City player cut salaries in response to pandemic
Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) has restored salaries for its newly qualified (NQ) lawyers after opting to cut them last summer in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
NQ associates in BCLP’s London office will return to a base rate of £80,000. In June, salaries were cut by 2.5% to £78,000 as part of a “set of measures developed to ensure that we approach a challenging period, pragmatically”.
Separately, the City outfit has retained 14 of its 16 London trainees. With two of fixed term deals, this hands it a score of 88% or 75%, depending on how you interpret the numbers. The firm made offers to all NQs, however two declined to “pursue their preferred specialism elsewhere”.
Nine newbies join the corporate and financial transactions department, four qualify into litigation and investigations (with one joining BCLP’s Abu Dhabi office), and one starts life as a lawyer in the real estate team.
Last autumn, BCLP chalked up a score of 76% (16 out of 21).
Senior graduate recruitment and development manager, Chloe Muir, said:
“We are delighted that our retention rate has increased by 12% from last autumn and that we were able to extend an NQ offer to all of our qualifiers. We are incredibly proud of our spring 2021 qualifiers and their ability to thrive in a new working environment. We look forward to seeing our qualifiers continue to excel in their new positons.”
The Legal Cheek Firms Most List shows BCLP recruits around 35 trainees each year on a starting salary of £44,000.