Those numbers were:
Full Year 2009
- Allens Arthur Robinson 45% (94 grads : 206 seasonal clerks)
- Baker & McKenzie 35% (16 grads : 45 seasonal clerks)
- Blake Dawson 45% (85 grads : 185 seasonal clerks)
- Clayton Utz 65% (96 grads : 147 seasonal clerks)
- Corrs Chambers Westgarth 80% (53 grads : 66 seasonal clerks)
- Deacons 91% (43 grads : 47 seasonal clerks)
- DLA Piper 55% (43 grads : 77 seasonal clerks)
- Freehills 63% (120 grads : 190 seasonal clerks)
- Mallesons 54% (135 grads : 248 seasonal clerks)
Estimate for Full Year 2010
- Allens Arthur Robinson 47% (94 grads : 200 seasonal clerks)
- Baker & McKenzie 37% (16 grads : 40-45 seasonal clerks)
- Blake Dawson 45% (85 grads : 185 seasonal clerks)
- Clayton Utz 67% (80 grads : 118 seasonal clerks)
- Deacons 52% (22 grads : 42 seasonal clerks)
- DLA Phillips Fox 64% (40 grads : 62 seasonal clerks)
- Freehills 71% (105-110 grads : 140-160 seasonal clerks)
The current edition of BRW contains figures on the number of grads employed by Australia’s top 30 firms by revenue. We thought we would painstakingly transcribe them here for your information. The order is based on revenue and in brackets is the firm’s position within the top 30 based on graduate recruitment:
- Minter Ellison: 81 (#3)
- Freehills: 74 (#6)
- Mallesons: 89 (#2)
- Clayton Utz: 78(#5)
- AAR: 91 (#1)
- Blake Dawson: 81 (#3)
- Corrs: 51 (#8)
- Norton Rose: 45 (#9)
- Gadens: 29 (#11)
- DLA Piper: 33 (#10)
- Slater & Gordon: 16 (#17)
- Baker & McKenzie: 18 (#15)
- Gilbert + Tobin: 25 (#13)
- HWL Ebsworth: 53 (#7)
- Middletons: 27 (#12)
- Henry Davis York: 14 (#19)
- Sparke Helomore: 9 (#26)
- Maddocks: 20 (#14)
- Kennedy Strang: 15 (#18)
- Griffith Hack: 11 (#24)
- McCullough Robertson: 12 (#23)
- Thomsons Lawyers: 17 (#16)
- Lander & Rogers: 13 (#20)
- Holding Redlich: 13 (#20)
- Herbert Geer: 11 (#24)
- Arnold Bloch Leibler: 13 (#20)
- Piper Alderman: 10 (#25)
- Allen & Overy: Not provided
- Hunt & Hunt: 5 (#27)
- Macpherson + Kelly: 7 (#26)
We should note firstly that we think the figures above indicate the number of grads working at each respective firm in 2011 and not the number of graduate offers made in 2011. At Mallesons, for example, a spokesperson informed us recently that the firm hired 87 graduates in 2010 and 81 in 2011, however the BRW reports that firm had 89 in 2011. Presumably the extra 8 grads deferred an earlier offer and commenced this year. Leaving that discrepancy aside, one major point of discussion arises: the disproportionate number of grads HWL Ebsworth hired this year.
HWL Ebsworth has certainly done some growing in the last year. Its non-partner fee-earner headcount, according to The Australian (9/12/11) is up 25% in the last year (176 to 220) and its partnership has increased 14.2% in the same period (120 to 137). Interestingly, according to the AFR (9/12/11), HWL Ebsworth scored the third highest in a survey of 38 major Australian firms of partners as a percentage of the workforce. The HWL Ebsworth partnership is 56.6% of the firms total fee-earner headcount. What does this significantly lower leverage ratio mean for grads? It can mean one of two things: 1) better mentoring and contact from senior lawyers; or 2) much more pressure from money hungry partners who cant spread work across a number of staff.
It’s probably the latter, if the HWL partnerly penchant for long lunches are any indication…
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The problem with this sort of analysis is that it ignores different practices in different cities. In Melbourne everyone done several seasonal clerkships with different firms. Only a small fraction of clerks get offers at each of the firms they clerk with. In Sydney people do one clerkship and only a handful of people don’t get an offer out of it.
As a grad in the 2012 top-tier intake, I would be really interested to see the progression/career paths of top-tier grads – where are they in 1, 3 and 5 years time etc? Have you done such a survey, FS, and if not, could you please think about doing one?? Cheers.
DLA Piper is disturbingly low for such a big firm
@BureauCat
1 year – still doing discovery;
3 years – still doing discovery interspaced with the odd memo on points of law such as limitation periods applying to a claim; and
5 years – at another firm other than a top tier (and if they are really smart in house somewhere) after realising that working at a top tier is not what it used to be or how it sounded in the grad interview.
When will people learn – top tier firms are almost passed their used by dates…
“past” – wouldn’t get that in the top tier.
DLA Piper is disturbingly crap for such a big firm
Mark my words ….. DLA will disappear from the Australian legal landscape faster than donuts at a Biggest Loser audition. Just sayin’
@Don Juan – If you are still doing discovery after 3 years, it probably means that there is something wrong with your work and they don’t trust you to do anything else!
@ Don Juan – which firm did you work for?
clerkships at AAR in Brisbane are a last resort too. The firm has 3 intakes of vacation clerks yet it is small and will take less than 10 out of 40+ clerks
Those figures aren’t all correct – Sparkes has at laest 7 grads just in the Sydney office, I believe at least 15 if not 20 nationally.
The thing clients love about HWL is that the files get a decent amount of partner time and that they only have to pay $425 an hour for that time. When you compare this to the charge out rates of a 2year lawyer at AAR/MSJ etc it is really quite good value. Sure they can’t do the super specialised takeovers panel or PartIVA work, nor monster litigation (there just aren’t the resources in terms of document management nor the throngs of juniors to wade through the documents) but for your run of the mill property, basic insolvency or banking+finance work it really does make good commercial sense to use them.
The thing juniors hate about HWL is that it is`a terrible place to work. It’s no coincidence that few graduates last more than two years after their date of admission – because this is the point that the other big firms (who didn’t offer the HWL grads a job 2 years prior) start to be willing to offer them jobs. It’s also no coincidence that HWL is one of the few firms to have an intermediate heirachal level of associate which they dish out at about 2 years to try and stem the flow. .
One issue I have with these statistics is that you are talking about graduate STARTERS (i.e. people that accepted a traineeship or equivalent some time in the last 18 months) against the number of seasonal clerks in the current year.
In Melbourne at least, the top tier firms make a large number of offers to their seasonal clerks – not quite at Sydney levels – but well above 70%.
Why? Let’s take a look…
Mallesons takes on about 90 clerks over its three clerkship intakes in July, December and January. But wait! Those same kids applied to 10 other firms. And, surprise surprise, if Mallesons made them an offer, chances are at least one of Freehills and AAR did as well. And they probably got an offer from at least one of Corrs, Blakes, Minters and Clayton Utz as well.
So these clerks do 3 clerkships. It is not unheard of for them to do 4 to 6 clerkships over a two year period (fun fun fun).
Then when Mallesons makes offers to their clerks in August this year, they know that those same clerks also worked with their major competitors. They all want the same people – the ‘good people’. Despite very slight cultural differences, if you have the ‘right personality’ for corporate law and you are hard-working, sure Freehills and Mallesons will both make you an offer. And Mallesons knows that if you have an offer from Freehills, you might take it.
The result is that the top tier firms expect an acceptance rate of abut 40% for their traineeship offers. They take, say, 90 clerks, make offers to about 75 of them, and end up with a graduate intake of about 30 in their Melbourne office. So that means that at about 80% of Melbourne clerks get an offer at top tier firms.
Somebody from Sydney can explain the situation there better than I can, but from what I understand it is something along the lines of 90% of clerks being made offers.
@Statistics is right. I’m sure that if you looked at the number of people who the firms offered jobs to (rather than the number of people who accepted the jobs), the figures would look very different.
In Perth most firms do 2-4 rounds of seasonal clerkships of 2-3 weeks each. You will tend to see the same core group of 60-80 do the rounds at all the top tiers. The informal scheme in Perth is now that firms will only offer to students who have clerked wtih them in the past. If you assume all the top tiers firms in Perth take 8-15 clerks, it doesn’t take a much to figure out they’re competing for the same limited pool of quality grads and the % of grads they take is small compared to the number of seasonal clerks.
The problem with Baker & McKenzie (and Norton Rose… and DLA Piper) is that clerks go there expecting to go overseas – when they don’t get an international clerkship or similar experience, they get pissed and go to another firm. Or overseas. Mainly overseas. These firms HAVE to take more clerks than they expect to come back as grads.
These grossly inflated figures are totally wrong. There were only 24 summer clerks at Clayton Utz in 2010. 5 of those went to the Canberra office. Most of the intakes were small for 2010. I think the biggest was Blakes which had about 50ish clerks. Of the 24 clutz clerks, all of them got offers. Please check your sources