Macfarlanes reveals perfect 100% spring retention score

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By Thomas Connelly on

‘Silver circle’ firm keeps all six NQs due to qualify next month

Single-office City outfit Macfarlanes has revealed a stellar spring retention performance of 100%.

From a relatively small qualifying cohort of just six, the firm — which is part of a band of top firms known as the ‘silver circle’ — confirmed that all of its trainees received and accepted full-time associate positions.

Best known for its strong corporate practice and well-regarded private client team, Macfarlanes offers around 30 training contacts each year. According to Legal Cheek’s Most List, the outfit’s newly qualified (NQ) lawyers will start on £71,000.

Commenting on today’s excellent result, Sean Lavin, who is a partner and head of the firm’s graduate recruitment, said:

It is always our aim to find roles for all our trainees upon qualification and we are obviously delighted to have been able to offer 100% retention for our March 2017 intake.

Today’s news marks another strong retention performance for the firm. This time last year Macfarlanes scored yet another perfect 100%, with all six of its young trainees opting to stick around post-qualification. In autumn, and from a much larger cohort of 21, the silver circle outfit racked up a solid 85% result, with 18 newbies accepting associate roles.

Macfarlanes also achieved some excellent marks in Legal Cheek’s 2016 Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey. The firm landed an A* for its training and As for quality of work and peer support.

A plethora of firms have now unveiled their 2017 spring scores. Yesterday Herbert Smith Freehills and Hogan Lovells revealed results of 77% and 79% respectively. Other outfits to confirm their retention figures are White & Case (88%), Trowers & Hamlins (93%), Mayer Brown (100%), Clifford Chance (67%), Berwin Leighton Paisner (55%) and Slaughter and May (100%).

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