It turns out not everyone in the legal sector is ecstatic about being there.

With three days left before the RollOnFriday Firm of the Year 2020 survey closes, over 6,000 law firm staff have had their say. Of those thousands, 85 people have said they are very dissatisfied with everything. They have given their office, their pay, the culture, their work/life balance, the management and their career development the lowest rating possible.

The gender pay gap information "just about sums it up" said a senior solicitor at Slater and Gordon explaining her bad marks. She described how her male paralegal got a bigger bonus than her, asking, "how is that possible?"

The employment practices at KPMG upset a paralegal there. "No matter how great you are, they are forced to have a certain number of people in the grading scale of 1-4", he said. Most are "marked a 4 (poor performance) to fit the forced distribution model" which "is in no way reflective of the employees. It's a cruel way to keep from giving their pathetic pay rises and bonus."

 A lawyer who gave Watson Farley & Williams nil points said, "I'd rather be f**t f****d and lobotomised" than stay at the firm.


leo

Step away from the survey.


Former Golden Turd Irwin Mitchell received bottom marks from a solicitor even though he applauded its selection of external speakers for its annual conference. "The keynote was polar explorer Ben Saunders. Have you ever had a better metaphor for Irwin Mitchell's commercial practice than struggling in a small team against freezing headwinds in an icy wasteland?", he said.

Another ex-Golden Turd, BLM, didn't help itself in the eyes of one employee with its lazy template work. "This year we received a letter saying how 'pleased' our managing partner was to give us a 0% pay rise", they said. "Obviously a template error, but pretty much sums up this employer". 

"I can imagine them going 'ah fuck it they're printed now, send them and fuck the responses'."    

There haven't been enough responses to the survey from southern firm Frettens to qualify it for the final results table, but it would be a shame not to pass on one employee's description of the office as "a sweating dungeon of demented morlocks screaming for air and water".

Overall, though, the 85 malcontents are outnumbered by respondents who are very happy indeed. So far, 490 people have given their firm the top mark in all six categories. 

Give your firm a last-minute boost up the rankings, or the opposite, and take the survey now. Results next week.

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Comments

Anonymous 17 January 20 08:55

All those top marks? Management and HR desperately trying to do damage limitation and pretend all is well. We know better.

Jim 17 January 20 09:27

"I'd rather be f**t f****d and lobotomised"

 

Anyone else not sure what to replace the *s with?

Mountain 17 January 20 10:08

Re. Jim's comment at 09:27, yes - I came down to the comments section to query the first omission:

  • "I'd rather be f**t f****d and lobotomised"

I presume the second is [redacted by rof] (sic, to avoid filters), but the first... Actually, wait! I've worked it out: it's [redacted by rof]! 

That shouldn't have come to me as easily as it did.

Anonymous 17 January 20 13:48

This is from the Guardian's style guide:  "Finally, never use asterisks, or such silliness as b------, which are just a cop-out, as Charlotte Brontë recognised: “The practice of hinting by single letters those expletives with which profane and violent people are wont to garnish their discourse, strikes me as a proceeding which, however well meant, is weak and futile. I cannot tell what good it does – what feeling it spares – what horror it conceals”"

Anonymous 17 January 20 16:52

Moral: don't ever work for bean-counters. They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

SecularJurist 17 January 20 21:55

I have been deterred from ever applying to Irwin Mitchell because of the Golden Turds they receive. 

You Know Who 20 January 20 12:09

The gender pay gap information "just about sums it up" said a senior solicitor at Watson Farley Williams explaining her bad marks. She described how her male paralegal got a bigger bonus than her, asking, "how is that possible?"

Well, he probably worked harder.  And had less of a sense of entitlement than she did? 

Loyal Subject 22 January 20 18:57

WFW isn’t a boys club. It’s a progressive and decent firm which punches above its weight and I’m sure that it will do OK on FOTY. 

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