Northern powerhouse “deferred” pay increases back in August
Addleshaw Goddard has finally got round to lifting a post-referendum pay freeze it had imposed on all its lawyers earlier this summer.
The so-called ‘Northern Powerhouse’ — appearing to suffer from a case of the Brexit jitters — suspended lawyer pay reviews back in August, citing the “impact on activity levels” following the vote to leave the European Union. At the time a spokesperson for the firm suggested the suspension would be lifted around “early autumn”.
Addleshaws — which offers around 30 training contracts annually — has now confirmed it has restarted its pay review process, with meetings between lawyers and senior staff scheduled for the back end of November. Communicating the good news to staff last Friday, the firm revealed that any pay increases will take effect from December and will be backdated to 1 September.
A spokesperson for the firm told Legal Cheek:
We said we’d have another look at this around the half-year mark when we had a fuller picture and as a result of improving levels of activity we are sufficiently confident to press ahead.
Today’s news follows international law firm Gowling WLG’s decision to thaw its pay freeze. Having originally suspended pay reviews at the same time as Addleshaws, the firm’s CEO, David Fennel, confirmed late last month that discussions regarding lawyer remuneration were now back on the table.
Meanwhile City outfit Trowers & Hamlins — which also slapped its lawyers with a pay suspension back in August — kept things a little more vague, revealing that it would be conducting pay reviews “this year”.
Finally, Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) — the first firm to impose pay freezes in the wake of a shock referendum result — confirmed that it was still preparing to review pay in November, some four months later than originally scheduled.