Chris Excell, Head of IP & Patents
Dovetailing with a previous article on the EUIPO (and its choice of location) it is only right to comment on the “other side” of the Intellectual Property world; Patents, and the Unified Patent Court.
A brief history on this, The Unified Patent Court agreement was signed on 19 February 2013 in Brussels by 25 Member States (except Spain, Poland, and Croatia). It is due to be implemented by the end of 2021. Its main purpose is to create an international court to deal with the infringement and validity of both Unitary Patents and European Patents. Its rulings will apply in all Member States that have ratified the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPC Agreement).
We will explore the ratification process in more detail later. We could talk about every member state’s ratification progress, however we will focus purely on the UK for this discussion. With that being said, it is important to note the three mandatory ratifiers were/are the UK, France and Germany. Whilst no longer in the EU, the UK did ratify the agreement at one point in time…
The UK ratified the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court in April 2018, despite the UK’s plans to leave the EU. This was viewed as surprising because the consensus was that non-EU members could not participate in the new UPC system. Even more surprising that the UK ratified the UPC after the national referendum on Brexit (which is a topic that needs more than one line to discuss). We would however welcome your comments on this point!!
Fast forward to July 2020, The UK officially confirms it is pulling out of the UPC, it could be argued that this never should have got this far given the Brexit implications, however we now know the stance the UK has taken.
After speaking with many IP specialists across Europe, there seems to be a split consensus about the future of the UPC. There are some who are unsure if the UPC can still happen, and there are those of the mindset that even with the UK pulling out of the agreement, the UPC can and will go ahead. Which is quite interesting because of the three mandatory ratifiers needed, as previously said, only France and Germany remain part of the EU. (There is also the issue of Germany and their ratification being overturn by the Federal Constitutional Court, however a new draft bill has been submitted which looks like it will finally ratify the UPC)
Arguably, there is no precedent that we can draw on to see how this will play out, but we do have existing International Treaty laws. The question is where do we go from here, as opposed to where does this leave the UPC?
If the UPC can’t go ahead due to the ratification process, then the obvious decision would be to leave things the way they were pre the UPC agreement- yes, this will be seen as counter intuitive, especially considering the amount of time and resources invested to the UPC: 7 years and counting. However, it would be the simplest thing to do, considering the current situation and the potentially conflicting interests of the remaining member states. If this were to happen, much of the existing framework could be ‘reused’ and potentially contentious areas re-negotiated to make the terms more acceptable, potentially drawing in the three original detractors (Spain, Poland and Croatia).
However, what is more likely, will be a new agreement which will be less rigid and allow for more flexibility on entry / decisions. If the UPC’s ultimate mantra is to create a global court, then surely this must be lived up to? The current agreement is a comprehensive one, and yes, it is for the purpose of European patents. The uncertainty around the current state of the UPC is a real topic of interest with material consequences depending on what happens next.
The last alternative, and this is an extreme idea, would be the formation of a new patent court. This is a subject that we will discuss in a future article, however in short – this could be an exciting proposal that would have an impact for generations to come, if, and it is a big if, a new unified patent court idea was to be explored. Failing this, it is difficult to see a future for the UPC in its current form.
It must be stressed that the above thoughts are purely hypothetical, we do not currently know how Britain leaving the UPC and the EU will impact on the UPC and whether it will prevent it going ahead.
How can this go ahead, will it go ahead, will it be renegotiated, will there be an alternative solution? Whatever happens next, is going to be interesting, the developments and ramifications on the Intellectual Property world are not insignificant.
Chris is a Senior Consultant at Fides Search and is Head of IP and Patents. To find out more get in touch with Chris:
Mobile: +44 (0) 7407 895 518 |Direct Dial:+44 (0) 20 3642 1873 | Email: Chris@fidessearch.com
Chris Excell, Head of IP & Patents writing on the EUIPO.
The surreal time we are in promotes both a chance to reflect and refocus on matters that are important to us. As such, I wanted to share a few thoughts on the EUIPO and how it has got to be so significant in the intellectual property world. Also, why Alicante?
The EUIPO, then known as the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) was one of six agencies set up under the 1993 Treaty on the European Union (the Maastricht Treaty being founded in 1994).
It was somewhat surprising when it was announced, that the OHIM, would be headquartered in Alicante, Spain. Especially as the European patent office was based in an arguably more business centric location in Munich. The proximity of the German Patent Office at the time and the Deutsches Museum (German Museum) created a “technology triangle”.
One could argue that it would have made more sense for the OHIM to replicate this launch in either the same country, or a more fertile place for businesses?
It took only two years for the surprise to go away.
In April 1996, the first community trade marks were received, these were in vast quantities that surpassed even the most confident projections. In the first month alone, nearly 22,000 trade mark applications were sent to the office. Original predictions had been for 15,000 in the first full year. In effect, the Office had received more trade mark applications in its first few days of activity than had been anticipated for its first eighteen months.
Interestingly, by the end of 1996, 46,700 trade mark applications had been received. As well as confirming the success of the new EU trade mark system as a valuable tool for business both inside and outside the Union, this also meant that the income the Office earned from fees had surpassed its outgoings, and that the new agency was now fully financially self-sustaining.
As you can deduce, the demand for the new trademark offering was there, and the amount of applications exceeded every expectation. It wasn’t reliant on where the EUIPO was based. So whilst Alicante did seem a surprise choice at first, it turned out to be a master stroke. The EUIPO never intended to choose a location purely on a market/industry hotbed. It was actually concentrating on consolidating itself as an IP office with global reach, confirming the vision of its founding fathers as it became both a motor and a reflection of the EU’s Internal Market. This is why the location didn’t actually matter.
The model used has been replicated by many business today (not just across the legal sector) and has created one, focused international offering. Additionally the vision of being fully sustainable, alongside the technology available to complete the trademark filing process entirely online, has seen the EUIPO evolve into a place that is an eco-friendly (solar panels and wind turbines help provide electricity, rain water is recycled and energy consumption has been significantly lowered) exciting, selfless community. The EUIPO’s significance goes beyond the intellectual property world. It represents choice and freedoms.
Chris is a Senior Consultant at Fides Search and is Head of IP and Patents. To find out more get in touch with Chris:
Mobile: +44 (0) 7407 895 518 |Direct Dial:+44 (0) 20 3642 1873 | Chris@fidessearch.com
Global conglomerates, tech giants and now nations are implementing block chain technology for a variety of reasons.
Improved transparency leading to gains in trust is an overriding benefit of implementing the blockchain, which offers the potential to re-define some of the user’s key business relationships.
Removing the paper trail and gravitating towards a safer, faster, and more efficient infrastructure are the drivers for many stakeholders looking to use the blockchain platform. IBM is already working on more than 500 projects utilising blockchain technology according to their website.
Arguably the most famous blockchain crypto asset (Bitcoin) has seen a recent increase in acceptance in the mainstream due to a wider understanding of the crypto currency. One of the most endearing stories of Bitcoin so far is not the famous “Pizza Day”. Recently reported by Forbes magazine, a beachside town in El Salvador received an anonymous donation from a grateful visitor. This has led to the creation of a financial ecosystem that evolves almost entirely around the cryptocurrency.
Even with closed borders (due to Covid-19) the town of El Zonte has managed to find their own route forwards especially now that the currency is at an all-time high and is pushing the $11,000 price per coin mark. The transparency of the blockchain network benefits all the stakeholders in the supply chain in the same way, transparent, automated and exceptionally fast.
Global law firm Herbert Smith Freehills LLP have paired with the Australian Government and IBM to further their digital economy. Known as the Australian National Blockchain (ANB) the ANB will soon invite regulators, financial institutions and business to take part in the pilot set to launch by the end of the year according to their website.
Smart legal contracts are exciting and a great legal talking point. The benefit of automation also come with limitations and headache. What happens when they cannot be reversed? There is an inherent lack of flexibility with no undo button to press.
It’s clear that there is a race to harness the benefits of the blockchain technology, Dubai is aspiring to become the first government to run fully on smart contracts which is fascinating as the speed at which the emirate and country is becoming digitised is commendable.
As always this space will be an exciting one to watch. Many legal opportunities will present themselves, not least regulatory and a compliance related, it will be an interesting watch to say the least.
By Mathew Parker, Consultant at Fides Search. He dedicates his time to working with clients on their key strategic hires within TMT. To find out more get in touch with Mathew:
Mobile: +44 (0) 7391 405 563 | Direct Dial:+44 (0) 20 3642 1874 | mathew@fidessearch.com
Ed ParkerTalks about ‘How to Build Trust in a Search Process’.
He shares his thoughts on our LinkedIn page. Please click the link to watch the segment in full How to Build Trust in a Search process
In this piece Ed Parker talks about:
Stay well from the team at Fides Search.
To celebrate World Mental Health Day this Thursday 10th October, we publish a conversation with Jonathan Moult and Jonathan Coppin of Moult Coppin. Both former City lawyers who have retrained in psychology and psychotherapy, they offer us their insights about how best to address the mental health crisis in law.
“We established Moult & Coppin to help on a bigger scale” explained Jonathan Coppin, former Head of Corporate at Hogan Hartson (now Lovells) and qualified psychotherapist. “In the UK, there has been a lot of outsourcing of mental health to employers, through seeking private counselling or the involvement of charities. We wanted to offer a more coherent, joined-up approach to what law firms are able to deliver currently”.
Indeed, the state of lawyer mental health in the UK is a cause for concern. Official figures published by the Health and Safety Executive rank the legal profession as the third most stressful professional job, due to the level of work-related stress, depression and anxiety reported. This year, the Junior Lawyers Division Wellbeing Survey found that 58% of respondents felt unable to cope at work, and 38% had experienced mental health problems in the past month. Calls to charity helpline LawCare reached a ‘record high’, with 65% of calls coming from women and 45% from trainees or those who had been qualified for five years or less.
The reasons for this are multi-faceted, ranging from the anxiety-inducing culture of legal practice and qualification, poor work-life balance and high client demands, the cultural stigma attached to poor mental health in law and a lack of line manager training in dealing with mental health matters when they do arise.
“The law firm mental health model is currently based on three strategies” clarifies Jonathan Moult, a Chartered Psychologist and former Head of Banking for Simmons & Simmons in Hong Kong. These include:
“The problem is that many lawyers are often too far along when they try and seek help” says Moult, with training not going far enough to address the causes of poor lawyer wellbeing. “Education and ambassadors are definitely helpful in making people think and addressing stigma, but it does not solve the problem of poor mental health” agrees Coppin. “For example, many internal teams don’t feel necessarily equipped and supported to deal with issues of mental health when they do arise”.
Instead, Moult & Coppin challenge the time that firms should intervene on lawyer mental health. “The problem becomes ‘medicalised’ when referred to an outside agency” says Coppin. “This makes you feel as though something is wrong with you, and even requires a need to prove you are sick to access treatment.” Rather, offering interventions earlier that are accessible to everyone, would normalise and de-stigmatise mental health in law firms. Taking this view, anxiety and stress are considered as an occupational hazard that should be expected when working under the challenging conditions present in law firms. “People suffering only ever think that this is happening to them, where it is not credible to say this” Moult adds. “We need to positively fame mental health experiences in law firms, such as obstacles lawyers should strive to overcome.”
Their solution is for firms to offer individual psychotherapy sessions to lawyers at different points in their careers. Such sessions would be strongly encouraged as the default setting and provide lawyers with an opportunity to discuss their experiences with an external psychotherapist. “This will help overcome stigma and address individuals thinking that they have a personal problem, rather than their feelings being a result of their working environment” says Coppin. “It will stop the self-selection of people into EAP’s and provide equal treatment to everybody” agrees Moult. “Ultimately, it is a more humane approach to addressing this issue”.
However, it is hard to provide law firms with evidence on return of investment needed to implement such a scheme. “It might help if law firms could do more to normalise the situation so people could be more realistic and practical about what they’re dealing with” says Jonathan Coppin. “Things have got a lot worse than how they used to be. People’s prospects have got worse – financial stability, job security, promotion potential – all of which lead to added anxiety”. Jonathan Moult agrees: “Institutions could do more to engage with these issues. They are not going to self-solve. Law firms could engage with this now in a more realistic way”.
‘“It seems that people want to do something but at the moment leadership on mental health in law firms is largely limited to being an ambassador. It doesn’t look as if firms have found a meaningful response to the mental health crisis yet” concludes Coppin.
Jonathan Moult and Jonathan Coppin are co-founders of Moult Coppin, offering psychological support through counselling and psychotherapy to City professionals. You can find out more about them here.
We are surprised not to have seen more of the news arising from India recently in our legal press. Although this lack of interest may be understandable, due to the number of ‘false dawns’ of the liberalisation of the Indian legal market, if news from India is to be believed (and our sources on the ground believe it is) the dawn of Indian legal market liberalisation is just about to break.
In July, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad called for the liberalisation of the legal market in India, specifically opening the market to international law firms. Whilst our contacts in Mumbai feel that there is more to these recent developments than there ever have been in previous liberalisation discussions, some from outside India still greet this news with a hint of sceptisim given that this is not the first time the matter has been raised.
Nevertheless, with executive committee member of the Indian National Bar Association Salman Waris telling the India Business Law Journal this week that the government are looking at a timeline of three to four months to liberalise the sector, there seems to be a growing consensus view within India, if not outside it, that this change is coming and it is coming soon.
Those we have spoken with on the ground in India have made it clear that for Prime Minister Modi, the liberalisation of the legal sector is a key step on his path to a more open and liberal country, and an ‘easy win’ compared to other sectors.
The first phase of the liberalisation programme is likely to be allowing international firms to set up offices in Special Economic Zones ‘where their lawyers could advise domestic and foreign clients on non-Indian laws’. If this does take place, it is highly likely that we will see a significant change in the approach and strategy of international law firms to the world’s 7th largest economy and what is a potentially powerful legal market.
An example of the activity that could follow in India is seen in the expansion of the South Korean legal market, which since liberalising in 2011/12 has had 28 foreign law firms open up offices there. With many firms already working with clients in India, wanting to invest in the region more or having India desks in different countries, it is highly likely that there will be a surge of international firms hungry to get their feet on the ground in Mumbai or wherever they are permitted.
With many international firms looking for their version of global domination, a new and enticing market such as India offers further opportunity to offer clients the desired geographical coverage and crudely adds another pin in their global map. For the Indian market however there is more at stake, with the move being welcomed by local firms and lawyers as progress within the market, offering the potential to open up the Indian economy further to international investors.
There will likely be failures by some overzealous international firms wanting to ‘land grab’, and it is expected that those who take a more considered and strategic approach to the market will fare better.
For the time being, whilst these events unfold, we will have to keep a close eye on the developments coming from the legal ministry in India, and how international firms greet this news. As part of our continued interest in these developments, we will be writing a more in depth piece on the Indian legal market including the outlook from clients and those on the ground to keep our readers up to date with what could be an exciting event later this year.
Tom Spence is a Director at Fides Search. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the issue further, please contact him at tspence@fidesearch.com
This week we feature a blog by guest commentator Richard Martin, head of mental health awareness training at Byrne Dean. Following a 20 year employment law career, Richard discusses the mental health risks associated with the sector, and how this can be better understood and addressed by individuals and firms.
Please share to further the conversation and tweet us @Fides_Search to let us know your thoughts.
We hope that you enjoy!
Lawyers and Mental Health Problems – are too many heads in the sand?
The increasing attention given to mental health and illness over recent years means we are getting familiar with the statistics around mental illness – 1 in 6 of the adult population at any one time likely to be suffering from a diagnosable mental disorder, 1 in 4 during the course of a year. They are rightly sobering figures. But they are for the population at large. What about lawyers?
Unfortunately we do not have UK specific data. Research from the US and Australia would indicate that lawyers in those countries suffer problems associated with anxiety, depression and substance abuse at rates much higher than the general population. There seems no reason to believe that the situation in the UK would be any different. We really ought to be finding out, and at a time when the biggest law firms are announcing another round of increased PEP figures, there would appear to be the resource there to do it, but is there the will?
Mental illness must surely be the biggest health and safety risk facing law firms. Anecdotally we know the problem is significant. Why are we shying away from finding out the scale, what is causing it and how best to address it? Other industries identify their major safety risks, investigate them, and work to eliminate them. Why not lawyers? Risk is, after all, our currency. Hopefully the reason the work has not been done to date is not about wanting the problem to remain hidden.
There are a number of reasons why lawyers might be at an increased risk of problems. Some are specific to the profession and some are not. Some obvious causes for stress include:
There are possibly other factors at play which demand more research and attention. Professor Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania is a world guru on positive psychology – not trying to make us all superficially happy, but promoting positive mental health as opposed to simply focusing on illness. His team researched the correlation between optimism and success in one’s career. Apparently optimism goes hand in hand with success in most professions around the world, apart from lawyers, where a negative outlook on the world is more likely to be an indicator of success. That does not have to lead to mental illness but would certainly be a risk factor for depression. And of course it makes sense when you consider that so much of what a lawyer does is looking at risk, at what can go wrong.
There is also a growing awareness of the dangers of emotional burnout or compassion fatigue. It is a phenomenon more readily associated with health professionals than lawyers. It is most easily understood in two ways.
We are familiar with the risk of post traumatic stress disorder when we have experienced a personal trauma of some kind. The same risk can exist when we are exposed to the trauma of other people – their injuries or disease in the case of medics but you do not have to think hard to realise the harrowing cases many lawyers deal with on a regular, daily basis, whether in abuse, crime, relationship breakdown, personal injury and much more. Problems can develop from just one such instance.
The other common form is where the constant exposure to people’s problems and the professional responsibility for seeking to resolve them, eventually becomes overwhelming, resulting in a form of burnout. Every issue that every lawyer deals with will have significant emotional importance for the client. For that client it is a one off event. Lawyers are dealing with them all the time.
These are just some suggestions as to why lawyers may be at greater risk of mental health problems. It seems obvious that there are risks. We might find that in fact the prevalence of illness is no greater than the general public in which case perhaps we are finding ways to address those risks. But surely we owe it to ourselves, as well as those we employ and encourage in to the profession, to establish whether there is a major problem, what might be causing it and how we can learn what helps reduce the risk, so we can make the profession as safe as possible.
Richard Martin is an advisor at workplace training and consultancy firm Byrne Dean.
With International Women’s Day celebrated across the globe on Wednesday, the legal press has been awash with articles, interviews and opinion pieces about how gender equality can be increased in law.
The majority of these profiled the women who had made it to the top, as practice area leaders or managing partners, but did not address the things that are currently being done to move the needle on gender diversity.
Consistent with this year’s IWD theme, being Bold for Change, we consider how clients are making a stand for greater equality in the legal sector, and the actions they are taking to truly drive the greatest change for women – and other minority groups – in the firms that they instruct.
Legal supplier diversity: The approaches of Microsoft, HP and PayPal
Leading the charge in this respect is Microsoft with its Law Firm Diversity Program. Launched in 2008, the program allows Microsoft’s panel firms the opportunity to earn an annual bonus if they reach a quantifiable diversity goal in relation to the firm’s leadership.
This works by allotting ‘points’ to partner firms for progress in getting women or minority groups into law firm management, leading the firm’s relationship with Microsoft or leading work on Microsoft’s legal matters, and equate to a bonus of 0.5% to 2% on the work the firm had completed that year.
To date, this program has been a resounding success, with over 80% of the participating law firms earning their bonuses annually. Since the program was launched, the percentage of hours worked by diverse lawyers on Microsoft matters has increased from 33.6 percent to 48.2 percent, with Microsoft’s own legal department becoming more diverse over this time period.
There is also circumstantial proof that such an increase in supplier diversity has strengthened Microsoft’s track record, with its litigation teams winning 89 cases and losing only six in the past three years, reducing the corporation’s settlement costs and legal fees substantially.
On the other hand, HP has taken a different approach, announcing in February that it would withhold 10% of invoiced fees from firms who fail to meet or exceed diversity requirements.
The policy states that firms must field “at least one diverse firm relationship partner, regularly engaged with HP on billing and staffing issues” or “at least one woman and one racially/ethnically diverse attorney, each performing or managing at least 10% of the billable hours worked on HP matters”. This applies to all US-based law firms which HP works with, and is to be implemented from 2019 to give partner firms sufficient time to implement the necessary changes.
Finally, PayPal has conducted a wholescale review of the law firms it uses to gather information on the diversity of their workforce, with a particular focus on whether they are supporting up-and-coming female and minority lawyers.
Firms that are unable to show evidence of “meaningful progress in a reasonable time” will not be used by PayPal in future, according to General Counsel Louise Pentland, with the organisation committing to favour work with law firms who genuinely support and advocate diversity.
For PayPal, this review acts as a starting point in gauging whether their partner firms are willing to make changes, especially in ensuring a succession pipeline of women and people of different ethnicities.
What does this tell us?
From the above examples, there are a number of factors that remain consistent. Each policy looks to increase the representation of women within leadership and/or at relationship partner level, to create a sustainable pipeline of change within the law firms with which they operate.
Given the imbalance of diversity within law firm leadership ranks, compared with the composition of firms as a whole, these clients have recognised that change is unlikely to be homegrown and have endeavoured to incentivise it.
Although the success of the policies cannot be compared directly, with the initiatives at HP and PayPal still very much in their infancy, the overriding factor in the success at Microsoft can be attributed to time and commitment: policies such as these, very much like internal law firm diversity and inclusion initiatives, need time to take hold and be constantly monitored and reviewed to produce results.
Law firms ‘success’ in adhering to these policies also relies critically on measurement, and the ability for them to accurately measure the diversity demographics of their own staff. Encouragingly, the polices at Microsoft and PayPal look to assess firms relatively, and award firms for making improvements from a predetermined starting point, rather than set standard for everyone. This equally awards both firms with established D&I policies, as well as those more recently embarking out on them.
Conclusion
In short, it is imperative that law firms match the qualities and values of the clients that they are representing. In a competitive legal market, both in the US and UK, with no shortage of talent, when faced with two teams that produce equal quality of work, why wouldn’t GC’s choose to work with teams they feel represent them better and have been shown by research to be more effective?
With large corporate clients pushing the need for action, the gauntlet now lies with law firm management to be bold and ensure greater gender equality within their firms.
To learn more about our gender initiative at Fides Search, and receive a copy of our report A Path to Parity: Reassessing Gender Balance within UK Law Firms, please contact eclews@fidessearch.com.
Law firms traditionally operated a simple quid pro quo dynamic whereby young lawyers were expected to devote years of their professional life in exchange for the estimable carrot of partnership. Trainees joined prestigious firms following a rigorous selection process which conditioned their mind-set from the very beginning – “I am and will continue to be part of an elite”. Their performance and sacrifices would in time lead to significant kudos and financial reward.
However, the impact on law firm profitability from economic and macro conditions over the past few years has placed this equation under severe strain, and frankly it no longer holds true for most law firms.
The traditional model was predicated on a principal tenet that what is good for the partners is good for the firm as a whole; that the pursuit of profitability which drove the partners would likewise motivate the associates, trainees etc. Inclement markets on a global scale, coupled with the fact that law firms had expanded so drastically pre-2008, have meant that the numbers no longer stack up: there are not enough partner slots to meet the aspirations of talented young lawyers and in many cases the financial upside is not even close to as compelling as it used to be.
As firms grapple with PEP erosion, the issue of career progression has gathered momentum, as associates have woken up to the fact that the risk reward analysis of yesteryear is a myth, and that firms can only deliver partnership to a minuscule proportion of their intake. Accordingly private practice lawyers are re-evaluating what career progression means to them, and indeed more so than ever, whether partnership is worth aspiring to anymore.
In the past associates worked hard to put themselves into a position of contention, with the ‘risk’ that one might not get promoted being mitigated by the idea that you could ultimately move to another firm, potentially into direct partnership, relocate overseas or move into a coveted in-house position. The current reality is that many are opting out of the partnership track altogether, adopting a far more pragmatic stance around work life balance. Associates are no longer willing to work around the clock only to be told by firms that there are 7 to 10 people ahead of them in the queue.
More and more lawyers we speak to say they would rather a more modest but consistent remuneration over a longer period of time, which reflects individual performance and value-add whilst also enabling a better quality of life and a more sustainable working dynamic. Accordingly, decision makers within law firms have to a greater or lesser degree rallied around to find ways to retain talent by providing palatable alternatives to the partnership track while making people feel valued.
This includes increased stratification within the associate lockstep, with the introduction of gateways such as Managing Associate, Senior Legal Advisor and Counsel. There has also been a trend of segmenting the partner lockstep, making it more meritocratic and setting milestones to achieve. These are all moves which strive to balance out the need to retain people through progression and financial incentive while remaining financially viable.
Moving in-house remains a very attractive transition for those who want to move out of private practice completely, however it is no longer a panacea as it used to be, being both risky and less highly remunerated. It is also often perceived as a dead end due to the lack of liquidity of roles we have witnessed over the course of the double/triple dip recession.
Where does this leave us? Law firms have created so many barriers to partnership and career progression that ultimately they have fuelled an alternative market for lawyers outside of the partnership model. Lawyers are having to ‘think outside the box’ more than ever, especially now that the in-house market has contracted and they can no longer default to moving into standard in-house legal roles. We have, and continue to witness, a recalibration of lawyers’ career trajectory with increased diversification into areas like Compliance, Risk Advisory and Investigations. We have also seen greater appetite for entrepreneurial opportunities; where traditionally risk averse lawyers would have shyed away from start-ups, many are willing to take a gamble for fulfilling and interesting roles which may be riskier but potentially offer a more compelling upside. The demographics are evolving such that many of the preconceptions and stereotypes which have infused the legal community for decades are being challenged.
Written by Edward Parker and Shirin Stanley, founding Directors of Fides Search.
I’m almost at the end of my work experience at Fides Search, and after a week I have developed a detailed insight into the UK legal market. Currently in the process of applying to university to study Law, naturally I had to look into the trends associated with this year’s partner promotion rounds to have an idea of what awaits me in the future.
1. Social Mobility in the Magic Circle
April saw the completion of partnership promotion rounds in the magic circle, with Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Linklaters and Slaughter and May all publicising who had joined the upper echelons of their firms in 2016. With 40 new partners revealed, despite now being “at the top” of their profession, where did these lawyers start out? The most recognizable names on the list were University of Cambridge and University of Oxford, with almost half (19 out of 40) of the new partners graduating from these institutions. Other institutions commonly drawn from include the University of Edinburgh, University of York and University of Leeds with a number of new partners having also studied overseas.
Nevertheless, despite working hard to improve social mobility within the sector, we can still see some firms performing better than others in terms of the educational backgrounds represented in their promotions. Allen & Overy seem to achieve the best representation in making up only one new partner from Oxbridge. Slaughter and May and Clifford Chance have the least amount of variation in the backgrounds of their partners. Over half of the new partners from Slaughter and May (6 out of 10) graduated from either Cambridge or Oxford, whilst the figure was 5 out 8 at Clifford Chance.
2. Gender Diversity in legal partner promotions
With 60% of new solicitor admissions being women, law firms continue to struggle in transitioning this representation into partner promotions and senior positions. This issue can be clearly seen in the number of the major law firms in the UK, as female partnership numbers stand at 17% in the top 10 law firms.
For example, although the overall representation of gender at Slaughter and May a is balanced with 52.2% of employees being women, Diversity and Inclusion Statistics from 2015 show a clear disproportionality between men and women in partnership. Almost three quarters of new partners are men, with only one women being promoted to partnership in 2016 out of an 11-strong promotions round, an example typical of many other UK firms.
Nevertheless, there are signs that progress is being made with White & Case performing exceptionally well in their promotion of women compared to other legal firms this year. Globally, 40% of the firm’s promotion round were women which included four out of the eight partners made up in London. This 50/50 split in partnership promotions shows other firms the potential of developing female lawyers internally.
3. Partnership promotions across the Globe: Linklaters Case Study
The promotion of partners in different jurisdictions, as well as the practice areas of the lawyers made up, reveals an awful lot about market conditions and individual law firm strategy. In taking Linklaters as an example, the firm promoted 24 new partners worldwide this year following a fluctuation in partnership promotions in 2010 and again in 2014. Noticeable trends include the lack of investment in South Africa since 2010 and no promotions in the Middle East since 2014. The number of partner promotions has decreased in most locations including Europe, USA, South America and Middle East. Only the number of promotions in London and Asia have increased since 2010, which coincides with the expansion of these offices.
Linklaters has seen the majority of its partner promotions in the London office, with over 60 partners made up between 2008 and 2016. The second most popular office, is Hong Kong with only 18 promotions. Therefore there is a massive difference between first and second place, which coincides with the global strategy of many law firms in the City to consolidate their London base. Moreover, promotions at other offices – such as Paris, Brussels, Moscow and New York – only range between 5 and 15.
Conclusion
Through the analysis of partner promotions, key trends can be seen into the legal market regarding a firm’s progress on the social mobility and gender diversity of its workforce, alongside insight into its international strategy and future plans. Despite this, the consistency of partner promotions across the sector indicates a healthy and competitive market and an exciting prospect for those planning on entering the profession.
Written by Sandra Mikosinska, Economics, Psychology and English Language & Literature Student at Westminster Kingsway College
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