Osborne Clarke ups junior lawyer pay as it confirms 87% retention score

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By Legal Cheek on

13

£91.5k in London

Osborne Clarke has increased junior lawyer salaries across its three UK offices.

Base rates for newly qualified (NQ) solicitors in London have moved from £90,000 to £91,500, while those in Reading now sit at £82,350, up from £81,000. Salaries in OC’s recently renovated Bristol base (see TikTok below) will receive a salary £70,000, up from a previous rate of £69,000.

The Legal Cheek Firms Most List 2024 shows the improved pay puts OC’s London lot ahead of their counterparts at Mishcon de Reya (£90,000) and Withers (£90,000), and just behind those at Pinsent Masons (£92,000).

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Separately, OC confirmed a 2023 retention score of 87%, with 26 out of 30 trainees staying on in NQ roles. They will be based across all three UK offices in London, Bristol and Reading.

The 2024 Legal Cheek Firms Most List

Alexandra Gower, partner and training principal, said:

“I’ve been very impressed with our excellent cohort of qualifying trainees this year. We’re especially proud that so many have chosen to continue their careers with the firm and that we’ll continue to work particularly closely with one of our departing trainees who has taken a role in house with one of our clients.”

She continued: “Beyond ensuring our future lawyers have all the legal and technical training required to succeed, we’re just as focused on what the human behind them needs. This is reflected in our bespoke training and development programme and the continued support our trainees receive as they transition to newly qualified solicitors.”

13 Comments

Considering a lateral to OC

wow a whole extra £125 a month

HMRC

Mr. Taxman would like a word with you to discuss the difference between net and gross.

Crumbs

82k in Reading??!?

:O

More than Clydes in London….

C

Looool wow that’s a big jump eh

I'm OK waiting

What’s the point… Just wait another year until you can increase by at least 5%.

Bob

So basically, less than a 2% pay increase. Inflation over the last 12 months is 6.3%. Congratulations, for all of your hard work you have been awarded a real terms pay cut..

Let the builders build walls.

Measuring pay rises by rate of inflation is a fool’s game. Employers are not responsible for inflation rates. You get paid what the role pays. Don’t like it, move on.

And using the term ‘real terms pay cut’… seriously? Are you from the public sector? Or just loving 2010s union clap trap??

And whether 79 or 80k, a difference of a couple of percentage points hardly matters at that level. Your key gains in pay will be when you get promoted or move on.

Was your name some sort of half-joke about Bob the Builder?

Firms obviously adjust their chargeable rates with inflation in mind. If they didn’t do this, they wouldn’t be the profitable entities we know them as.

The relationship (in connection with salary) between firms and their solicitors is that they charge clients based on the work done by their solicitors. “You get paid what the role pays” doesn’t really strike me as being made of the type of critical thinking you’d expect of a solicitor

What

£1k increase, why even bother?

To be honest you’d probably be better off in Bristol on £70k than London in £91k.

We humble servants serve

At least it’s a round figure of £1k. More typically, it will be something asinine like a pre tax rise of 1% or £839.21..

It’s worth peanuts yes but employees will learn that as the MO of the firm and will invariably move on.

Anonymous

Are the decision makers at OC alright? First tying bonuses to office attendance incentivising quiet quitting and now a pay rise that’s not actually a pay rise?

Seems like someone in management really needs to touch grass…

Future Trainee OC

A little more sir

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