RPC has announced significantly improved retention results as it will be taking on 14 of its 17 fourth-seat trainees this autumn.
This year's retention rate of 82% is well up on last year, when the firm held on to 67% of its trainees (forgetting one of them existed). It's also slightly higher than its 79% retention rate for 2015. Although it doesn't quite match the dizzy heights of 2014 when the firm retained 94% of its trainees. Simon Hart, RPC's Training Principal, said "it is incredibly satisfying for the firm to see our junior talent mature and to see such a high number ultimately qualifying into roles across the departments this year".
The result may well have been helped by the firm's internal culture, with RPC performing well in the RollOnFriday Firm of the Year 2017 survey and being praised for its "friendly, relaxed" atmosphere. One junior lawyer said "we have a couple of really cool partners" but instantly downgraded them by adding "I fear that any partner reading this statement will of course assume I am talking about them". Although it seems working conditions could be better, with one lawyer claiming that reduced office space has created an "open-plan battery hen farm environment".
Elsewhere, Withers and Mayer Brown both achieved a retention rate of 73%, with each taking on eight of their eleven trainees.Blake Morgan is holding on to eight out of its nine trainees this autumn, scoring an impressive retention rate of 88%. And Trowers has posted a 70% retention rate with 7 of its 10 trainees qualifying with the firm.
Fieldfisher bossed it with a 100% retention rate as it is keeping on all 13 of its trainees. That's despite one lawyer recently telling RollOnFriday that the firm's new time recording system is "so crap that it takes longer to record time than to actually do the work".
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This year's retention rate of 82% is well up on last year, when the firm held on to 67% of its trainees (forgetting one of them existed). It's also slightly higher than its 79% retention rate for 2015. Although it doesn't quite match the dizzy heights of 2014 when the firm retained 94% of its trainees. Simon Hart, RPC's Training Principal, said "it is incredibly satisfying for the firm to see our junior talent mature and to see such a high number ultimately qualifying into roles across the departments this year".
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From first seat to fourth seat. |
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His journey was complete. |
The result may well have been helped by the firm's internal culture, with RPC performing well in the RollOnFriday Firm of the Year 2017 survey and being praised for its "friendly, relaxed" atmosphere. One junior lawyer said "we have a couple of really cool partners" but instantly downgraded them by adding "I fear that any partner reading this statement will of course assume I am talking about them". Although it seems working conditions could be better, with one lawyer claiming that reduced office space has created an "open-plan battery hen farm environment".
Elsewhere, Withers and Mayer Brown both achieved a retention rate of 73%, with each taking on eight of their eleven trainees.Blake Morgan is holding on to eight out of its nine trainees this autumn, scoring an impressive retention rate of 88%. And Trowers has posted a 70% retention rate with 7 of its 10 trainees qualifying with the firm.
Fieldfisher bossed it with a 100% retention rate as it is keeping on all 13 of its trainees. That's despite one lawyer recently telling RollOnFriday that the firm's new time recording system is "so crap that it takes longer to record time than to actually do the work".