The Legal Cheek View
Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker LLP was founded in 1951 in Los Angeles. It opened the doors to its London office in 1997 and has been growing ever since, more than doubling its headcount and revenue in the past five years. The rebrand to Paul Hastings came in 2011.
The firm’s London growth is symptomatic of its wider success, with back-to-back record increases in revenue and profit per equity partner (PEP) being recorded in the past two financial years. In 2022/23, global revenues grew 6% to $1.67 billion (£1.33 billion) and PEP rose 4% to hit a record high of $4.98 million (£3.98 million). Equity partnership headcount dropped by 14, to 163 lawyers, but the firm crossed the 1000 lawyer mark for the first time this year, growing its headcount to 1,070. London is the largest non-US office, playing host to 30 partners and over 100 lawyers.
The firm has been a victim of its own success, with growth over the past year requiring PH to take out more office space in the swanky City 100 Bishopsgate skyscraper. Rookies now roam the top two floors, meaning even better skyline views! Trainees follow the usual six by four structure, with seats typically chosen from corporate, real estate, finance, funds, litigation, payment systems and financial services, restructuring, capital markets, employment, and tax.
Paul Hastings has no qualms about hiring from its competitors in the City, bringing in partners from Weil Gotshal & Manges, Shearman & Sterling, and Linklaters, across a breadth of transactional and litigious practice areas, this year. Bankruptcy, restructuring, and litigation fuelled growth in a year of downturn, but the firm has a strong transactional flair, with finance and capital markets work in London being a strong suit. In fact, trainees can skip litigious work altogether by completing a separate litigation course instead of a practice area seat. First-seats are assigned by business need but beyond this, there are no compulsory seats — trainees have full control of the reins!
The corporate team have been particularly busy working on deals with clients such as Goldman Sachs on Salt Mobile’s high-yield bond offering, and Natwest, on financing the acquisition of Augean – a specialist waste-management company. The team also recently advised on the launch of a new all-women led seed venture capital fund, Pact, which counts Anne Hathaway amongst its partners.
As you might’ve guessed, the quality of work at Paul Hastings is rated highly. A small intake of seven means trainees are given lots of responsibility and taught how to manage deals early on. Complex transactions and tricky financial structures are the norm at this high-flying US firm, with fresh recruits given “a good quality of work, if you are trusted”. The training programme also follows the orthodox US hands-off approach to learning on the job. Some seats, such as leveraged finance and corporate, do provide targeted training sessions, and there are suggestions that some practice groups have “very hands on” associates and partners, but overall, this firm is better suited to those who learn by doing and enjoy being thrown in at the deep end.
Trainees are expected to attend the office at least three days a week and equipment is provided for rookies working from home. Slightly longer working hours reflect the top-end salary of £55,000 trainees take home in year one, which rises to £60,000 in the second year of the training contract. NQs currently take home a whopping £153,000. The usual suspects of corporate and transactional seats provide a more erratic work life balance, according insiders, while those looking to smoothen the peaks and troughs should look towards litigation or tax. The overall perception is, however, positive, trainees noting that the balance is better than expected, even if plans have to be cancelled and late nights pulled in busy periods.
Culture at US firms often gets a bad name, but trainees at Paul Hastings insist that this is where the firm breaks the mould. The graduate recruitment team are praised for their judicial hiring process of only friendly people (who won’t try to screw you over when it comes to qualification). This had led juniors to rave about the “very supportive” trainee and junior cohorts. Whilst this does inevitably vary by department, the office generally operates a flat hierarchy — and don’t be surprised to see a few partners tagging along to monthly team drinks!
Despite the firm having 22 offices across the US, Europe and Asia, there were no reports of international secondments, though client secondments can become available depending on business needs.
The perks do receive praise. Alongside a generous monthly allowance for a work phone, trainees also receive the standard BigLaw package of a fitness and wellbeing allowance, private healthcare, and life insurance. The firm also pays for your dinner and taxi home if you’re working late. On top of this, whilst the legal tech on offer is nothing to write home about, we’re told that improvements are in progress.