#36 The Legal Profession This Week - Closing the Pay Gap with US Firms; Entering Year Three of the Pandemic​

By Dheepa​

As we close out the year, it seems only fitting to reflect on the two biggest trends that have shaped the UK legal market this year.

Closing the £ Gap with US firms.

In their latest attempts to close the pay gap, Magic Circle firms Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance have announced special bonuses for its leveraged finance and private equity teams respectively. The Lawyer reports that Clifford Chance lawyers are eligible for a 30% bonus when they hit 2000 hours of billable work and 300 hours on business development initiatives. At Allen & Overy, the unreported bonus is triggered when associates hit 1950 hours of billable work. Rivalling this selective bonus approach is Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s decision to increase all associate (beyond NQ level) salaries by an additional £20,000.

Guaranteed bonuses for some teams and not others may cause frustration among lawyers at the firm. Taking that into account, Freshfields' approach could be a more sustainable solution. Rather than performative increases at NQ level, the move also makes a step towards tackling the real talent drain, associates at 4-7 PQE moving to US firms. The Magic Circle firms have a pattern of moving towards the same base compensation packages (as evidenced by the other firms in the set slowly matching Freshfields boost to £100k at NQ level in 2019) but only time will tell if they will continue to follow Freshfields’ lead.

Entering Year Three of The Pandemic

The Omicron variant has made one thing clear - COVID-19 is here to stay and with it, the work-from-home model. Lawyers have now had a chance to experience the independence that comes with working from home and even when restrictions in the UK and US were eased this summer, most firms continued to offer the option to work from home for several days of the week. Building on this trend, earlier this week US litigation firm Quinn Emanuel announced that all its lawyers will be able to work from home indefinitely, sparking a conversation on the possibility of fully remote lawyers (BloombergLaw).

The increasing likelihood that full-time office working will fail to make a comeback creates new challenges for firms. An entire cohort of lawyers have now spent the majority of their training contracts out of office. Firms will have to reconsider how they allocate work and supervise trainees. Firm loyalty is another challenge. The more lawyers work remotely, the less opportunities there are to build networks within the firm and feel a sense of belonging. All this makes it that much easier for them to jump to other firms.

‘Business as usual’ – the notable deals and cases which went ahead this week:


Sidley Austin is acting for private equity consortium Fortress on its takeover of Punch Pubs from Patron Capital Partners. Hogan Lovells is advising Patron Capital Partners while CMS acts for Punch Pubs.

In yet another private equity takeover, White & Case is acting for Triton Investment Management on its purchase of pharmaceutical company Clinigen. Ashurst is acting for Clinigen while Addleshaw Goddard are on hand for the financial advisors on the deal.


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