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Our view...
One of the grandest of the magic circle firms, Freshfields
seems to have put its recent woes behind it with a staggering
performance. Turnover for 2007/08 was up 20%. Equity partners make an
average of nigh on one and a half million, double what they pulled in
a few years ago.
Such success has come at
a cost. Over the past few years the firm has booted out nearly a
hundred partners and has made up far fewer than any of its
competitors. Only two UK lawyers made
equity in 2007. But the firm has been able to navigate away from its
troubles in the last downturn:
the increased
readiness of clients to move to smaller firms for lower fees, the
slowdown in the M&A market and the
humiliation of being dropped by Barclays, BT and Royal Bank of
Scotland. And it seems in good shape to weather the current one.
Snapping up of two
major German firms seemed like a shrewd move, but we've heard of
tensions between the UK and German partnerships. Still, at least
its German
offices are now making proper money, with profitability higher than
the firm's average. The promised
increase in gearing should improve things over the next few years.
The new, slimmed down
Freshfields is back to picking up some of the best work
around. It recently acted on the £722m acquisition of Deutsche
Bank's European property portfolio, and it's reckoned that the firm bagged
more than £60m in fees from the Government over the part-privatisation
of London Underground. Attempts to ramp up their finance practice
achieved some success when it took the lead role in Invensys'
£2.7bn re-financing. And whilst the rest of the City was worrying
about the collapse of Norther Rock, Freshfields was picking up a
fortune acting for it. Even if it did hack off its oldest client, the
Bank Of England, in the process.
There are clear advantages to working at Freshfields as an assistant. You will get
experience of work that only a handful of firms can match and none can
better. Cash and benefits are some of the best in the City, and the London offices are smart and (in an age when the
magic circle is deserting to Canary Wharf and Spitalfields) well
located. Partners are generally very hands on - one assistant
mentioned that however late he was in the office, a partner would
still be there when he left.
And you will find
yourself working very late very often. There may not be any official targets, but hours are
still as tough as at
any Magic Circle firm. Yes, you'll get
superb experience. But the up-or-out policy
means that if you don't make partnership you'll find yourself without
a job. And let's face it, the odds aren't in your favour (particularly
if you're a woman - only 12% of the firm's partnership is female, the
lowest in the magic circle). For all the firm's talk of bringing in
alternatives to partnership, for now it's lagging behind pretty much
every major firm in the City.
Many assistants (especially those outside
the core corporate department) feel marginalised and
undervalued, a perception that
was fueled by former chief executive Alan Peck's dismissive comment to the FT
that
they were all over-paid "little darlings". His half-arsed
apology afterwards did little to repair the damage, although to be
fair to the firm his fellow partners were clearly furious with him and
2004 saw his resignation.
Many of these problems
affect every large firm, and grumbles about prospects can be heard
throughout the Magic Circle. Freshfields offers excellent training, takes career
development seriously and
keeps on nearly all its newly qualified lawyers. This, coupled with the lure of
good money, superb work and a
glittering name on a CV will be enough to ensure that they will
always be able to attract the best.
For more information on
Freshfields click
here
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