Staff are more willing to leave jobs to look for other employment as the economy continues to recover.
The survey of over 500 large comapnies, which included five law firms, revealed that that voluntary turnover increased from 10.3 per cent to 12.6 per cent in the last year. Meanwhile, more than half of respondents indicated that they had added to their number of permanent staff over the past 12 months. The Chief Executive of Australian Institute of Management, David Wakely, observed:
“For the past few years, it has really been an employer’s market but that is changing …Many staff that stayed put during the downturn are now on the hunt for new opportunities and bigger pay packets.”
Who, exactly, is “on the hunt”, you ask? Try junior lawyers from serial GFC offenders:
- Allens Arthur Robinson;
- Mallesons Stephen Jaques;
- Blake Dawson; and
- Freehills
Yes, according to a report from our friends at The Lawyer,
In one of the biggest recruitment coups of recent times Linklaters has hired 21 associates from Australia and New Zealand, just two years after it cut more than 200 jobs in London. Four Linklaters partners travelled to Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland in March to interview some 50 lawyers at leading firms including Allens Arthur Robinson, Blake Dawson, Freehills and Mallesons Stephen Jaques in Australia, and Russell McVeagh in New Zealand. They picked up 16 recruits from Australia and five from New Zealand. Of these, 13 are for the banking, capital markets and projects practices, seven for corporate and one for litigation.
As always, we look forward to hearing from our readers regarding forthcoming pay reviews.
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I don’t see how junior lawyers (1-3 PQE) could benefit from this raid. Links would be insane to fly four partners over to A / NZ to hire babies who need a lot of hand-holding.
By the way I remember that partners from Linklaters and Clifford Chance partners used to hold recruitment
propagandatalks in my law school on a yearly basis until GFC struck.Check out the , Senior Associateship is listed as THE Top Occupation in most demand…
Me thinks the raid applies to senior roles with PQE 5+.
I know a handful of people that have gone to Magic Circle and US firms in the UK over the past 6 months.
The tide has really turned and the UK firms appear to be indeed restocking their shelves with Aussie supplies. Both Links and A&O were in town recently. I heard A&O were unhappy with the showing and went back empty handed whereas Links took around 20 (consistent with the article).
Freshfields, Slaughters, Herbies and some of the others are still using video conferencing or telephone interviews.
All my contacts who have taken places were between 3 to 6 years PQE and even then, some of the applicants with 2.5 – 3 years had trouble proving that their Aussie experience shouldn’t be discounted down to near zero.
What I found interesting was no one went for the money (or said they were going for the money anyway). Because of the strong dollar and salary freezes in the UK, the salary packages (excluding bonuses) are now pretty comparable. Just check Roll on Friday.
Everyone was instead hunting for new opportunities or their international experience merit badge rather than bigger pay packets – in fact the top tier defectors / Magic Circle entrants had to take pay cuts to fit with the restrictive salary banding in the UK.
Of course they need the bodies now, given how they laid off a bunch of SAs and 2-3 yr PQEs 2 years ago.
Kate, thanks for your insights. I am curious as to why poeple would head to the Magic Circle firms if the money is fairly on par with aussie top tiers given that the work expectations of these firms are significantly higher. That is, as I understand it midnight finishes and weekend work are the norm, rather than the exception, at London top tiers.
Agree broadly with Kate. Herbies, Links and A&O have all been very active over the past six months. I know of one person picked up by A&O banking, one to freshfields disputes and one to herbies disputes. Like Kate said, all took pay cuts. All of them had 2-3+ PQE, with top tier experience and were Sandstone university graduates.
The reasons for leaving were all different but in general, it was get to the foreign experience, more opportunities for specialisation with a bit of having had it with the Aussie firms enjoying boomtime but no prospects of promotion.
There is a build up of lawyers who qualified in 2007/2008 but never travelled because the GFC hit. Most are just outside Senior Associate or at Junior SA level. THey seem to be the ones (aged between 27-30) who are being successfully recruited.
Why isn’t Minters on your list of firms whose juniors are looking for other opportunities? The place is losing junior staff quicker than it can replace them!!!
In response to “a” @ 8.54pm yesterday, midnight finishes and weekends are the norm for plenty here as well, even despite the recent downturn.
For those people, London isn’t any better or worse from a work/life perspective (although the big UK firms have better resources to cope for the busy times – ie. 24 hour WP and print room, weekend paralegals etc which some large and most mid sized firms here wouldn’t ever dream of paying for – this means more time is spent doing actual lawyering).
I asked the same question as you about workload expectations in London vs Sydney and got the feeling that even if you’re working the same (extreme) hours, at least it’s different work in a different environment. I can understand this – change is as good as a holiday, especially if you don’t get a chance to take holidays!
Having read the comment above by “anon” at 4:20am (hope you weren’t awake at that time???), I felt I needed to add that my contacts were all non-sandstones and only some were “top tier” lawyers – the others were in leading areas of reputable mid sized firms.
In my experience, the prestige we attach to the top tier and sandstone unis in Australia is mostly lost on the UK firms who instead are more interested in how you’re able to pitch the quality of your experience and training in your CV and during the interview process. The Americans I hear are quite the opposite.
As “anon” noted, the UK can offer experienced lawyers more opportunities for specialisation but also offers an opportunity for junior lawyers to break out of a specialty and develop broader skills. One Magic Circle firm comes to mind which promotes “multi-specialism” as a quality it encourages.
Will be interesting to see if there is a repeat of the talent drain that the local legal market experienced here prior to the GFC.
Jo couldn’t be more wrong: it’s not 5+ PQE lawyers who are being targeted. English firms have an entirely different risk profile and simply don’t handhold like Aussie firms. Aussies and kiwis at 2-4 PQE from top tiers are the perfect fodder: they’re well trained, work hard, and most importantly, will eventually go home!
I’ve gone from an Aussie top tier to a MC firm in the last year, and know lots of people who are on their way/recently arrived. Herbies, A&O, Links, S&M, CC and CMS are all recruiting. I left to broaden my experience, get an MC on my CV, and to see some of Europe – London is a launch pad for the continent, after all. I also knew that I’d be more likely to be thrown in the deep end with more limited supervision – and I knew I’d get lots out of that. The extra week of leave (yes, five weeks/year) is an added bonus.
But it’s not for everyone. The hours can be rough (especially for the M&A kids), and the sink-or-swim attitude from the partners adds an entirely new level of stress. Salary banding means you’ll earn about the same (or perhaps less for 4 PQE+) as you do at home, but the bonuses can also be considerably higher if you work hard and work well – 40% bonuses are not unheard of (though I reckon you could expect upwards of a 2200 hour year in return). Case in point: some firms have sleep pods!
My lord it shits me – all this talk of ‘rough hours’, ’2200 hour years’, sleep pods …. from a bunch of kids who go there acknowledging that they’re not there to stay and want to see the continent. You don’t have to kill yourself over there you dumb plods. The more you do it, the more they will demand it. You ahve so much to learn
@Hero: could you be any more patronising, you imperious know-it-all?
@JK – you bet I can!
But I’ll hang back on plugging all the gaps in your ignorance for now in order to give the ‘imperious’ more time to milk the gullible like you for as much as we can while we can (too patronising again??)