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Simmons & Simmons reveals 78% NQ retention result

As international outfit Covington & Burling posts 83% score

The London office of Simmons & Simmons has confirmed a 2017 autumn retention figure of 78%.

Simmons, which dishes out roughly 35 training contacts annually, revealed that of its 27 newly qualified (NQ) lawyers, 21 will stick around post-qualification. Twenty-six applied for associate positions, with 22 receiving offers.

The firm’s new recruits will earn a recently improved salary of £71,000, putting them on a pay par with their peers at US headquartered outfit K&L Gates. Simmons first year trainees earn £42,000, rising to £47,000 in year two.

Today’s result is not far off Simmons’s previous retention score, which was 80% (12 out of 15). However it’s a big improvement on the season before (autumn 2016) when just 50% of lawyer rookies stayed on (12 out of 24).

Simmons — which has a profit per equity partner (PEP) of £585,000 — scored As for training and peer support in Legal Cheek’s 2016 Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey. It also racked up Bs for quality of work, partner approachability, office, canteen, social life and secondment opportunities abroad.

Elsewhere, Covington & Burling has posted an 83% autumn retention result.

Keeping hold of five of its six NQs, the outfit confirmed three would qualify into corporate, while one will join life sciences. The remaining newbie will start life as an associate in project finance. According to Covington’s website, it offers around seven training contracts each year and pays its NQs a salary of £95,000.

Trainee autumn retention 2017

Firm Score Breakdown
Burges Salmon 100% 28/28
Watson Farley & Williams 100% 15/15
Fieldfisher 100% 13/13
Blake Morgan 100% 9/9
Forsters 100% 8/8
Sullivan & Cromwell 100% 4/4
Latham & Watkins 95% 21/22
Ashurst 95% 19/20
Macfarlanes 92% 23/25 (two on FTC*)
Slaughter and May 91% 29/32
Travers Smith 90% 18/20
Ince & Co 90% 9/10
Stephenson Harwood 90% 9/10
Blake Morgan 89% 8/9
Reed Smith 86% 12/14
Allen & Overy 85% 40/47
Linklaters 84% 47/56
Gowling WLG 84% 21/25
Bird & Bird 83% 15/18
White & Case 83% 15/18
Covington & Burling 83% 5/6
Osborne Clarke 82% 14/17
RPC 82% 14/17
Clifford Chance 81% 42/52
Bond Dickinson 81% 22/27
Eversheds Sutherland 80% 44/55
Herbert Smith Freehills 80% 28/35
Hogan Lovells 80% 24/30
Mills & Reeve 79% 15/19 (one on FTC)
Simmons & Simmons 78% 21/27
Shearman & Sterling 75% 12/16
Pinsent Masons 74% 67/91
Mayer Brown 73% 8/11
Withers 73% 8/11
Trowers & Hamlins 70% 7/10
Browne Jacobson 67% 6/9
Freshfields 66% 27/41
Dentons 64% 18/28
Mishcon de Reya 64% 9/14
Taylor Wessing 62% 16/26
Kirkland & Ellis 56% 5/9
Weil Gotshal 50% 5/10
Stewarts Law 25% 1/4

*Fixed term contract

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