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Exclusive: Crisis at Jones Day London as 10% of partnership quits
More than 10% of Jones Day's London partners have left the firm in the last couple of months, two of them heads of departments.

Six partners have now left from an office that has only 66 in total. Most of them are high profile lateral hires who have only been at the firm for a few years:

  • Hamish Lal, Head of Construction, joined in 2009, left last month to join Akin Gump.
  • Jules Quinn, Head of Employment, joined in 2012, left last December for King & Spalding.
  • Dominic O'Brien, joined in 2012, left this month for Orrick.
  • Sumesh Sawhney, joined in 2013, left this month for Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan.
  • Weyinmi Popo, joined in 2006, left last month for Orrick.
  • Brian Conway, joined in 2013, left last August to be a legal consultant.

RoF has been told by an insider that two more partners are set to leave the firm this month.

    Some rats fleeing a sinking ship yesterday


Last month RoF revealed that Jones Day had demoted another four partners to counsel. So in total that's 12 partners who have jumped, are jumping or have been taken off the letterhead. That is more than just normal churn. An insider claimed to RoF that the office makes "lots of splashy hires but none they can hang on to", and blames poor management, lack of precedents (and no PSLs to develop them), second rate deals and "essentially a single practitioner model where cooperation is non-existent, associates scarce, and client sharing unheard of".

The firm declined to comment.

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Comments

Anonymous 12 February 16 10:21

The lack of transparency is the most disappointing and archaic feature of Jones Day. The only way we find out about the above partners leaving is by reading Roll On Friday or walking past their office and seeing an empty desk and no name on the door.

If Jones Day wants to retain talent, it needs to wake up and modernise. It needs to motivate its workforce. No more secrets. Be open and honest as to why these lawyers are leaving so that morale does not tank any further. More people are looking to jump ship.

The trouble is, I suspect, that the Partner-in-Charge's hands are very much tied with Washington DC rope.

Anonymous 12 February 16 10:31

"single practitioner model.......co-operation non-existent.......associates scarce......client sharing unheard of"

That's almost everywhere I've worked then.

Anonymous 12 February 16 12:29

The firm needs to be remade from scratch - fire the managing partner and all his lackeys in office management and HR. Get rid of the old guard. Start anew. Fried Frank's new managing partner reduced the size of the firm from around 40 fee earners to 14 or so and then rebuilt in a year again through strategic hires to 40+ again. Jones day London need to be completely redone as a project. What a shithole.

Anonymous 13 February 16 00:10

Someone once famously said: "One big kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."

It's about time, the London office is an utter cesspit of incompetence - they definitely need to pull a 'Fried Frank'.

Anonymous 13 February 16 10:31

Not to mention the 5-6 partner departures in Singapore and HK over the last 2 months - stop opening new offices when you can't handle the existing ones

Anonymous 15 February 16 17:32

Not sure the rats are jumping ship as much as being kindly asked to leave. Clearing out the deadwood, no bad thing.

Anonymous 15 February 16 22:40

Totally agree with last comment....lots of dead wood that needs clearing. Get rid of managing partner and get in a proper HR department....that's all it needs. If it was run properly and in a more professional manner it would make a big difference to the firm overall.

Anonymous 17 February 16 10:30

Since when has someone being head of department guaranteed that they're not deadwood? That's laughable.

Anonymous 17 February 16 12:33

Didn't really mean that. Those departments at JD are all pretty small, so if the head of departments are deadwood, what does it say about that practice area at the firm?

Anonymous 22 February 16 14:09

I assume that the "rotten structure" in the comment above is supposed to be Jones Day. The commentator may care to recall that the "rotten structure" was far more robust than predicted and fared rather better than the person kicking at the door.

Anonymous 03 March 16 20:33

For the supposed salary hike you get, that is the money jonesday save by not upgrading to a 21st century IT system, have crap secretaries, overworked BD personel, no PSLs, no coherent business development strategy and a partner: associate ratio of 1:1

Anonymous 04 March 16 10:07

Perhaps if there was a proper qualified HR department and partners who were good role models staff would not be crap!

Anonymous 26 April 16 01:24

I went to an interview recently at Jones Day and asked what changes the firm would like to see in the short-term; to which the partner replied, "none". Clearly they're missing something here but sadly have to little to no idea what!