To have the ticker to pump decent pay rises into employee hearts and minds, partners must have enough blood money in the bank to share. That, or the promise or reasonable certainty of money to come. There must be blood in their veins, so to speak.
To this end, there can be little doubt that top-tier firm Mallesons was in an excellent position last week to send pulses racing with some bloody good pay reviews for staff. The firm:
- has streamlined its firm to such an extent that it has a reported 44% profit margin;
- has less partners than its major competitors;
- has less staff than its major competitors; and
- has the highest revenue of all Australian law firms.
So staff were understandably hemorrhaging when they apparently received less than sanguine pay reviews last week. We received many emails from anonymous Mallesons spies over the weekend. We have chosen not to publish all of them because the sentiment is clear from those published below:
First this:
Mallesons consistently underpays its staff. It coats its position with a veneer of false legitimacy by artificially deflating the performance ratings of strong performers, and linking pay to those artificially deflated ratings. The partners are simply oblivious to what market salaries really are, and they don’t seem to want to retain strong performers. What makes me sad? The fact that I like my partner, but am going to have to leave the firm in order to earn the salary I’m worth.
Artifical ratings to justify low pay? Sounds familiar and very believable. We later received this from an anonymous Mallesons spy:
Dear Firmspy,
This outrage just has to be reported. I’m writing anonymously, but please don’t try to find out my identity. I’m scared of what the partners will do. I’m too scared to even talk to my partner about pay. Some news about the Day of Dollars/Dolours at Mallesons in Sydney. Well it’s official. Mallesons has stooped to an even more indefensible level of stinginess, with the announcement of a round of absolutely ridiculous pay increases, particularly for 3-4 year solicitors. There was no double-band increase. There wasn’t even a single-band increase. There was nothing more than a pile of sh*t rolled into a some thin rectangles and stuffed into an envelope.
A 3-4 year solicitor at Mallesons now earns on average a wretched $90k-$92k including superannuation, up from the $84k they have earned since July 2008. That’s an embarrassing raise of about 7% over 2 years, which barely accounts for inflation over that time. And let’s not forget that target billable requirements have also gone up to 7 hours per day. So Bobby M’s pathetic pay rise is, for all practical purposes, a pay cut. Note the plosive alliteration to symbolise disdain.
There were tantrums, tears and chests brimming with ire as rem review letters were passed out throughout the day. Partners faced a barrage of complaints which they batted away with self-satisfied smugness on their way out the door to go home and bathe in their profits in the style of Scrooge McDuck. Or should that be McF–k? Meanwhile, in contrast to the 7% log-of-turd hurled at 3-4 year solicitors by the partners, 4-5 year lawyers scored a 15% bump-up. Still, that leaves lawyers on the verge of SA-ship earning about $100,000 including superannuation. Very few of them are happy. Not that there are many of them left at the firm. Why is it that the 3-4 years got so royally screwed? Will a HR lackey from Busta’s team try to explain in the comments section? Firmspy, you simply cannot understand the extent of the anger and resentment felt by the victims of this unjustifiable exercise in partnerly flipping-the-bird. Do the partners want all the 3-4 years to leave? Because that’s what’s going to happen. It’s all anyone could talk about: recruiters, CVs, Freehills…
Then this:
Pathetically anemic and below-market salary raises at Mallesons today, even for top performers. Same lame old justifications from the partners about “challenging economic conditions” (cue violins!). People are absolutely livid and the revolving door will start spinning any minute now. Note to Mallesons partners- if we are intelligent enough to do your drudge work, we are sure as hell sufficiently smart to work out what we’re worth in the market and when we are being blatantly low-balled and taken advantage of.
Perhaps its time for Mallesons employees to give partners a coronary by simply taking a few days off work? Could a large group of disgruntled junior workers band together, as blood-brothers, and decline to work until partners get pay right?
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Mallesons would know what their competitors are doing in the salary space. I have heard of direct competitors giving very generous increases (in some cases two generous increases). Seems a bit naive for the partners to think their staff won’t jump ship… perhaps they are forgetting how much business they stand to lose if they have to replace whole teams!
Malleys just blocked firmspy this morning – possibly over this story and possibly just because the whole place is run like a prison farm. The good news – all the talent at other firms can read this – they’ll aoud mallesons job offers even if it is the most prestigious firm. The talent will dry up – and the lawyers not the partners do all the work so the results will suffer – the ex malleys filling the in house roles will keep work away from the firm in memory of their shoddy treatment, and in 10 years time or so msj will definitely not be the leading firm in aus. But this won’t affect the current crop of partners so much, so they probably (justifiably?) don’t care.
“Perhaps its time for Mallesons employees to give partners a coronary by simply taking a few days off work? Could a large group of disgruntled junior workers band together, as blood-brothers, and decline to work until partners get pay right?”
Huh. Unions.
This story is 100% true. Mallesons has been absolute pricks to the 3-4 year lawyers, even myself who billed over 140% of budget (fully recovered) for the Financial Year. That’s right 40% over a 6.5 hour per day budget and I get a bonus of 11k and a payrise of 11k that still puts me 15k+ below Freehills and 30-40k below what mid tiers are paying to poach good staff. Under the bonus scheme you must be employed on 15 July (pay day) to receive your bonus i.e. you can’t have resigned – FirmSpy should watch for the wave of resignations that come post 15 July.
what do you guys expect? partners are going to give away their own money to you for risking none of your own capital?
Rumour is that msj blocked firmspy today, to stop people reading your article. Too bad for them everyone has an iPhone or blackberry. Big brother doesn’t win that easy!
Ummm….not sure where these lawyers who wrote in but in case they havent been reading the news there has was a global economic crisis. Firms now need to rebuild their capital, rather than having a self indulgent expectation that you deserve a payrise because you work hard maybe have another think…you chose this profession and knew that hours that would be required. You dont just get a payrise because you work long hours, it’s a standard part of the industry. If you dont like it go work in the public sector!
A wave of resignations on 15 July sounds interesting. My guess is that it will be a Y2k type non-event. Where are all these lawyers going to go?
I’m not saying your situation doesnt suck. However unless there is some collective courage to do more than grumble my guess is nothing is likely to change.
1. Az – No one is asking partners to give away their own money. Mallesons lawyers expect to be paid at market rates, not at the bottom of the market.
2. C. Al – In case you haven’t been reading the revenue stats on the leading firms in Australia, the GFC hardly hit the bottom line here. To claim otherwise is utterly preposterous. Mallesons’ revenue firm wide increased by $2 million in FY 2008-9 with a decreasing headcount. Despite Bobby Milliner’s prognostications to the contrary, the outlook ain’t so bad.
Same to you.
For the hours I worked this year I would get paid more working at Maccas.
Partners can’t make that claim GFC and all considered.
The rumour that Mallesons blocked firmspy today to stop staff reading this article is completely true. The insecurity (and naievity) of the MSJ partners is pathetic!
@Leftandlovinit – Yep, those tools actually blocked it. Wow. Talk about the final insult. How dumb do they think we are?! Morale has been in the toilet since the VRP. Then came the pathetic KRudd handout style Christmas bonus – made palatable (only just) by throwing in a few days’ of leave and an iPod touch – a now forgotten triumvirate that did little to sweeten the pay shafting of <1 band we all just received. FU Milliner!
Soooo boring.
Last time I looked, no-one was tying you to a chair and making you work there. The solution is real simple if you dont like it – bugger off and get a job somewhere else.
July 15 will come and go and you’ll still be bleating … but changing nothing.
Oh yes, and as of today, Mallesons has blocked access to Firm Spy on the internet. It is as if the Chinese government is blocking and filtering information from google search. Firm Spy is not a “social networking site”, so I can’t understand why its blocked.
Yes, law firms are greedy and the partners are only focused on maximising the profit in their pockets and exploiting their staff. However, you all should be grateful that you have a job. You seem to have a sense of entitlement. There are a lot of retrenched lawyers out there who would be happy just to have a job. Must be difficult surviving on $90,000! Try surviving on no income at all. I took a 1/3 pay cut in order to get back into the workforce and I am not complaining.
Y Bother is right. The Mallies lawyers will whinge and whinge til the cows come home, but very few will leave. Mallesons knew that when they shafted everyone.
Az, Al and Y Bother – it’s quite evident that, when your comments are compared to the other comments left on this page, you are not lawyers. Notice the lack of attention paid to grammar and punctuation. HR Department perhaps?
Mallies lawyers – leave work by 6pm (or 8pm if you are having fun). Don’t give in to the culture of free overtime.
Don’t stress if the work isn’t done – that is the partner’s problem. They should retain more staff.
You are all unhappy anyway – what have you got to loose?
Mallies Gen Y lawyers – welcome to the real world!
You’re not the little prince/princess that you were led to believe at your school, or at uni, or when the “name brand” firms were brainwashing you in to thinking there was no alternative – It HAS to be Mallies! You’re a cog in a giant machine, and that’s all. Or, if you like, you’re one of those cows in the field you see on your way to the snowfields – standing around dopily all day waiting for farmer joe to milk you dry.
If you don’t like it then leave – it will probably be the best decision you’ve ever made (assuming you haven’t just let daddy make all your decisions for you).
This just shows an astonishing lack of foresight on behalf of the powers that be at Mallesons. It never ceases to amaze me that certain firms hire people on the basis that they are very clever and then expect them to be very dumb in respect of matters as close to home as pay.
My experience is that some of the people who work at Mallesons will accept a few k less per year because of the apparent cache they gain from working at Mallesons (I’ve never understood this, but it takes all kinds …). But there is a limit, of course, and I think the firm has seriously misjudged the potential for a backlash at this recent action.
Consensus at my firm (Corrs) is that (generally) the partners got the pay rise about right, acknowledging that we’d taken a hit over the last couple of years, and that we deserved to be rewarded. There were no GFC “continued uncertainty” excuses. The staff are appreciative of this and I think it will stand the firm in good stead. If, however, I’d been given the sort of sh%t sandwich which Mallesons partners are expecting their lawyers to take lying down, I’d be interviewing now in the expectation of handing in my letter on 16 July.
Mallies has more at stake than just a few pissed off employees. Word of this sort of thing spreads to the campuses pretty quickly in my experience, and this has the potential to affect recruitment and morale for years to come.
And finally, banning firmspy because of derogatory comments the day they are made??? I can’t think of anything more likely to result in every single disenfranchised Mallesons lawyer reading and commenting on this article. Good move, Mallesons…
Mallesons, like other top tier firms, trade off the name to ensure there is a steady supply of keen, bright graduates and juniors looking to get excellent training before heading off to better opportunities. Mid-tier firms can’t rely on such a constant stream and so need to pay high market rates to attract and retain.
It may be an immature model, totally lacking any sense of nuture (or the future), but the partners are the ones that get to call the play and this is what they consider will make them money.
I feel for Pi$$ed Off, but you have to see the reality that the partners care only about their profits and not those in their teams that are funding the new wing down at bowral. Don’t let them abuse you that way. Best advice I heard was to work at around 100% for the first 4 years and really learn the stuff you work on. Then slam it for 1.5 – 2 years to get SA and then get out for a better paying position.
Wow, you lawyers are such wankers! Such self entitlement! Such arrogance! I can’t blame you… I mean, choosing law to impress your private school alumni only to realise that IT’S THE MOST BORING JOB IN THE WORLD and others who didn’t suffer 5 years of uni end up earning more than you do, and enjoy what they do until 5.30pm when they go home, cook a delicious meal and make sweet love to their non lawyer partners. I’d be bitter too, you sorry pack of Gen Y toss pots.
I agree with Kim Jung II, this type of news does spread and it will make prospective employees (including grads) hesitant to apply at the firm – it’s just bad PR. All of my friends read firmspy (and have friends working at Mallies and MInters) and as a result, we will never work at these firms. I wonder if these firms, and others, are thinking far enough ahead.
Well, this is just the icing on the cake. I was offered clerkships at three top-tier firms with the obvious intention of picking one as a grad in one year’s time (assuming they pick me, of course). However, something’s come up where I have to cull one of my clerkship offers over Christmas. I was swaying, based on a few stories I have heard – but this one just sums up everything I have heard very nicely. Malles just got cut.
I can assure you, HR, if you’re reading this – these stories do reach the universities. And we do listen. Yes, some students will simply apply at XYZ Firm for the “prestige” of working there. But some of us do have minds of our own too – and, I would argue, it’s the latter group who you’d prefer to be working at your firm. If you muck around with lawyers who have been there for a few years, why should those of us about to enter at the bottom of the pecking order think we’re going to be treated any better?
I’m currently applying for seasonal clerkships, so this post is highly relevant. However, it hasn’t exactly altered my view of MSJ, but rather confirmed what I suspected all along. It’s common knowledge amongst law students (at least at my uni) that MSJ is full of “weirdos”, anti-socials, and slave drivers. Of course, we’ll all still apply to MSJ for the prestige factor, but we’ll be holding out for clerkships at Corrs, Allens (the “hot” firm this year) and Blakes.
Law Student – you’ll soon learn that life is about more than “prestige”. Getting up and going in to work for 8 to 10 (or more) hours per day is hard enough when you work for a good firm.
Glad I’m Not a Lawyer – There are one or two lawyers who are ok, but they are the exception (and they aren’t at the big firms!)
Glad I’m Not A Lawyer – why are you reading and commenting on posts about law firms if you’re not a lawyer?? Don’t you have anything better to do? You seem pretty bitter yourself for someone who doesn’t seem to be involved in any of the issues…
Hot tip for MSJ Partners:
You say that high partner remuneration attracts and retains the best partners. True. Yet you somehow have the audacity to say pay is not a huge motivator for attracting and retaining the best SA and solicitor talent. Drop the pretense and use money to your advantage.
Try this: For every billable hour over budget (in one given day) an employee receives $50 per hour. Watch billables go up. Watch the hungry fight for work. Watch the overworked (or lazy) go home early. Suddenly you create a market that gives incentive to share work (if you are overworked) and suddenly you create a feeling of being appreciated. If you don’t believe me, just trial it in one city for 6 months.
I have two comments to make:
1. Glad I’m not a lawyer: You bear all the hallmarks of a dirty, public school-educated westie. Please leave the comments on this board to people that matter.
2. Law Student: I had a good laugh at your comment re. “holding out” for clerkships at Corrs and Allens. Firstly, Corrs is a disgustingly insignificant mid-tier firm; and as for Allens, it is a miserable trainwreck (read the latest article on Firmspy). My guess is that those are the only firms which you (a sub-standard applicant) have a shot at working for.
@ Public School Losers
Too true.
The thing is high achievers at Mallesons (like myself) don’t have a problem with working long hours. It is just that our remuneration does not reflect the effort. I billed in recovered fees over 800k last year and got paid a bit over 10% of that. Whatever happened for the 1/3 for your partner, 1/3 for expenses and 1/3 for you like the old days?
Interesting offer from a progressive firm that has a salary for doing your budget and then anything billed and recovered over that you get 20% – sounds like a great idea to me. I like the work and the people at Mallies but boy it is hard to turn down 50% pay increases of base salary and then the option to earn even more with a good bonus scheme.
I also note the Mallesons Clifford Chance alliance talks on rollonfriday. Surprised that hasn’t been posted yet.
One of my best mates from uni is at Mallies. When he got the job (and I got a job at a ’boutique’ firm) I’ll admit I was pretty jealous. Oh how the worm has turned! On top of everything that’s been posted, he told me today they’ve now blocked access to job sites like SEEK, etc in anticipation of an exodus…
Law Student – sorry to break it to you but AAR and Blakes are not much better. It is very difficult to work out the “culture” of a firm when you don’t work there, even harder when you are at uni and don’t have friends working at these places from whom you can get an honest opinion. I wouldn’t pre-judge.
Law Student, if you needed any more incentive to avoid Mallesons then read the posts of Public School Losers and IWG
To public school losers:
No one cares what firm you work at – just like no one cares what school you went to. It doesn’t mean anything. Unless you think it does, in which case it means an awful lot, none of it good.
A new financial year and guess what? Mallesons screwed over their employees AGAIN. The negative outlook began in March, when you submitted your review, only to have it marked down to temper expectations. Nothing new there, they have been doing that for years.
This is all from the firm that exploited Workchoices to the hilt and continue to overbill and overcharge.
Blocking Firm Spy, SEEK, welcome to new reich.
Not happy with your lot, then think with your feet. Keep those HR consultants busy with recruitment, the trainers busy with induction and the poor IT and Facilities staff who have to do the desk shuffle week in, week out.
It must have been 2006 when Mallesons’ chewed through 1600 staff in Sydney alone (hires and departures), not bad when you consider that at that time, the Sydney office was host to 800 people.
Far nicer places to work and certainly less toxic.
Having previously worked at MSJ, I can honestly say that when I was there the culture was great and the place was generally well run. I look back fondly on my time there. It really is not a bad place to work.
To all you self proclaimed high achievers – if you really are that good and you are unhappy at Mallesons then back yourself and leave. Don’t just sit there and whinge and bad mouth your firm as it does no good for anyone, including your collegues who are happy where they are. Otherwise I would have to agree with the “public school educated westie” that you are just self-entitled and arrogant and probably aren’t the high achiever your parents told you that you were. That doesn’t mean I agree with the tall-poppy cutting lefties – eveyone at Mallesons worked bloody hard to get where they are so have a right to be rewared. However, If high financial reward is the top priority then you are in the wrong place – go to a PE firm or an investment bank if you want a massive bonus and don’t care about the work (not one comment has mentioned that you enjoy the work you do which may be a more significant cause of the “bitterness”). But if you did that, you may not have a job right now. Mallesons was pretty fair during the GFC (although is probably losing that goodwill now). You can’t have it both ways. No risk, no return. So if you are unhappy – do something about it.
Big companies like Mallesons work on the model that a small amount make it to the top while the rest give up their life and dreams in the hope they will be one of the lucky few.
They are no different to any other company, pay is not determined by what they think you are worth but you and employees like you will work for. (Please dont use the comparison of driving a truck on a mine for $150 K, you probably would not survive)
Remember the same people who are deciding your wages also worked in your position, also what was the excuse given by the partners when you asked them about the crappy pay, thats right you forgot to ask?
I can see your point of view and amongst the others you work with you probably have a good argument. Dont waste your energy fighting the system walk out the door like the others, there are hundreds of law students graduating in November who will be more than happy to take your spot.
Get Over It wages are like any other commodity
Its 15 July… lets see that wave of resignations!
Pfft, they had Seek etc blocked years ago, back when I worked for them.
Toxic place.
Wave Watcher: it takes people time to explore their options and find an an appropriate new role, there’s no sense in cutting off your nose to spite your face and jumping ship as quickly as possible to the first opportunity that comes along. You might get a 10 or 20 grand bump but it’s not a clever strategy on which to base your career progression.
Salary reviews were only announced 2 weeks ago, so no, there has not been a wave of resignations yet and the suggestion there would have been was unrealistic. However, there are several people that have already resigned in the interim and I know of a significant number of people that are now actively job-hunting (polishing cv’s, seeing recruiters and attending interviews) since last week’s kick in the guts…ahem, “pay review”. So rest assured, the resignations will come.