On the flipside, there was the horror run DLA Piper had over the last fortnight with our good friends at Roll on Friday. Each year, the site invites readers to vote on a range of industry topics and issues, and, based on the results, prepares a fantastic wrap up of the state of Australia’s numerous corporate law firms.
The Bogs Are Bursting
It’s hard to imagine a firm receiving a more comprehensive and vicious critique than what Roll on Friday prepared in respect of DLA Piper this last fortnight. It was measured, to the point, and scathing.
Of all firms surveyed by the RoF in its annual report series, DLA Piper (Australia) scored:
- the lowest pay rating;
- the lowest rating for career development;
- the lowest level of transparency;
- the equal lowest work/life balance rating;
- the least enjoyable social life;
- the poorest quality biscuits; and
- the worst smelling bogs.
Little wonder, then, that the firm took out the RoF Golden Turd Award – scoring the lowest satisfaction rating of all firms surveyed. We tried to think of any other measure we could judge a firm by, but couldn’t. DLA Piper sounds truly sh*thouse.
Take a Dump Chance on Me!
And yet, in a sad tribute to the state of the graduate jobs market, a virtually limitless number of grads appear to be lining up with a dunny brush. Yes, by all accounts, DLA Piper is more popular than ever, despite the torrid state of its loos. The firm’s Chief Executive Partner, Tony Holland, told our friends at ALB:
There is certainly more interest in the firm. We’ve been very impressed by the quality of the applicants.
Meanwhile, the firm’s HR director, Kate Weaver, helpfully added:
[The increase is] clearly down to our strong global positioning in the market as DLA Piper… Global firms are increasingly top of mind among law students
What do you think? Is the firm in better shape as DLA Piper? We agree that DLA Piper has emerged as a competitive threat to the top tiers (particularly in terms of recruitment) – we wrote about it here – but the firm needs to urgently distance itself from allegations of harassment, rampages of bullying and the ruthless cutting of headcount.
A Bog Ugly Firm
Which gets us to the following assessment DLA Piper we received from an anonymous insider a couple of weeks ago:
I saw recently on Roll on Friday that DLA Piper Australia has picked up the golden turd award for the second year running. Not only did we win it, we seem to have totally destroyed the competition leaving daylight to come in a distant second. I have worked at this firm for a long time. It needs a cathartic, colonic cleansing (golden turd pun).
What the survey didn’t give are the reasons why the dissatisfaction levels are apparently at an all time high for 2 years now. It’s not hard to see them. The rot started at the top.
The management team could not manage a fart at a 4 day beans & cola festival. The global firm ensured the DLA Phillps Fox partnership was divided and fearful before the merger. The cattle had to be controllable and controlled to get the merger across the line. The management team helped make that happen. Many good people left along the merger path.
Adding to the decay of morale, was the fact that in the lead up to the merger, partners from DLA Piper middle east were forced onto the firm because the economy in the middle east was a disaster. The Australian management team seem to have been prepared to do anything to appease the global firm and get the merger over the line. These soldiers of fortune were brought in on high packages and given management roles in various offices and teams. None of them seemed to bring a practice or a team.
Underutilised new partners presented roadblocks for senior talent in the firm. Many voted with their feet. That cascades down to junior lawyers who also seem to be getting their runners on.
Bullying doesn’t help. there have been enough comments on this site and others about that issue.
The firms is positioning itself as some sort of top tier global firm. DLAPF was never anythig close to top tier. With a new name, it is no different. In fact with all the lost talent, all that is left are 2 golden turd awards.
Do you think DLA Piper is a golden nugget?
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DLA may have its faults, but equal lowest for work/life balance? Those survey results are clearly bullsh*t. No-one in their right mind would suggest that DLA lawyers have worse hours than Allens, Freehills, Mallesons, Blakes, Clutz…
Not commenting on the substantive results of the ROF surveys, but it would be interesting to know the total number of respondents to each.
I suspect not that many.
What sort of metric is grad interest anyway? I don’t know a single grad who didn’t apply at every firm in town.
All it means is that all the other firms weren’t looking/hiring so those that couldn’t afford to be picky put in everywhere they could, including DLA? (I know I did)
Grad Interest means nothing.
I am no supporter of DLA Piper, but I am always a little skeptical of these surveys. For starters, it is difficult to judge without knowing something of the sample size. If there were 50 responses bagging out DLA Piper, then yes, that is very bad. If there was only one response, it may just be one disgruntled person and no one else bothered to respond.
Also, there is no verification of the people voting to ensure they actually work at the place they are submitting votes for. So it is very easy to manipulate all the results.
I am also highly skeptical of how well Marque Lawyers ranked in the survey.
PF was a solid, mid-tier name. Why on earth they chose to be associated with a bunch of pr1cks like DLA is beyond me.
These supposed survey results completely fly in the face of the recent staff engagement survey in which 100% of grads said that they would recommend working at DLA to their friends (as compared to a reasonably high, but still lower percentage of junior lawyers and SAs). I am a junior lateral move into DLA and have found the culture to be great and the grads happy and enthusiastic. This crap (pardon the pun) just smacks of a couple of jaded juniors who may not have made the grade and weren’t offered a first year position. Who knows, but this just doesn’t compute.
I was at DLA Piper until just a couple of months back because I was being managed by two completely useless people who resorted to bullying tactics to get me out. Since working elsewhere I can now see the difference and career is taking off.. The place needs a complete spring clean from top to bottom. You just have to see what happened to the Marketing Department under a dictator to see the damage what was caused in just one department. HR are no better and as for juniors/Associates in other depts…well in some places it is decimated. There are some real unpleasant people still in place and until that changes the firm will continue to be bottom of every survey going.
Ho Hum – if this is ALL Firm Spy can manage to spring on DLA in more than 6 months (and even then not from an internal leak but from that veritable ROF), then it must be doing alright. Every organization has it’s idiots (and those idiots know who I’m talking about). The key here, I suspect is that DLA is now past it’s big issue and getting on with it’s long term strategy. For the rest of you who are coming on to it, hold on tight!