus on junior lawyers but not exclusively. Australia, New Zealand, and Canada were, and remain, happy hunting grounds. A diverse and deep talent pool sitting in front of them is oddly not.

One could equate the loss of female lawyers in their late 30s/early 40s to the way many UK firms turn their senior partners out to pasture once they hit 55. By that we mean, here you have these talented and experienced professionals, and an organisation does not see a role or even a desire to find a role for them. We find that quite strange.

We would be asking the organisations that track statistics around gender diversity is what percentage of law’s female lawyers ever come back, who have left for whatever reason? To continue that train of thought through to its conclusion, another question might be: what proactive steps do law firms take in making a return appealing, and easier once you have been out for several years?

Several avenues and options should, in this post-Covid era, be open to lawyers who have returned to the law following a period away from it.

These options provide both firm and lawyer with flexible options – be that to turn a role into something more permanent or not. 

Looking at the other side of the coin, not all of this is doom and gloom. Some law firms have teamed up with organisations that have identified this area as a glaring omission. Women Returners is a network that was established in 2014 and is dedicated to not only supporting women to return to the workplace after an extended break, but also to encourage employers to take advantage of this talent pool. Women Returners has partnered with a range of employers across a variety of sectors, including the Big Four, the Bank of England, the BBC, and law firms.

Other firms have joined forces with the Reignite Academy, a similar initiative to Women Returners. Reignite was established in 2019 and aims to help women return to work, specifically in the legal sector, providing support and coaching as they transition back into permanent roles. Reignite has partnered with several law firms, including CMS, Hogan Lovells, Sidley, Travers Smith, Baker McKenzie, Mayer Brown and Macfarlanes.

Other firms have chosen their own path by creating their own specific programmes. DAC Beachcroft launched their returners programme, Reconnect, in October 2020. The programme was created by Nicola Baxter, a HR business partner, who recognised that many talented lawyers faced multiple barriers that prevented them from returning to work.

One leading US firm that appears to be open to tapping into this pool of talent is Latham & Watkins as set out in the Law.com (requires subscription) article dated 14 October 2022 setting out the hire of leveraged finance partner, Tania Bedi after a five-year career break. Ms. Bedi now finds herself in a leadership role at Latham.

Win-win we would say and dispels the myth that you cannot regain the skills/knowledge lost from being ‘out of the game’.

The Latham example should be the model in bringing experienced talent back into law. This of course is not exclusive to partners and applies equally across all levels of the legal industry. We would be encouraging firms to look closer to home when assessing their headcount needs.

nick@ltnpartners.com

People have asked, “Do you know what you want to do?” (Or something similar) more times than I can remember over the past few years. Often the default question posed to anyone of my age. It can feel daunting or embarrassing if the answer is consistently that you don’t know. For as long as I can remember, work experience has been encouraged as a way of exploring a potential career path and I have dipped my toe into different industries and businesses but have never felt ‘sold’ on the idea of pursuing any as a career.

This summer, I was lucky enough to be invited to LTN & Partners, a legal recruitment and consultancy company, to be involved in their summer intern programme. Admittedly, before I began, I wasn’t attracted to the legal industry (or recruitment) and had never considered following in the footsteps of my dad, who was a partner at Linklaters for 16 years. What I had not expected was just how much else I’d learn by embarking on an internship in the City.

Aside from learning what legal terms such as ‘leveraged finance’ and ‘non-contentious’ meant, the research work I took part in was thoroughly fascinating. Understanding the intricacies of an industry is no light feat and in my few short weeks, I felt I had just scratched the surface. Beyond the law itself, it was interesting to learn about the framework of a business and what inevitably drives work.

From a personal experience, which could arguably be more valuable to me, was learning and experiencing the operations of a City of London office. It was a whole new world to me: joining the chaotic morning commute, waiting patiently in the lunch queue at the likes of PRET, and trying to quickly return home during rush hour. From desk etiquette to post work drinks, there was a lot to pick up, but it felt exciting to be part of the ebb and flow of the environment.

Within LTN & Partners specifically, I was given invaluable pockets of knowledge by my colleagues for which I am incredibly grateful. My biggest take away being that people are at the centre of all we do. Essentially, whatever you chose to do, you’ve got to make sure the people you surround yourself with, are people you can trust and get along with. It’s the central pillar and without it, everything else will collapse. Being part of a corporate team for the first time gave me a profound sense of achievement and encouragement. I was unsure what would come from this internship, but it outdid any of my previous work experiences and has given me the fire to pursue a career of the same calibre.

Hopefully with any stroke of luck, I’ll be back in the City in an office full of equally talented and kind people as at LTN, who make the whole experience far more than a job.

Lily Freeman – https://tinyurl.com/vzjc9r7v

We are delighted to be sponsoring the fair play award at the Law Society RFC 7’s tournament next week.

LAW SOCIETY RFC 7s, NETBALL & MIX TAG TOURNAMENT – Sunday 18th September. Richmond RFC. 10am onwards. Hope to see you there!

https://www.lawsocietysevens.co.uk/

This feels like an odd point to start with, but I’ve never really been a fan of smart attire. I can still remember the excitement of ‘home clothes day’ at primary school and feeling like I could run faster, jump higher and generally have that little bit more fun without the constraints of my uniform.

It seemed odd to me that adults could choose any ‘threads’ they wanted yet decided to spend a fair amount of their time in uncomfortable trousers, jackets, button up shirts and shoes that you couldn’t play football in. That’s before we even get to the tie!  A slice of material with no purpose other than to reduce the blood flow to your head and repeatedly get covered in your lunch.

No thanks – shorts, t-shirt and trainers made way more sense to me.

Then I got older and by some miracle landed a job with a respectable employer in the City. I recall my first day – getting off the tube at Blackfriars and making the short walk to my office behind a guy a few years older in a pinstripe suit so sharp that I could have cut myself on it. He looked seriously cool, and it turned out we would be colleagues. Yes, I was inspired and could get behind the idea of a suit as it would surely rubber stamp my becoming a grown-up. Don’t get me wrong, I was still uncomfortable, but it was the dress code. I am not one to break the rules, and as I felt out of my depth anyway it made sense to at least look the part.

That was the norm for many years, but as I became more competent and less in need of my stabilisers, I found myself feeling less like towing the line. Steve Jobs seemed to do OK wearing a white t-shirt and trainers and Axe from Billions seemed to be permanently wearing a hoodie whilst printing money on the side.

Additionally, as a recruiter I’m not sure it’s a great look to be in a suit. We regularly meet new candidates out and about (admittedly, not as regularly post-pandemic and the realisation that Zoom works well enough), and the nature of these meetings is that no one wants to look like they are meeting a recruiter. Suit, tie, shiny shoes, and a note pad is a giveaway. If I was meeting in casual clothes I would instead look like a mate, or as I age, perhaps a cool uncle instead?

Meeting clients is where things get tricky. Seeing a new partner who I must impress makes me feel that I need to be as polished as possible. Having said that, times have changed and seeing a tie anywhere in the City seems as rare as spotting The Yeti. I know that I can look perfectly good in regular trousers and a jumper with some smart trainers. My boss might correctly say that I look like a bald Jamie Redknapp on Sky Sports but maybe it’s just my alternative branding.

I want to be judged on my actions instead of my appearance. I can look smart without a suit and if I feel better then I’m convinced that I will work better.

One thing I do miss is the expression of shock and accompanying comments from my kids when they see me looking smart. That never fails to make me laugh.

I’m keen to hear what everyone else thinks, so let me know in the comments and if you would like a chat about your career and how to maximise it, then I would be delighted to assist.

andrew@ltnpartners.com +44 7779 781 810

This is a question I often get asked when speaking to Associates about different opportunities. Although I try my best to provide as much information as I can to help candidates in their decision making, when it comes to offering my views on culture, I tend to avoid it. Workplace culture is a very personal thing.

A recent SRA article stated that ‘workplace culture defines the character of a working environment and is built by those who work there.’ I agree, as ultimately the culture is set by the people and personalities within a workplace. This can obviously be very subjective and what one Associate might find a perfectly suitable working environment within which they thrive, another might think it resembles some sort of nightmare.

To give you an example; a colleague placed two disputes associates at the same leading US firm in London, after a few months of them starting they met up again independently, to see how they were getting on. One of them was very happy and loving the environment, style, and pressure, whilst the other wasn’t settling in at all and felt the hours were unsustainable. They were both in the same team, working with the same partners and at the same PQE level. This shows how within the same group one personality type can flourish and the other can struggle. I am sure you can see similar examples in your own teams too.

There is no doubt that some firms, and indeed teams within firms, are known to have a particular working style which it is helpful for Associates to be aware of. However, in my experience the optimal way to find out whether an opportunity has the right culture for an individual is to meet the people you would be working with and make up your own mind.

alex@ltnpartners.com

LTN & Partners are delighted to welcome Filippo Falchi who has joined the partner recruitment team as a Director. Filippo specialises in working with top-tier US law firms in strengthening their existing bench and kickstarting new teams.
 
Vaughan Jenkins, who leads the partner team, said “We are excited that Filippo is joining us. He adds further senior experience and connections to our rapidly expanding recruitment arm in a very buoyant market”.
 
Maurice Allen, CEO & Founder of LTN & Partners adds, “We set up LTN & Partners with a view to taking a more nuanced and strategic approach to working with candidates and law firms. By combining our team of former law firm leaders with experienced top-tier recruiters we believe we are well on the way to creating a unique approach for our clients”.   
 
Filippo can be contacted at filippo@ltnpartners.com

Every partner, associate, and in-house recruiter I’ve spoken to so far this year understands how unbelievably competitive the London Associate recruitment market is right now. In a market of fine margins firms that are going ‘above-and-beyond’ to work closely with their recruitment professionals will ultimately prevail.

I’ve been amazed by the number of firms that expect me to work on a search with little or no information. I get it, partners (and their teams) are busy, however the ones that do make the time and talk through their practice, goals, and vision – and provide insight that’s not on their job description or their website – will put themselves in a much better position to attract talent.

As a specialist recruiter, having this additional insight enables me to go out to the market and share a credible and real story to potential associates. I’m not saying that by having these conversations firms will definitely attract the specific associates they’re looking for, but it will certainly help.

In-demand associates need detailed information to make better-informed decisions about their career; whether a role, and the firm, is right for them. Without a complete ‘brief’ there’s a risk firms are missing out on the best talent – recruiters can’t sell what they don’t know. 

jon@ltnpartners.com

‘Cultural fit’ is an ubiquitous phrase used by firms at the recruitment level. It has long been viewed as a helpful way of measuring a candidate’s suitability and likelihood of successful integration into the firm, alongside things like technical ability. Interview feedback notes often make specific reference to whether someone is considered to be a ‘good’ cultural fit, and this can prove to be the deciding factor where two candidates are fairly equally matched in other respects. This reflects the fact that most people prefer to work with those who will fit into an existing culture rather than disrupt the balance. But is this emphasis on fitting into the status quo counterintuitive to the long-term diversity objectives of modern law firms?

A somewhat nebulous, catch-all term ‘cultural fit’ broadly tends to encompass things like personality, work ethic, academic, socioeconomic, and professional backgrounds, accent and even appearance. Traditional wisdom is that the closer someone conforms to the present culture of the firm, the better. And this worked well when firms were less preoccupied with making meaningful changes to the demographic of their workforce. But with firms more alive than ever to the challenges of fostering a more diverse, equitable and inclusive office, it is necessary to question whether cultural fit aligns with these goals.

From a diversity perspective, it is increasingly clear that hiring talent based on ‘cultural fit’ is an outdated approach that can be counterproductive to the aim of attracting a wider pool of talent. By contrast, the terms ‘cultural add’ or ‘cultural enhancement’ apply a much more inclusive approach to the recruitment of lawyers from underrepresented groups, acknowledging that difference and disruption of the norm can be a positive force for change.

This alternative viewpoint to hiring encourages greater thought about the direction the firm would like its culture to take and how it can make use of strategic hires to drive these changes forward.

How can firms do this most effectively? First, this involves an ongoing exercise to understand where you would like greater diversity within the culture of the firm, where the firm may be falling short in this regard and working alongside internal stakeholders and recruiters to source the right talent needed to plug that gap. Second, at the recruitment level it means discouraging ambiguous assertions as to ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ‘cultural fit’ in favour of encouraging decision makers to see the strength in candidates that bring something different to the table.

At LTN & Partners, we work closely with our clients to support their DE&I objectives, helping them to move beyond traditional assertions around ‘cultural fit’ and towards a more modern hiring outlook that attracts the rich diversity of talent in our existing network.

hodo@ltnpartners.com

What is law firm culture exactly? I’ve heard it used since the beginning of my 25-year legal industry career. We hear the phrase with increasing regularity nowadays – particularly when law firms talk strategy, lateral hires (‘fit’) and almost without fail the word ‘unique’ is found somewhere in the mix. But what does it really mean?

What prompted me to write this piece was having recently read an article in the legal press that placed compensation pretty much front and centre of a law firm’s culture. I wholly disagree. 

During my career, I’ve experienced different ‘cultures’ courtesy of two US and one Magic Circle firm – both in head office and in regional offices including two very different London offices.  Irrespective of size, shape, and location, the word ‘culture’ was (and still is) used obsessively. I probably heard it the least during my time at a US firm in Hong Kong – the less said about that experience the better! It’s worth pointing out that different practice groups/departments have their own unique cultures, and, in most cases, many are miles apart in similarity.

You walk away from each of these experiences with a view that shapes your opinion of ‘big law’, law firm partners, management, and the firm itself. Good or bad, and rarely with a shade of grey. I have found that experiences are also influenced and tend to coincide with the various stages of one’s career.

At the early career stage, it’s all a learning experience – new skills, developing confidence and knowledge (industry and the job itself) and, in my case, becoming a sponge. Inevitably there is a tendency to look back at this stage fondly. My own experience, in retrospect, is a very pleasant one. I was fortunate enough to work in an environment that welcomed inquisitive questions from a then 25-year-old paralegal who transitioned into what is now described as ‘practice management’. The fact that a group of Magic Circle partners were willing to do so spoke volumes in my eyes.

In saying that, it was also a time when UK firms were still describing their non-lawyers as ‘staff’, a word I disliked then and dislike to this day. A ‘them and us’ description hardly lends itself to a ‘we’re all in it together’ ethos. This was certainly evident during an approximately six-month fire-fighting experience in Continental Europe in the middle of winter. However, my overall takeaway from my Magic Circle experience was a period of rapid growth having learnt a lot from a very smart group of partners who were open to having a non-lawyer involved in their business and actively encouraged that involvement. In essence they were happy to take somewhat of a risk with and invest their time and energy in a newbie beginning their career. You will note I haven’t mentioned money once. While good money certainly helps, I wouldn’t say that throwing large sums of money at people = culture. While compensation is important to most, showing a genuine interest in their people and their career development is far more valuable in the long run in fostering a culture that you can rightly be proud of.

Fast forward twenty odd years and taking a look at two of my former firm’s approach to their alumni programme highlights their differences in ethos and ‘culture’ in two completely different ways. The first of these firms, during the initial discussions about who to include and who not to include in their yet to be launched alumni programme, felt the initial focus should be on lawyers and not all former employees (“them and us” was still alive and well back in 2008).

The other firm, I would have to say, has an excellent programme. It is open and inclusive, offering invitations to legal and non-legal workshops, events and training and making available their office space should you need somewhere to work (this was long before shared workspaces came along) – irrespective of your industry (granted this does not apply, I would imagine, to alumni at other law firms). Things have changed since the launch but the fact that their starting point was non-inclusive spoke volumes about their culture. In fact, I could point to one former firm whose current alumni website allows you to select only a practice or department (all legal) as your last business unit…perhaps things don’t change after all?

Culture for me is born of the people you interact with and build relationships with. It is, in my experience, influenced very much by leadership. They have the ability, beyond any other people in an organisation, to shape people’s experiences and to define the value and affinity you feel to an organisation. The tone is set and defined by them – granted, this is no small responsibility. Time for law firm leaders to step up.

nick@ltnpartners.com

In recent times there has been an increased focus amongst lawyers on giving and receiving feedback. Perhaps the epitome of this has been the rise in popularity of the 360-degree feedback survey. The resulting challenge is how to successfully land the messages that are gleaned from these processes. Somewhat surprisingly there is a significant number of lawyers that struggle to provide positive feedback to their colleagues but the overwhelming challenge for the rest of us is how to give negative messages or, to use the more acceptable phrase beloved of HR staff, constructive feedback. Lawyers are constantly searching for the “magic bullet” of how to deliver such messages during their busy schedules without demotivating colleagues. This is especially true in the current climate when there is a paucity of lawyers to do the work and attrition has been trending up in many businesses. Can the coaching approach tick these boxes?

What is coaching? Perhaps the easiest way to approach the topic is by saying that it is not mentoring, training, or consulting. Those disciplines seek to put in whereas coaching seeks to pull out or, put another way, coaching is uploading not downloading. Coaching is the fundamental belief that individuals have within them untapped potential that can be accessed themselves by working with a skilled coach. It motivates team members and helps them better achieve their potential.

Why does it work? Primarily it allows a pause and gives busy people time to focus, reflect and invest in themselves. They can clear their head, allowing the person being coached to hit the reset button and order their thoughts. It also allows an avenue for people to get things off their chest in a safe and trusting environment. Rarely do lawyers block out time to just think and reflect and this is what coaching allows. It adds a trusted support structure for those who may not have one in their busy lives. Finally, lawyers may be avoiding the truth about their developmental journey and coaching can help them accept it.

Most of all, people find that coaching works. It fundamentally saves time and stress, and it feels like a better way of working. People are much more likely to implement things that they have deduced themselves as opposed to what they have been told by others. Learning in an enjoyable and supportive environment leads to development and growth. Research from neuroscience also shows that new neural pathways can be forged at any age allowing old ones to die back: you can “teach an old dog new tricks.” It is never too late to develop new habits and to grow. People need support as the challenges faced in the modern business world continue to grow exponentially, for example taking on more responsibility with little training or preparation, working long hours, fragmented support structures in people’s personal lives and ever-increasing pressure on all fronts.

How can LTN & Partners help? We have a stable of experienced coaches that have worked extensively in the legal sector so are knowledgeable about the challenges faced by busy lawyers. We can provide one to one executive coaching to help individuals, or we can assist in embedding the coaching approach to your teams.

For more information or to discuss coaching please contact Adam Freeman – adam@ltnpartners.com

Historically marketing for law firms has focussed on events. Being a relationship-based business its logical that lawyers want to spend as much face-to-face time with their clients as possible to build up knowledge of how individuals and businesses like to work, what they are focussed on and how their practices are looking to grow – these are all nuggets of information that lawyers relish.

However, notwithstanding Covid, the environment has been changing. The advent of social media, a more intense connection to the press, and a push to demonstrate how connected lawyers are to their markets, has seen an increase in pressure on lawyers to become less inward and more outward looking.

Marketing teams are constantly looking for Thought Leadership pieces to post, placements at speaking opportunities and a willingness to share their expertise and experience with their in-house teams. Lawyers are now having to learn how to ‘sell.’ This is not necessarily a natural state for a lawyer. PR and presentation training is now the norm for senior lawyers but, in my experience, it is not easy for them. By nature, a lawyer is analytical, focussed and less gregarious than they may now need to be. It’s tough but it’s the new way of marketing and they will need to adapt.

In this hot legal recruitment market, we are seeing firms looking for an ability to present and an openness to engage in this new ‘sales’ environment. The traditional interest on a CV for the ‘I was part of the debating team at University’ is being replaced with a desire for candidates who edited the student paper or ran the induction programmes for new students. Don’t get me wrong, the City is still awash with lawyers in restaurants and bars ‘pressing the flesh,’ but it’s a more sophisticated and rounded marketing role these days.

fiona@ltnpartners.com

Is it time for the legal profession to talk seriously about sleep? For a long time, there has been a culture at commercial law firms that sees sleep as an optional extra. Lawyers love to see the “all-nighter” as a badge of honour and expressions such as “sleeping is cheating” abound. The Japanese even have the expression inemuri which glorifies working yourself to exhaustion so that you fall asleep at your desk.

However, drawing a red line that you must always have your “statutory eight hours” of sleep every night as a lawyer working in the City of London is just not realistic. Client demands are not getting any more relaxed and deadlines continue to be shortened as people fear “missing the window” or whatever other justification is currently being used to try and fit a quart into a pint pot in time terms. There will inevitably be times when lawyers will need to limit their sleep to deliver for their clients and this has always been the case: it goes with the territory, and we all know that.

Therefore, lawyers tend to shrug their shoulders and accept that their lot in life means that sleep suffers all the time. That is fatalistic as it is not an either/or equation, there are things that can be done to improve sleep even when under pressure. Even when there is no need to burn the candle at both ends, many lawyers still choose to cannibalise their sleep, prioritising other things over rest and recovery, because of the misguided belief that they can use their sleep time to be more productive or that they need to “relax” before trying to sleep by watching another episode of Netflix or looking at whatever App is on their smartphone.

We all sleep, in fact we spend nearly one-third of our lives asleep. Even though many years throughout our lives are spent sleeping, few people think about their sleep or consider whether they could be sleeping better. Sleep is essential. Sleep is a basic biological need. Alongside food, water, heat, and physical activity, sleep plays a vital role in maintaining health, wellbeing, and performance. Sleep is so important that we cannot consciously control sleep onset. When hungry and thirsty, you can abstain from food and water, but not from sleep. When tired enough, you will sleep.

Researchers have consistently shown that devaluing and replacing sleep with non-essential activities results in diminished health and wellbeing, but more importantly for elite professionals, on performance. Chronic sleep deprivation is related to long-term illnesses, including heart disease and cancer. That is why lawyers need to take this topic more seriously than they currently do.

We would encourage all lawyers to educate themselves on this topic given its important and at LTN & Partners we have partnered with a sleep specialist to run a course that looks beyond simple sleep hygiene and considers how you can optimise sleep when opportunities for sleep are not optimal, or the stress of work and life gets in the way. The course will give access to the latest cutting-edge scientific research and strategies used by mission-critical teams such as UK special forces and we would invite you to attend.

To discuss this type of training please contact adam@ltnpartners.com

Resilience is often described as the ability to bounce back from difficulties. We think that is slightly misleading as it suggests the person enduring the difficulties ends up in the same place as they were before they faced those respective challenges. We prefer the view that true resilience is the ability of a person to rise to the challenge presented by the pressure of difficult situations and to learn and develop because of it.

Retired US Army General David Hackworth regarded each person’s individual resilience as being like a cup. He noted from his experiences in combat that some people’s cup was naturally larger than others from the outset but on any given day each cup may vary in size. This may be because of all sorts of background factors such as ill health, poor nutrition, lack of sleep and issues with personal relationships.

This has led many people to question whether you can you teach better resilience? As David Hackworth noted there is clearly a level of innate resilience in each of us that we are either born with or that we develop during our childhood. However, there is a clear body of evidence that people’s resilience can be worked on and strengthened. The US military for example run a course for all new recruits that seeks to help them resist combat stress and there are several UK charities that work in schools to help children improve their resilience given the most challenges posed by social media.

Law firms have come a long way in recent years in relation to the issue of mental health. The topic is now openly discussed by management and HR professionals of the leading firms. There are myriad support structures within such organisations if lawyers are struggling or feeling burned-out from helplines to mental health first aid responders. In our experience however, fewer firms are undertaking resilience training to help their lawyers avoid mental health issues developing in the first place.

At LTN & Partners we have developed a bespoke course working alongside a former UK Special Forces operator. At the latter stages of his 16-year career in that elite world he was intimately involved in the development of a resilience training course for those specialist regiments to deal with the challenges posed by the operational tempo of the War Against Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan because of the events of 9/11. That course was developed alongside medical professionals and focussed on practical skills that could be employed daily to help in the development of better resilience.

The Covid pandemic presented unprecedented challenges for law firms and their staff. We have heard numerous heart-breaking stories of young lawyers being isolated in small apartments during the initial lock-down whose mental health suffered greatly without the support structures and daily routine of attending an office with colleagues. This was the genesis of the LTN & Partners resilience training programme. We felt that younger lawyers, whilst being taught many skills on their way into the profession such as drafting, advocacy and legal research, were poorly prepared and ill-equipped to face the day-to-day rigours of working in a busy private practice law firm, such as receiving an avalanche of emails on a busy transaction or case. Our course explains the physiological response of the human body to pressure and stress and how to recognise that reaction in our own bodies. We then go on to provide practical habits and tips that can be employed to improve resilience. Whilst aimed at young lawyers the course is equally applicable to all seniority levels within the profession albeit that some of the causes of stress vary.

If you would like to discuss this topic please email Adam@ltnpartners.com

A Happy New Year from all at LTN & Partners. So, what were the most important recruitment messages for law firms to be gleaned from 2021?

Every firm needs a plan. The biggest obstacle to hiring is the sense that the hiring firm has no clear reason for making the hire other than to fill a gap.

Your most valuable assets, your lawyers and business support, are feeling increasingly demotivated. More attention needs to be paid to getting the best out of your people. With laterals, why spend so much effort hiring and so little time helping them deliver once they join?

The most successful firms are very externally focused and cost effective. What are your core businesses? Do your clients need you to be full service? Are your costs being spent on your clients’ needs or your internal needs? How much of the week do partners spend thinking about their clients?

And diversity is critical and not only to tick a box but because it feeds into a better culture and a more dynamic and creative work force.

As for LTN we doubled in size, added an outstanding Associates team and are the only ‘recruiters’ who can help you shape your strategic goals and align those with your recruitment plans.

What also makes us different as recruiters is that we reach the candidates that others can’t, and we have a conversion rate that is double industry standards. We also can help you and the candidate write a deliverable business plan and understand the synergies and cultural fit that make for the most successful lateral hires.

A successful, safe, and happy 2022 to you all.

Maurice.

Timely article on the role of recruiters in an extremely buoyant market. The battle for talent is intensifying and the winners will be those who do their diligence, find the right fit and integrate their laterals. A dynamic and diverse partnership is key to success. Hiring with clients in mind and sectoral strengths are more important than the often mythical book of business… https://www.thelawyer.com/the-biggest-winners-of-2021-are-the-recruiters/

When it comes to retaining women at law firms, it is clear that the problem lies somewhere between entry level and partnership. We know this because the SRA’s diversity data tells us around half of lawyers in law firms are women but that this figure drops to a third by partnership level. The U.K.’s leading firms are acutely aware of this issue, which is why every few years they announce renewed diversity targets concerning women partners (for example, Clifford Chance, Freshfields and Slaughter and May have all published minimum targets of 40 per cent for women in the coming years). But given the historically slow rate of progress achieved through driving senior level targets, is this focus at the top misplaced? And is it time for firms to invest in a much closer look at attrition and the factors contributing to it?

As a woman who left a career in private practice at the associate level, with a network of women peers who have made the same decision, I always wondered why I was not questioned in any meaningful way on what motivated my departure at the time. Since it is clear that law firms fail to retain women at the same rate as their male counterparts and the message from firms is that they want to redress this gender imbalance, it follows that firms should be paying greater attention to why women like me choose to step away from the traditional partnership track.

Analysing attrition is an invaluable way of doing this that is often overlooked as part of firms’ diversity efforts, in part due to some of the challenges it presents. For instance, some women may feel there is little incentive to offer a candid account of the obstacles they faced at the firm since they are now leaving and are unlikely to benefit directly from having shared their views. Others may feel uncomfortable with sharing their accounts internally if there is a perceived risk of relationship or reputational damage that may follow.

While it is true that apathy and apprehension may prevent some women from taking part in the process, in my experience the main reason women leavers do not share the gender-related challenges they have faced is that they simply were not asked the right questions in the first place. The act of posing nuanced, gender-related exit questions can go a long way to encouraging participation as the firm is sending a positive message to women who are leaving that their feedback on this subject is valued.

If women are engaged in a firm-led process that is handled sensitively, this is likely to increase the level of meaningful and valuable information received, which over time will provide the firm with a much stronger understanding of the challenges it needs to address in order to boost retention figures. Moreover, this exercise cannot be done effectively on a sporadic basis – it should consist of a joined up, long term approach to gathering and assessing information.

How can firms do this more effectively? One way that some firms are adopting is to engage external consultants to assist with the process. While most firms offer exit interviews internally, the questions are usually fairly generic and not drafted specifically with women leavers in mind. By contrast, specialist consultants are likely to provide a bespoke questionnaire that deals directly with the challenges of being a woman in the workplace.

Additionally, since the use of a third party creates some distance between the employee leaving and the law firm, this may reduce concerns about the anonymised nature of the interview process, encouraging greater levels engagement. Finally, the employment of specialist consultants can be a cost-effective way to manage the process long term as they are tasked with collecting, monitoring and analysing the data as well as producing reports with recommendations.

This is not to suggest that analysing attrition is a stand-alone solution. The work to retain women at law firms to partnership level should, for instance, begin in earnest at the entry level with measures such as the implementation of senior mentorship and the use of anonymised 360 feedback reviews. Furthermore, the issue of gender imbalance in the workplace is complex and requires a multifaceted approach which, according to studies, includes critically assessing:

• the firm’s business model and whether it is biased in favour of one gender;
• work life balance, particularly in the context of family and childcare responsibilities;
• flexibility with respect to working arrangements;
• reviewing how performance is measured;
• unconscious gender bias; and
• measures to combat burn out and mental health challenges.

Nevertheless, if firms wish to seriously tackle the reasons why they experience a greater loss of female talent between the associate and partner levels then they ought to direct the appropriate resources at the appropriate level rather than focusing disproportionately on meeting senior targets – and tapping into the feedback of women who choose to leave would be a step in the right direction.

To discuss this topic please contact Hodo Ahmed at hodo@ltnpartners.com

In the arena of leveraged finance, especially in relation to large deals that need to tap the public debt markets, it is essentially for legal advisors to be “in the flow”. What do we mean by that? Where a deal is to be sold in the high yield bond or syndicated leveraged loan markets, lawyers that represent arranging and underwriting banks need to be able to speak cogently about what is both on and off market in terms of documentary provisions. Faced with the demands of their clients, coverage bankers need to understand what may cause indigestion when the deal comes to be sold to bond and loan investors so that they can push back on such terms or provide for the right to flex them out of the deal at a later stage if, having tested the appetite of buyers, it is clear that the transaction will not clear the market at a sensible price if it remains as initially advertised. It is also true that lawyers that act for financial sponsors or funds need to equally be aware of these points so that they can properly advise their clients, especially where to push points and when to withdraw them to avoid a busted syndication or pricing that was worse than anticipated.

How are you “in the flow”? In simple terms it means that law firms and their top lawyers need to regularly act on the leading deals in the market so that they gain both a detailed understanding of controversial points as well as developing an instinct for them even if they are cutting edge and novel. It is also true that such firms should have systems in place to keep abreast of deal terms, to the extent that they are publicly disclosed, even when they are not acting for clients on those transactions.

The size of financial sponsor backed acquisitions continue to get bigger and bigger. Almost all global companies are now possible targets for the industry. From the USD 25.1bn acquisition of RJR Nabisco back in 1988 to the USD 32.1bn paid for TXU Energy in 2007 the numbers continue to reach eye watering levels. What does this mean for legal advisors in the leverage finance space? In short, clients want their lawyers to be totally indifferent as to the source of funding. Financial sponsors have become some of the most sophisticated users of the debt markets in recent years. They will arbitrage different financial products to get the best deal for the investors in their funds when acquiring a business funded with debt, which invariably is the case given the model used by the financial sponsor community. It may be that as the transaction timetable progresses there may be multiple changes of strategy as the deal and market dynamics change. This is why clients need their lawyers to be indifferent as to how the debt for the deal is structured, they need to be just as much “in the flow” in relation to bonds as they are for loans.

Given the ever-increasing size of financial sponsor backed acquisitions, it is very common for deals to need both euros and dollars. This is because most global businesses generate income in both currencies and finance directors will be keen to match the currency of the debt with that of their EBITDA in order to hedge any conversion risk. Commonly this means that the debt for such deals will be sold in both London and New York to tap the investor base in both jurisdictions. This presents a challenge for law firms with their headquarters in Europe and which do not have a meaningful operation in New York. Their lawyers may well be “in the flow” for key deals in London but they will not be able to say the same on the other side of the “Pond.” They may talk a good game but a lack of knowledge in one market or the other presents clients with a real risk that they will not be able to properly assess the key market terms which, in turn, may lead to investors giving a lukewarm reception to the debt package when it is launched to them.

In London this presents a real opportunity for law firms that have a substantial business in North America and who are “in the flow” for the leading deals there as well as being in the same situation for European deals too. They can genuinely pitch their indifference to clients as to the currency makeup of the transaction: they can provide cutting edge advice on both euro and dollar distribution both in London and New York. In a world where deals are getting ever bigger this will differentiate those firms that will be relevant in the upper echelons of the global leveraged finance market for the next decade and those that will not.

If you would like to discuss this topic further please contact Adam Freeman at Adam@ltnpartners.com

It was almost exactly a year ago that I moved to LTN & Partners, and I’ve thought on several occasions what a useful experience that was for me in my day-to-day job.

Having spent nine years with my previous employers and initially securing that role via a referral (which was very straightforward), I felt out of the loop in terms of the emotional investment that goes into a job switch. Quite an odd thing to say, when for the last eighteen years I have been facilitating career moves for other people.

Just as a seasoned train driver probably doesn’t get as excited about his shift as my 6-year-old son would at the prospect of a day at the controls, it’s inevitable that elements of any job can become desensitised.

It was a great to get a first-hand reminder that changing employers is one of the biggest decisions that we make in our lives. We might have perfectly logical reasons for wanting to change, though the mind does funny things, and I was soon questioning if the grass really is greener on the other side, when I contemplated my own move.

Most people aren’t desperate to switch employers, will have plenty of colleges that they get on well with and loads of happy memories. Leaving all that to work with complete strangers is daunting, and since when has a jump into the unknown been anything other than scary?

Interviews require clever scheduling and homework before, whilst once being quizzed you find yourself trying to read minds and quickly become hypersensitive (bordering on paranoid) to any signals given off.

I used a recruiter for my process and was hugely thankful that I did. Whilst I discussed the move at length with family and friends, having someone on my side who was able to gauge the temperature in the ‘other camp’ was invaluable.

Perhaps most importantly, it has given me a renewed appreciation for what my candidates are going through and, if I can continue to keep that at the front of my mind then hopefully, I can reduce stress levels and help guide people through this tricky maze. The older I get the more I like to focus on being as helpful as possible and less on the outcome. I’m grateful to have had this real-world learning and look forward to continuing to grow and develop the service I can offer. 

This sounds so cheesy and I’m struggling to believe I’m writing it, but in a small way I feel I can make a real difference to my candidates and make the world a happier place. Namaste to that!

To discuss this topic further and/or chat about your future career plans please contact Andrew Smallwood – Andrew@ltnpartners.com or +44 7779 781 810

I was fortunate enough to start my career in the City at Clifford Chance. I was there during a period of extraordinary change amongst the top UK firms largely prompted, it must be said, by the innovation and boldness of purpose that CC brought to a very conservative and traditional London legal market.

Coward Chance and Clifford Turner still is arguably the most successful UK law firm merger, leading in turn to CC being the first UK firm to set up a real network of international offices staffed with English as well as local lawyers. CC was the first big firm to consciously create an identifiable brand, it invested in high quality business support functions, it seconded lawyers to clients and it invested in a diverse legal work force well before others did. The first significant US/UK merger followed not long after I left.

I say all this not out of nostalgia but because much of what CC did (and others who followed and brought their own innovations) remains as relevant today when we analyse why the US law firms have been so successful in London over the last 15 years.

Reduced to its simplest form US firms are winning the battle for talent and have embraced the power of diverse thinking and hiring. That allied to their financial muscle and a willingness to offer extended careers to senior lawyers is a powerful combination. But surely the top UK firms still have access to the best talent – certainly at the entry point into the profession? Yes, but it is what firms do with that talent that really matters and how they mould and incentivise their talent. Equally important is the need to embrace different types of talent. Clifford Chance famously employed the 80:20 rule to ensure a proportion of their workforce were not from ‘central casting’. They were the first major law firm to have as many female as male associates. The point is that too much of the same type of talent is as much a weakness as not attracting that talent in the first place. Sure, the US firms have the financial muscle to ‘buy’ talent and do not assume careers end in your mid-50s, but their attraction clearly extends beyond that.

From a recruitment perspective, one of the hardest things to understand is how rarely the top UK firms look to recruit laterally. Bringing along your own talent is laudable, but it is hardly the best way of improving the gene pool and opening the door to new ideas, let alone new clients and skills. The movement of talent has been largely one way for two decades.

An overly homogeneous work force and unwieldy internal bureaucracies and structures of course does not help either. US firms tend to be less ‘democratic’ but with that comes an ability to move quickly. Back in the day most big City law firms also tended to be run by a few influential partners who were able to carry their fellow partners. Returning to my alma mater, the Coward Chance/Clifford Turner merger was negotiated secretly by key decision makers (not even the management of the respective firms) and the partners were given two weeks to say yay or nay.

To give more modern examples, we could cite the ‘team’ of 13 finance partners Latham took from W&C in the late noughties which cemented their position as one of the top 2/3 US firms in the London market or the counter-intuitive decision Quinn Emanuel took around the same time to take on the most powerful client grouping in the London market, the banks.

The Magic Circle continue to enjoy an extremely powerful and enviable position in the City. They have all the weapons they need to compete with the best of the US. Perhaps by going back to the future they will rediscover some of the ingredients that got them there in the first place?

To discuss this topic further or chat about your future career plans please contact Maurice Allen (maurice@ltnpartners.com)

You can’t talk about much these days without COVID-19 getting a mention and it has certainly had an impact on associate hiring levels over the last couple of years.

In the spring of 2020 when we went into the first lockdown, associate recruitment understandably slowed right down.  Some firms cut staff, froze salaries, and cancelled hires that were already agreed.  Uncertainty was sky high and memories of the crunch after the global financial crisis came rushing back. Whilst clearly these were troubling times and the human cost has been horrendous, from a hiring perspective, the downturn wasn’t nearly as bad as expected. At no point did recruitment grind to a halt and for the rest of 2020 there was a gradual increase in new vacancies as confidence slowly returned. Initially hiring took place within dispute resolution, though steadily moved to see more transaction areas.  I would estimate that by the end of 2020 the vacancy levels were at around 75% of what might normally be expected and since then the upward trajectory has continued, to leave 2021 as one of the busiest years for associate recruitment that I can recall for quite some time.

The hiring spree in 2021 has been led by the US firms, who have in many cases seen record revenues in London over the last 12 months. Leveraged finance has been particularly busy, with refinancing and repricing driving the activity. Private equity has also been rampant, with large cash reserves being spent enthusiastically and supporting areas like competition and tax, benefiting from the high workloads. As more financial results come in it looks like many UK headquartered firms have also done well, and most are now in growth mode.  It’s hard to think of many areas of law that aren’t seeing demand and utilisation levels are looking very healthy.

With hesitation amongst the talent pool in relation to moving jobs in the middle of a pandemic, firms are throwing the net far and wide, which has seen healthy levels of overseas hiring. UK based associates are now starting to return to the office and getting used to more flexible working patterns, which will be interesting to observe over the coming months. Employers who can provide long term flexibility will have a competitive advantage and as the war for talent hots up, firms will need to try and keep their best talent as engaged as possible which might be difficult after so long working from home.

Predicting anything is a risky business, but without tempting fate, 2022 looks to remain busy on the legal front and the expectation for the first couple of quarters at least is that hiring, and growth will very much be the order of the day.

To discuss this topic further and/or chat about your future career plans please contact Andrew Smallwood – Andrew@ltnpartners.com or +44 7779 781 810

LTN & Partners are delighted to welcome Jon Coles to the associate recruitment team. Jon joins the group as an Associate Director and has been working in professional services recruitment since 2014.

Andrew Smallwood, who leads the team, said “We are thrilled that Jon is joining us as he brings a breath of experience and an extensive network with him that will complement our client offering and, allows us to continue to deepen our relationships with both our clients and candidates”

Jon can be contacted at jon@ltnpartners.com

Press enquiries to Fiona Dodds at fiona@ltnpartners.com

Lawyer Talent Network today have announced that they have rebranded as LTN & Partners and moved into new premises in 99 Bishopsgate, EC2.  LTN & Partners continue to provide market leading legal recruitment for both partners and associates but have added a consulting arm to better service clients’ needs.

Maurice Allen, CEO and Founder said “Our candidates and law firm clients see us as more than recruitment specialists. So, we have expanded our consultancy arm and brought our recruitment and consultancy businesses together under one roof and brand, LTN & Partners. Earlier this year we also added a stellar associates team to work alongside our established partner recruitment team. We believe we have created the new market paradigm with market access, strategic and career advice and planning skills others cannot emulate!”. 

The new team all have backgrounds in the legal and professional services sector and is available to assist with career planning and talent management for the lawyers we work with as well as a full range of consultancy services to our law firm and other clients including business planning, marketing, events, client programmes, lateral onboarding, and strategic growth initiatives

Maurice Allen (CEO & Founder) leads the team alongside Vaughan Jenkins, Andrew Smallwood and Tim Jeveons who manage the partner recruitment, associate recruitment, and consulting team, respectively. 

Numerous articles and analysis have been written and conducted by legal publications and legal industry commentators about lateral partner recruitment and its relative success or failure. 

What has always surprised me about the process, is just how little emphasis and attention is placed on the business plan element either by candidate or the hiring firm. 

Business plan you say……yes, that little two or three pager that seems to accompany most candidate enquiries. 

Such great emphasis is placed on compensation and portability that the build out of a plan that looks to the short, medium, and long term, as well as a focus on integration are sometimes overlooked. Here’s what we have typically seen from candidates and their recruiters during our time working for law firms:

• A CV
• A transaction list and
• A set of metrics: portable income, a combination of billable hours, billings, and hourly rates and maybe some recovery/realisation thrown in.

Very rarely have we seen a strategy built around the above and aligned to the hiring firm. In fact, I can recall two occasions where we (the law firm) received a comprehensive strategic plan for how the candidate(s) were going to add value to the firm they were joining. One of these came from a senior leveraged finance associate at a Magic Circle law firm that was hired by my then current US firm as a day one partner. The other, by a well-known senior private equity partner (who has since exited big law) who along with his fellow partner put together the most detailed business plan I’ve seen. 

A strategic plan helps focus both firm and candidate alike. It helps a candidate identify why they are looking to move and what they offer the prospective firm(s). It prepares them for the discussions ahead and frames the conversation with their prospective new firm. In fact, it ensures a candidate stays on point, fine tuning the message they need to deliver to each firm (if they are talking to more than one as is usually the case) with a little nuance depending on the audience. In effect, it ensures consistency of message, without too much hard work on the candidate’s part.

From the perspective of the law firm a business plan (if well drafted), will assist senior management or the sponsoring practice leader to ‘sell’ the hire internally and achieve buy in. Most lateral hire processes are not necessarily quick and efficient – particularly when you are dealing with individual shareholders with their own personal interests in play.

A prospective firm wants to see how a potential hire will align – that fabulous word, ‘synergies’. Which clients and contacts offer up new opportunities and entry points or strengthen existing client relationships?

A detailed plan also ensures a prospective firm can plan future resource requirements that may be needed to support the candidate – a no surprises approach to ancillary products or associate support is again an easier sell internally. 

Whilst law firms have improved in terms of the information they now tend to ask of candidates, with many now incorporating lateral partner questionnaires into their process, there is still some way to go for many firms.

Before making the move to search and recruitment I was involved on the other side during the boom period of the early noughties and in the late noughties working for two US firms building out and establishing their London operations.

To discuss this topic further and see if LTN & Partners can help you in your next career move, please contact your usual LTN contact or Nick Georgiou – nick@ltnpartners.com

The more diverse a business is the better able it is to attract top talent – Fact. This is an approach that will improve client engagement, employee satisfaction, and business decision making. While progress has generally been slow, individual companies are now starting to make real headway in improving their diversity and inclusion (D&I) and effectively using these results to influence business outcomes. Law firm partnerships currently lag behind their clients in this regard, with D&I often being regarded as a game of quotas rather than fully committing to an integrated D&I programme that will lead to real and sustained positive change.

Smart businesses use diversity as an enabler of business impact, and to effect sustained positive change by promoting D&I in senior decision-making roles – and specifically line manager roles on executive teams.

McKinsey have identified four imperatives for delivering such impact through D&I:

The business case for D&I is clear.

A relationship between diversity and business performance exists with a direct correlation between a more diverse leadership team and a positive financial performance. 

Leadership roles matter. Companies in the top-quartile for gender diversity on executive teams are more likely to outperform on profitability and more likely to have superior value creation. The highest-performing companies, on both profitability and diversity, had more women in line (typically revenue-generating) roles than in staff roles on their executive teams.

It’s not just gender. A diversity of thought and experience is critical. Companies in the top-quartile for ethnic/cultural diversity on executive teams are significantly more likely to have industry-leading profitability. That this relationship continues to be strong suggests that inclusion of highly diverse individuals – and myriad ways in which diversity exists beyond gender (e.g., LGBTQ+, age/generation, international experience) – can be a key differentiator among businesses.

There is a penalty for opting out. The penalty for bottom-quartile performance on diversity persists. Overall, companies in the bottom quartile for both gender and ethnic/ cultural diversity were less likely to achieve above-average profitability. In short, not only were they not leading – but they were also lagging behind. 

Clients increasingly are buying services only if businesses are implementing a credible D&I programme.

Local context matters. On gender, while there is plenty more to do, in terms of both absolute average diversity and representation, Australian, UK, and US companies lead the way. On ethnicity, there is less global progress, with notable exceptions for South African and Singaporean companies.

In simple terms – a failure to embrace D&I will result in less profit. The time to act is now. 

LTN encourage legal businesses to examine the case for D&I at a more granular level to craft an approach that is tailored to their business.  We can help you analyse and assess the approach taken by leading global businesses to construct a bespoke D&I programme and path to implementation to ensure the maximum positive impact. To discuss this topic further and/or see if LTN & Partners can help please contact Tim Jeveons – tim@ltnpartners.com

Trainees and non-partners, with aspirations of partnership, are concerned about the ongoing working from home (‘WFH’) situation.  Although we are hopefully coming to the end of the COVID-19 crisis, is this still a problem or can junior lawyers develop into senior lawyers without serious time in the office?

There is no doubt that for law firms in general the lockdown hasn’t been all that bad – lawyers gaining an hour or more a day, not having to sit on cramped trains, is great when you have an office at home. Nevertheless, many associates and trainees (as was reported on Legal Cheek) are worried that their careers are going to be significantly interrupted. They are right – the reality is it’s next to impossible for non-partners to get the access to training, clients, and the partners they need to progress, whilst working from home. 

We see that there are three main issues for associates and WFH:

The need for learning through osmosis – Since time began, junior lawyers have sat in the office with senior lawyers and partners. It is how strong relationships are built and it is how junior lawyers learn. Without stints in negotiations, in the court room, on walks to meetings and without listening to your partner talking on the phone, it becomes harder to develop the soft skills necessary to become a partner.

Client development – To become a partner one needs to develop relationships with clients. From our conversations with partners, the number one concern they have for senior associates is lack of face-to-face contact needed to develop new client relationships. 

Even in these more ‘conservative’ times client relationships often are still built at the pub, over lunch, or at an event, and as a result it’s going to be difficult for this era of senior associates to develop new client relationships without that social access. 

Building a case for partnership from home – Whilst building client relationships is important for partnership so is the political battle that one must wage if the aim is to become a partner. The usual winning of hearts and minds through discussions and building support within the partnership and those in different practice areas is very difficult whilst WFH. 

All this is to say, that even when we leave aside the social isolation and mental well-being issues associated with long-term WFH, continuing to do so, even part-time, is not necessarily a good thing for lawyers, their career aspirations or development. 

To discuss this topic further and/or chat about your future career plans contact Vaughan Jenkins.  Vaughan@ltnpartners.com