Working Life

Are you thinking of moving firm for a better work/life balance? If so, what factors should you consider before taking the plunge?

It’s not often we get the chance to quote Dolly Parton in a blog, so we couldn’t miss the opportunity when it arose. “Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life,” advised the American country singer and actress. It’s a sentiment many lawyers are taking to heart as they strive for that seemingly elusive work/life balance.

Much of this is driven by the fact that the 9 to 5 working day Dolly famously sang about is a distant memory, certainly for junior lawyers. They spend an average of 10 hours and 15 minutes in the office every day, according to a recent survey by Legal Cheek. Junior lawyers at Jones Day have the longest average day at 12 hours and 9 minutes, with those at Kirkland & Ellis only three minutes behind. The lawyers with the shortest day (of firms surveyed) are at BLM, who work (a mere) eight hours and 58 minutes a day.

But are the average numbers of hours a day a reason to consider changing firm? That depends on the individual. If you are arriving at the office before 9am and not leaving until after 9pm each working day, that might get demoralising as it leaves little time to spend with friends and family or to pursue outside interests.

Billable hours

The reality is more likely to be that there are periods when you are working intense hours on a particular case or transaction, and this is followed by a quieter period with shorter days. Perhaps, when you think about, you enjoy this variety and the adrenaline rush of a frantic period as much as (or perhaps more) than the less hectic periods.

A better indication of the number of hours you’ll be putting in and the stress you will be under is the billable hours target. K & L Gates expects its lawyers to put in 2,088 billable hours a year, which is at least 288 hours more than their counterparts at magic circle firms Clifford Chance and Allen & Overy, for example.

Remuneration

Bear in mind too that the firms with the greatest demands in terms of hours tend to be amongst those who pay the most. Kirkland & Ellis NQs may rack up 12-hour days, but they are also on c. £150,000 a year compared to the £44,000 BLM pays its London-based NQs and the £30,000 it pays in the regions.

The bottom line is that often (though not always) pressure and long hours means a higher salary. The question is, how low you are prepared to go for less anxiety and fewer hours?

Why not check out our (August 2019 blog) on salary uplifts for NQs?

Perks and other factors

Another factor to consider are the perks you would miss out on, such as healthcare, gym membership and subsidised staff restaurants. Plus, there are some things you can’t put a price on. What’s the morale like at the firm? Is there a shared sense of purpose and do you have good friends there? What is the quality of work like and what sort of experience are you getting?

Are you growing as a lawyer and what opportunities are there for learning and development or working in different offices, perhaps overseas? Is it worth sticking it out until you have the necessary experience you need before moving onto the next stage of your career?

Remember too that moving to a smaller, seemingly less demanding firm doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you will be under less pressure or enjoy it more. You may end up working for a particularly difficult boss, and although you will be at your desk for fewer hours, the time you spend there may not be as rewarding. You might merely be changing job and walking into a different type of stress for less money.

Can you move departments or roles?

When you think about it carefully you may realise that you like the firm’s culture and people, you don’t mind the hours too much, but it’s simply the work that’s getting you down. Or perhaps it’s the client-facing side of the role. Consider whether there may be other opportunities in the firm, such as moving to a different department or becoming a professional support lawyer with little client interaction.

Whatever you decide, don’t jump ship on a whim, wait until you have given it careful thought from every angle. Or, as Dolly put it: “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”

Starting your first job as a newly qualified solicitor is an exciting time, but it can be an anxious one too. In this blog, we offer some practical tips you didn’t learn at law school that can help you get off to the best possible start to your legal career.

Mark Twain had some advice for anyone starting a new job: “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” Unfortunately, ignorance won’t get you far in the law and it’s fair to assume you have a bit of legal knowledge if you have reached this far.

But that doesn’t mean you are expected to be the finished article on day one. The best lawyers are the ones who accept that they don’t know everything and never stop learning. You may have ‘Associate’ written on your business card, but you still have a long way to go.

If your chosen area of law is one you covered in an earlier seat, get up to date with changes to the law that have taken place in the meantime.

Help!

Above all, don’t be afraid to ask colleagues and partners for help. The temptation is not to do this for fear of showing yourself up. But it is far better to ask than give the client the wrong advice and make a costly mistake.

Context

Not being scared also goes for clarifying instructions you receive from one of the partners or one of your superiors. One of the biggest challenges for newly qualifieds, especially when joining transactions or cases after they have started, is to understand the background.

What may be obvious to the person asking you to carry out a task may mean nothing to you. Don’t be timid about asking them to explain what the client is trying to achieve and the context of what you are doing. Context can relate to any number of things: where your task fits into the transaction or case as a whole, how time critical it is and how important this task is compared to others you have at hand.

This links to another crucial point. You should be trying to make a positive impression by being hungry to take on new work and making yourself available to help out anyone who asks (even if, or especially if, this may seem menial to someone of your newly elevated status).

Too many masters

The danger is you take on too much. As Homer said: “If you serve too many masters, you’ll soon suffer.” Be cautious about taking on too much as you don’t want to have so much on your plate that you end up doing it poorly or too slowly. Make sure you are organised, clear about deadlines and do the most critical work first even if this isn’t necessarily for the person who shouts the loudest.

Explain it as if to your Nan

Above all, be practical. If someone asks you to do research or you need to write to a client with some advice, don’t present it like a law school essay. As Katherine Cousins said in her blog, The top 5 mistakes to avoid as a junior lawyer, “think about it like you’re trying to explain the problem and the solution to your Nan (unless your Nan is a Supreme Court judge)”.

No schoolboy/schoolgirl errors

Being practical also means avoiding silly mistakes such as typos or forgetting enclosures or attachments. If you’ve worked hard on a thorny legal issue you may be so pleased with yourself you forget to spell check a piece of advice or a note for a partner. Sadly (and possibly unfairly), sloppiness can overshadow good work and a reputation for it can be hard to shake off.

Make friends and try to find a mentor

Make friends. You’re going to spend a long time at work, and it will be so much more enjoyable if you are surrounded by people you like and who like you. You can help each other out and share your good and bad experiences. In the first few weeks, it’s a good idea to clear your diary so that you are available for drinks after work, firm events or networking with clients so that you can get to know people in a more relaxed environment.

Also, try to find a mentor, someone senior in your department you look up to and respect. Some firms have formal mentor programmes but if they don’t, try to find your own. It’s invaluable having the ear of someone who has seen and done it all having been in your shoes not so long ago.

Above all, enjoy it.

Hardly a week goes by without someone warning that technology is changing the legal sector so fast that law firms must “adapt or die”. Given that legal tech is here to stay, what does this mean for today’s junior lawyers and the skills they need to survive in a changing profession?

“The UK legal market is on average ahead of the curve when it comes to the use and implementation of legal technology,” according to a recent insight article by Thomson Reuters.

The reasons given for this include the business structure of UK law firms, pressures exerted by the Big Four accountancy firms’ (re)entry into the legal market, and the link ups between law firms and academic bodies. The article concludes that the innovative strategic plans of the UK’s leading firms “are pushing them further, faster”.

This is confirmed in an interview in August in The Lawyer with the Innovations Manager of Irish firm Matheson, Tom Connor, who said: “I think we’re going to see big law firms investing in legal technology and specialist legal engineering talent to advance the delivery of their legal services. Those who don’t are at risk of losing market share to fiercely competitive alternative legal service providers.”

If technology and “specialist legal engineering talent” are so crucial, what does this mean for today’s junior lawyers working in and, in due course, leading our law firms? To what extent do they need specialist skills over and above traditional legal skills?

How practical coding skills would be once you are in the office is open to debate. But there is no doubt a sea change is taking place in the minds of recruiters when it comes to identifying candidates. “We have started to see law firms… seeking a more diverse pool of new entrants, STEM students for example who have different ways of thinking from the typical law graduate,” says Adam Curphey, Head of Innovation Technology at BPP Law School.

BPP is one of the legal training providers that have been quick to pick up on this trend. It now offers a tech module to aspiring lawyers that Cuphey says will “equip students not only with the digital skills the legal practice of the future will need, but also the ability to use and design technology to respond to problems”.

The University of Law goes one better, offering a three-year “Law with Legal Innovation and Technology” degree from its London, Leeds and Nottingham campuses. The course covers artificial intelligence, blockchain, marketing, business psychology and process analysis.

So, will the law firm of the future be staffed only by tech-savvy lawyers using AI and the latest legal software?

This seems unlikely says Mayer Brown partner Andrew Block: “People go to lawyers for a solution to a problem and lawyers apply their judgement to solve that problem. AI helps lawyers do that but there is no substitute for the human lawyer – you can look at a textbook and understand what the law is. Clients come to lawyers because they want their judgement, their understanding and their experience.”

This view is shared by White & Case associate Ralph Goodchild who says: “AI can never substitute your relationship with a client.”

Somewhat surprisingly given the hype surrounding law tech, more traditional traits and know-how still trump tech and digital skills when firms identify what they require from junior lawyers. This was confirmed in a survey of law firm graduate recruitment and legal educators last year who put “resilience and flexibility” at the top of the list followed by “written communication” and “commerciality”. “Tech and digital skills” ranked fifth behind “time management”.

This should be a comfort to junior lawyers worried that a lack of tech and digital expertise will leave them behind. They should also take heed of the words of Norton Rose Fulbright Learning and Development Manager Julie Manson, who said: “When you come to law school, don’t be distracted by tech. It’s important to have a thorough understanding of case and statutory law and how this will impact your future clients. The tech will help in your delivery of that and of course, some understanding of how that will work in practice will be useful to you as a student and then as a trainee.”

If you shudder at the prospect of beginning your life as a newly qualified solicitor in the UK and getting trapped in the rat race, you do have options. Why not move overseas straight after qualifying? Not only does it promise an exciting experience, it will add gloss to your CV if and when you decide to return. 

It was Hans Christian Andersen who said: “To travel is to live.” After the long slog of university, the LPC and your training contract you may feel you haven’t been doing much living at all. It could be the perfect time then to consider taking your first steps as a fledgling lawyer outside the UK.

What are your options? Broadly, these fall into three categories.

1. Work for a UK firm overseas

Between them, the magic circle and larger City law firms have their tentacles all over the globe. As you would expect, there are satellite offices in most of the major European cities with Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid and Milan particularly strongly represented. You will probably need excellent language skills to land a job in one of these offices, though.

This won’t be a problem in the US or Commonwealth countries and there are a vast number of UK outposts in the US, Australia, South Africa, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Much will depend on where you trained and what experience you gained if you are to land a job at one of these top firms.

2. Work for an overseas firm that doesn’t practice English law

Luckily for you, common law forms the basis of many jurisdictions’ legal systems and this opens up a number of opportunities. The Commonwealth countries are obvious examples as are the traditional offshore jurisdictions such as the Channel Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.

Another bonus is that all sorts of international business agreements entered into worldwide are governed by English law and state that the courts of England and Wales shall have jurisdiction to hear disputes. This is due to the long-standing reputation of the English courts for impartiality and fairness. As a consequence, English qualified lawyers are in demand in many foreign countries. As well as the jurisdictions mentioned above, the Middle East (and Dubai in particular) are flourishing legal centres where English law plays a big part.

3. Requalify overseas

If the thought of more studying doesn’t put you off, this is an excellent way to advance your career and enhance your future job prospects. We live in an increasingly connected world and more cross-border transactions are being entered into than ever. Being dual-qualified and having a knowledge of more than one legal system will give you a head start against (non-dual qualified) lawyers competing for the same job. It will also help you build a niche as your career progresses.

How long it takes to qualify and what it involves would depend on where you are planning to do it. Be warned through – it may be a significant commitment.

What you probably won’t want to do is move abroad and spend so much time working and studying that you don’t get the full benefit of the experience.

The advantages of working abroad

You would open yourself up to a different lifestyle and may enjoy a better work/life balance. I can’t imagine how the commute to work in Bermuda, for example, compares to South West trains followed by the full sardine experience on the Northern Line.

The local tax regime may also work in your favour. In some jurisdictions, such as Dubai and the Cayman Islands, you may not pay any tax at all and in others, Asia and the Channel Islands, your tax may be lower than it is in the UK.

The weather, the affordability of accommodation, the commute and working practices are all potential advantages.

Plus, you will have plenty to add to your CV if you come back.

The disadvantages

Against this, however, you will need to weigh up the possible disadvantages. Will your stint abroad be seen as stalling your growth as a solicitor and set you back on the career ladder? Much will depend on who you work for and where, but this is a risk.

Salary is another factor. Unless you are heading to the US (and to a lesser extent Australia or the Far East), you may find that overseas salaries don’t compare with those at home (although you would need to take into account any tax advantages, as mentioned above).

Then there are the costs of relocation (and moving back, if you do) unless the firm you work for is willing to chip in for these.

Finally, you need to consider personal issues such as missing family and friends. These can be mitigated to some extent by the likes of WhatsApp and video calls, but nothing compares to being with someone in the flesh.  

The hail Mary option

It can be hard to land a role overseas as a newly qualified lawyer and it may be best to grit your teeth for a short time while you gain more experience and think through your options.

Last year, The Telegraph wrote about a former Latham & Watkins lawyer who took a sabbatical to work as a chalet manager during a ski season in Verbier. She loved it there and wanted to stay but missed the law. She ended up setting herself up as a lawyer in Verbier working for clients in the UK and Switzerland. As a result, she has managed to combine the best of both worlds.

If that is the type of lifestyle you aspire to it is worth thinking about how you set yourself up for this with your first NQ role.

This is a stressful time for trainees qualifying in the autumn as they jostle for NQ places either in their own firm or at a new one. It comes at a time when mental health in law is high on the agenda. In this blog, we look at the current state of mental health in the profession and what steps trainees can take to control the stress of finding their first role post qualification.

As part of last week’s Mental Health Awareness Week, Gowling WLG brought four dogs into its London office to help destress its staff. Apparently, it has been proved that petting animals can reduce anxiety.

We have no idea of the impact of Gowling’s initiative but one person who commented on the story in Legal Cheek was unconvinced: “So they’re trying to remedy a structural and systematic mental health epidemic in the legal profession with… a dog?”

Beneath the sarcasm, this comment raises some valid points. Is it fair to suggest that there is a crisis surrounding mental health in the legal profession?

Legal mental health charity LawCare believes so. It is setting up a new confidential online messenger service offering support to legal professionals. “More and more people in the legal community are reaching out to us for support every year so it is vital we expand our support service,” says CEO Elizabeth Rimmer. Last year, LawCare’s helpline received its highest ever number of calls.

The situation is especially acute for trainees and junior lawyers, the primary target of LawCare’s new service. A survey last year by the Law Society’s Junior Lawyers Division revealed that 39% of trainees reported suffering from mental health problems. More than 80% said they thought their employer could do more to provide help, guidance and support. (We doubt the opportunity to stroke a Labrador was high on their wish list.)

Yet, this comes at a time when firms say they are doing more than ever before to promote wellness and mental health. Nine firms recently signed up to the Mindful Business Charter, among them Freshfields, Ashurst and Hogan Lovells. The charter aims to promote a culture of “openness and mental wellbeing”.

Firms are increasingly conscious of their workplace culture, too. Earlier this month, Gowling WLG was recognised as one of the top ten best places to work in the UK by UK Best Workplaces. And legal website Roll on Friday recently posted its list of top firms for work/life balance, with Bristows and Mills & Reeve taking joint first place. One junior lawyer at Bristows said the firm “respected employees getting out of the office to meet life plans”.

Clearly, many firms are taking wellbeing seriously, although there needs to be a healthy dose of scepticism between what they say they do and what they actually do. At the end of last year, Legal Cheek ran an article about an unnamed top City firm that asked its trainees to pull an all-nighter days after publicly promising to support the mental wellbeing of its lawyers. A leaked email from one of the partners said trainees who declined to help would need to “provide evidence of their inability to help”.

A knee-jerk reaction when reading this type of story is to lay all the blame on firms for the stress suffered by their lawyers. But is this fair? In an article in The Lawyer, coaches Zita Tulyahikayo and James Pereira QC make the point that “part of the responsibility of an individual is to take care of themselves. You buy the appropriate clothes to do your job, and it follows that you do what is necessary to be fit for purpose. This is not to deny the role of employers in supporting wellbeing. It is simply to point out that the individual must also take some responsibility for themselves.”

They go on to say that “stress is not a mental health issue if one knows how to manage stress well. Most do not. What they have is a compromised ability to perform well, which is a wellbeing issue.”

So, what steps can trainees take to reduce their stress as they strive for their chosen NQ role? Stress often arises due to feeling a lack of control, so it makes sense to take control of as much of the process as you can. ‘Control the controllables’, as the saying goes. This includes:

1. Making a plan

Start the process early and decide exactly what you want to achieve. This may be as basic as making a clear choice about your preferred practice area or even whether you want to stay at your existing firm.

2. Doing your research

You’ve worked in law for two years now so use it to decide what you want from your career in terms of work/life balance, partnership prospects, quality of work, etc. Pick the brains of colleagues, friends and contacts about their experiences in the profession so you get as broad a view as possible.

3. Updating your CV

When you think about it, you have probably gained more experience than you initially think. Make sure you give a clear overview of what you have done and what you have learned during your training contract.

4. Preparing carefully for interviews

Do as much research as you can about the department or firm you are interviewing with and practise answers to questions. Remember too that the purpose of the interview is to find out as much as you can about the firm and if it is the type of role and environment that will suit you.

5. Not getting discouraged

If you don’t get the job you want, stay positive. Use every application and interview as a learning experience so that you present yourself in a better light next time around.

The legal profession hit the press for all the wrong reasons a couple of weeks ago when a partner at an international law firm suggested junior lawyers shouldn’t wear brown shoes with a blue suit. Whatever the merits of this argument (spoiler alert: there aren’t any), it raises an important point for candidates.

There’s a scene in the 1992 film My Cousin Vinny when the judge takes exception to the clothes worn by lawyer Vinny, memorably played by Joe Pesci. Pesci is attired in a black long-sleeve T-shirt tucked into black trousers for his first appearance before the bench. “A little informal, aren’t we?” Judge Haller observes.

Goodness knows what he would have said if Vinny had committed the even more egregious sartorial ‘sin’ of wearing a blue suit with brown shoes. We’ll never know. Perhaps the old adage, ‘No brown in town’ doesn’t apply in deepest Louisiana.

It seems that it very much does in London town though. A couple of weeks ago an unnamed partner in an international law firm caused quite a stir at a conference at the Hilton Tower Bridge when he advised trainee lawyers: “Don’t wear brown shoes with a blue suit.”

The quote was picked up by a journalist and posted on Twitter, where it was pounced on by lawyers and non-lawyers alike. Tweets in response included: “This is silly”, “The partner should get out of others’ wardrobes, or just get out more,” and “Brown shoes — of the right shade — are right for a blue suit.”

The story then appeared in Legal Cheek and the Telegraph, with the latter pointing out that “wearing brown shoes with a blue suit has long been the scorn of those who adhere to the ‘City dress code’”.

More importantly though, it highlighted the fact that candidates are often judged on their appearance rather than their abilities and seems to add weight to the results of a social mobility study carried out into recruitment in the banking industry.

“For men, the wearing of brown shoes with a business suit is generally, though not always, considered unacceptable by and for British bankers,” the report says. Echoing what many say about legal recruitment, it concludes that firms recruit from a tiny pool of elite universities usually on the basis of whether people ‘fit in’. The result is that poorer applicants can miss out even if they have the required skills because they don’t dress, speak and behave in the same way as other candidates. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

In fairness to the unnamed partner, his comment may have been taken out of context. Firms place a huge emphasis on ‘fit’ and stepping outside the norm can send a signal that a potential trainee isn’t suitable for that firm. I’m not saying this is right, as clearly it isn’t. But it is a fact of life. It’s hardly news that many in the legal profession are so hidebound that they judge people’s merits on the basis of what clothes they wear.

An article last year in the Law Society Gazette pointed out that many firms now have a more casual dress code, but this can be even more of a minefield.

One piece of advice in the article is “to look at what the client wears, then tone it down”. It helpfully continues: “Lawyers can be more casual around creative-industry clients and entrepreneurs. But it’s possible to go too far – architects favour extravagant glasses, but you don’t want them thinking you’re making fun of them by turning up one day sporting enormous red specs.”

There’s a serious point behind this and a similar one was made by one tweeter. “Here’s some advice from someone who chooses between large international law firms. Stop all dressing the same. You look like boring automatons. We don’t want drones, we want people.”

Presumably, the original comment about brown shoes and blue suits was directed mainly at men. Women have it far worse. In an article titled,The Minefield of Workwear for Women Lawyers, Kayleigh Zioli points out that “women in the corporate and professional setting still face additional societal judgement on their performance and leadership based on what they are wearing and how they present themselves”. Zioli concludes that some women spend an incredible amount of time and money on workwear, and view it as a huge area of stress.

My advice to candidates is to do your research. A firm’s dress code says a lot about its culture and it’s hugely important to find out if the firm is a ‘fit’ for you. Some people couldn’t care less about dress codes, others most certainly do. ‘Fit’ works both ways and it is not simply a question of learning to wear the right uniform.

For what it is worth, the view of the Telegraph’s Men’s Style Editor Stephen Doig is that “to assume that black shoes take priority over brown demonstrates a very stylistically uneducated viewpoint”. That lawyers have got it wrong when it comes to fashion comes as no surprise at all.