A survey of trainees and junior attorneys at American regulation companies’ places of work in London reveals that they spend as a lot as 13 hours a day at work—roughly twice the typical work week within the U.Ok.
That comes with a life-style of Deliveroo dinners and choosing up calls at “ungodly hours or on days off,” an nameless worker instructed Authorized Cheek, a authorized information web site that surveyed 2,000 employees throughout London’s numerous regulation companies, in November.
“I haven’t seen daylight in three months,” mentioned one other nameless worker.
Yet one more participant mentioned that though trip time was revered, they had been all the time anticipated to reply work calls.
Sure, all of the tropes that reveals, like Fits, make you imagine about how lengthy and arduous regulation companies work their new employees work, would possibly simply be true.
Whereas it has the trimmings of a poisonous work tradition folks would attempt to keep away from, working lengthy hours at regulation companies comes with good-looking pay. Beginning salaries within the high companies are over £170,000, or almost 5 occasions the U.Ok.’s median earnings in 2023.
The likes of Kirkland and Ellis and Paul Hastings, American regulation companies with practices in London, pay £172,000 and demand a median of 12 to 13 hours a day, The Instances reported. In distinction, British companies make staff work barely shorter on common whereas capping beginning pay at £150,000.
To make sure, not each agency within the trade has brutally lengthy hours in trade for a six-figure paycheck. A number of of the companies listed by Authorized Cheek in its survey restrict their workday to 9 hours or so for freshly certified solicitors.
Nonetheless, that’s a far cry from the typical workweek within the U.Ok., which spans 36.6 hours or 7.3 hours a day.
Billable hours are the metric regulation companies usually use to measure the efficiency of their attorneys. In some instances, these hours tick as much as 2,000 a 12 months. The U.S. calls for a better variety of hours on common in comparison with Britain.
Nonetheless, the mannequin has been controversial amid price pressures and calls for for a extra clear system. Legal professionals additionally argue that there could possibly be extra environment friendly methods to do the identical work and not using a billable hours construction that determines pay. With AI’s emergence into public consciousness, the authorized career is already starting to vary.
That hasn’t hit hiring momentum, not less than on the high stage. London’s high regulation companies employed companions at document pace in 2024, pushed by American regulation companies’ urge for food to compete for expertise within the British capital.
A part of the enchantment for recent expertise at U.S.-based companies is the excessive pay they’ll swing relative to British ones. Probably the most esteemed regulation companies are rethinking their companion pay construction in response to the rising competitors.
“The impression of the covetous New Yorker on the very best ranges of the London authorized providers market over such a brief interval has been profound,” a report by recruiting agency Edward Gibson mentioned in July.
A model of this story was initially printed on Fortune.com on Nov. 5, 2024.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
