Clifford Chance posts 69% spring retention result

But but but I thought the Links retention scores meant the magic circle were all fine and better at not making stealth firings like those bad bad US firms…

Ooft – 36 offers and only 29 acceptances!

Why are the juicy pieces (salary and retention rates) always put out on Friday afternoon, when the Legal Cheek team goes away for the weekend and doesn’t moderate comments?

The firm has deluded themselves into thinking ambitious NQs will stay at CC.

Why turn down £50,000 more, for similar hours?

After spending tens of thousands training people, this retention rate is extremely disappointing.

Picture this – you are a CC trainee approacing NQ… asking, do you stay?

You would think of the years of working (and working, and working…) ahead of you, brute-forcing your way through the hordes and engaging in what is best described as spelunking into platonesque political caverns, most of them humid from the contsant expulsion of hot gas, which if inhaled in substantial quantities is known to cause confusion, subjugation and/or indoctrination – and god forbid you forget your ThinkPad!

Then the expectation to be billing a not insubstantial amount hours all the way through; taking your banker clients out for dinner weekly to keep the matter numbers ticking up. In the round, working 85-95% as much as their US-firm counterparts, for two-thirds as much.

Flash forwad – a decade spent in pursuit of sweet, sweet equity, major life events missed, second marriage on the horizon (after this first one finds a decent lawyer)… and you finally get the pat on the shoulder.

Overjoyed, you read the partnership documents in full… well, to the same degree you’ve read through every 400 page SFA you’ve ever closed (skipping the boring bits).

You read… nothing to note… except maybe one thing is missing… You keep reading to see those golden words, the most crucial element… the reason you came this far, sacrificed so much, it’s not there, you look under benefits… compensation… it’s not there…?

“… WHAT ABOUT MY RESERVED PARKING SPACE!? MY DESTINTY, MY NIRVANA? THEY SEEK TO DENY ME MY BLOOD RIGHT!” You cry out, followed by an involuntary whimpering. You are now having a panic attack. Your entire emotional and physical being deflates – you lose control of your bowels.

Your junior, who knows enough already (seriously, stop taking all your calls on loudspeaker), freezes momentarily in his seat, he bolts out the office – sprints to the toilets. He’s kneeled in a cubicle, grasping the bowl and violently throwing up.

The stench on it’s own could not begat such a reaction, self-defecation being a common employed CC tactic – vomitting still, the junior’s other hand frantically prodding at his phone screen, updating his LinkedIn status to “OPEN TO OFFERS” –

It’s over… your dream is shattered – all of it, in pieces, everywhere (don’t worry too much, cleaners will come in at 3am and clean around you whilst you run comments on an Albanian law pledge over a flock of geese (following the required LMA standard form))… When you get to your sleeping pod, you lie down – and sob quietly as you look up the NCP annual parking charges permit charges…

*SNAP*

It’s the present day, you haven’t qualified yet… it was all a dream, a vision of a life that could have been yours – you apply for an NQ role at a US firm.