Mayer Brown stiffs its trainees and NQs
18 September 2009
Mayer Brown wins this week's biggest-bastards award after managing to do over both its trainees and its NQs in an impressive double whammy.

Half of the fourteen NQs who are being kept on by the firm have been told that their services will not be required until the New Year. And, following Cameron McKenna's shameful lead, they will not be paid any compensation - leaving them with four months to fill with no income at all. The strategy is thought to have been carefully designed to show the firm's future breadwinners that they are seen as nothing but a commodity, and to give them the best possible reason to leave for other firms as soon as the recruitment market picks up.

Meanwhile, MB's trainees who are moving into their third seats have been told that they won't see an extra penny (whereas their colleagues who made the same move back in March saw their pay go up to second year rates). The firm's Head of HR justified this to the irate trainees - whose charge out rates are, of course, going up - on the basis that salaries across the firm were frozen in April. The trainees complain that this has only just been made clear, one week before the pay rise would otherwise have hit their bank accounts.

A Mayer Brown NQ next week

 
A spokeswoman said that the firm had "announced a review of its London operations in March, which included a pay freeze for all staff, including trainees. We hope to be able to lift this freeze as soon as possible. We understand trainees have concerns about this, and we are continuing to meet with them to discuss any concerns they have".

As for the firm's unfortunate NQs, she added "in July, when we offered jobs to those due to qualify in September, we asked seven of those to start with us in January 2010. It has been a very difficult decision, but we wanted to be able to offer positions to as many people as possible". She wouldn't comment on what the firm expected them to live on in the meantime.