Russell-Cooke

On the eco-front, R-C also has its own environmental committee which works to make it as sustainable as possible. Innovations have included going paperless, installing motion sensor lights, investing in solar panels and building a small rooftop wildlife garden which accommodates over 100,000 honey bees in the Putney office! These efforts have meant the firm has been carbon neutral since 2019.

Having started out advising the Royal Family and important liberal politicians in the 1890s, Russell-Cooke developed strengths in its property, family and private client practices. Property is still the largest money spinner, generating roughly one-third of its turnover, but the firm has diversified its offering, with rookies enjoying seats in a range of areas from education law to criminal and finance work to dispute resolution and of course charity and non-profit work. The firm also handles its fair share of litigation, private client and corporate matters, and even has its own French law team as well as a thriving consultancy arm, Flex. So far, all this diversity has spelled success as Russell-Cooke’s annual turnover was up over 8% this year, from £46.6 million to £50.5 million — not a bad time for new senior partner Matt Garrod to take the reins!

Not a bad time to be a trainee at Russell-Cooke either, with the firm offering a rare breadth of work to new recruits. Clients range from royal families to real estate developers to charities and social businesses. As a trainee, expect engaging work and lots of it. “I have been given lots of substantive tasks (drafting documents in transactional seats, drafting correspondence and court documents in litigation seats), I have also been given opportunities to take the lead on small matters,” one source tells us. “I have had lots of direct client contact. The work is as stimulating as it gets in a training contract” was the review from another. Trainees at R-C are said to be “fully involved with actual client matters and not glued to a photocopier or running papers to the Court” which means five-star ratings from the trainees as far as the work goes. More mundane tasks can’t be avoided as a trainee and “sometimes it is just bundling and calling HMRC,” one rookie laments. But recruits generally recognise these moments as part-and-parcel of being the most “cost-efficient” way to get the job done and they are always said to be few and far between.

Lean team sizes also means that newbies can take on “true responsibility” and get involved in “real” work. “Staff take the time to invest in you and you get extremely good quality of work and excellent contact with clients,” details one insider. Trainees can expect to be given the “responsibility and autonomy” to draft wills and powers of attorney for wealthy private clients, attend court independently and “even run your own files under the supervision of an associate/partner.”
The firm offers a four-seat training contract to around 10-12 trainees with a starting salary of £46,000 that rises to £48,500 in the second year. Although marginally lower rates than some of its London counterparts, there is consensus among trainees that the work/life balance makes for an excellent trade-off.

“Really good — possibly even better than I thought!” said one newbie when discussing the work/life balance at RC, “I have been asked on a number of occasions why I am still in the office/working if I am still there at 7pm”. A 9-5 is said to be very do-able with one junior lawyer reporting, “I have only had to leave after six on a handful of occasions during my entire training contract.” Though one rookie acknowledges “as with all law firms, sometimes you have to work early/late”, weekends are almost always free and busy periods tend to come in “short bursts”. Another insider offers this helpful summary: “Weekend working is very rare. More senior people have an appreciation of your work/life balance and that you have a life outside of the office. While you are expected to work hard, it is not the type of culture which says, ‘work all hours for the sake of it’. If you have urgent work, you will often naturally stay behind to complete it, but if it can be picked up the next day, then that is when such work is done.”

As for working from home, the firm’s policy is said to be team dependent but generally trainees are expected to go in three to four days a week. This sometimes means that lonely trainees “have to come in on an emptier day when there doesn’t feel like there is much point”, but generally the policy works out pretty well. For those days spent working from home, trainees and juniors are facilitated with the basics such as a laptop, mouse and keyboard and can request an additional monitor — though one recruit adds that “a high-quality chair would be hugely appreciated!”
The offices themselves could be more impressive with a few gripes about the “distinctly average” Putney office being too far from central London and “in need of modernisation”. Elsewhere, the Bedford Row office in Holborn has been given a lick of paint which has “helped to brighten the office up” and the Surrey hub in Kingston-upon-Thames is described as “modern” whilst feeling “very regional”. “Fully functional and comfortable but not fancy” is the consensus on Russell-Cooke’s working spaces, according to our sources, even if some critics were less tactful in their review of the “ugly purpose-built orange wood offices”.

On the bright-side, the training is said to be “high quality and responsive” with the perfect recipe of “personalised feedback”, “regular one to one sessions”, a “good level of supervision” and “meaningful work”. The quality, like with many firms, can vary between departments and supervisors. Some are labelled “impeccable” whilst in others, trainees tell us “you are left to your own devices without a parachute (particularly litigation seats)”. Another source adds: “In some seats I have had excellent training and in others I have been left feeling very out of my depth.”

On a more positive note, friendly home-grown partners, who can readily recall their days in the firm’s junior ranks, create “a really nice vibe” in the office. “The best thing about the firm,” one spy proclaims. “I would feel just as comfortable going to a legal executive with a question as I would a partner. The policy is very much open door. No question is too much bother.” Russell-Cooke has a reputation for decent partner promotion rates and the small trainee intake means that your odds of making it to the top are pretty good. In the glowing words of one rookie: “The firm is inclusive, supportive and most importantly everyone is invested in your training — you feel as though you are the future of the firm and are therefore valued.”

With reviews like this, it won’t be surprising to learn that Russell-Cookers also rate their peers very highly with our sources describing a “great network of trainees and juniors across the offices” filled with people who are “always willing to help”. Despite the fact that newbies are split between the firm’s Putney, Holborn and Kingston offices, trainee cohorts are very close-knit, enjoying “lots of socials” thanks to a sizeable social budget. “We are a small, close-knit cohort of trainee solicitors (about 20 of us over two years). There have so far been more NQ roles than trainees, so it’s not competitive. When one trainee’s department gets a large project, trainees from other departments are able to step in to assist,” shares one jolly junior. Another adds: “We all get along very well, and this has been a very positive aspect of the training contract.” There’s said to be a yoga club, tennis club, running club, walking club, board-game club, reading club, film club — and the occasional club sandwich in the Putney office’s subsidised canteen — as well as lots of impromptu events, drinks and film parties which are all well attended and well organised across the offices.

There aren’t a ton of perks, beyond a trainee social budget and a subsidised café in Putney which serves up sandwiches, jacket potatoes and a weekly pie-day, but this doesn’t appear to be a problem for most: “The firm makes it clear the perks are the culture and work/life balance and the sacrifice of that is no flashy gym membership but it’s a pretty good sacrifice when you look at our hours”. Others are less impressed with the offering with one trainee’s review of the perks being more limited: “you get 50p off at Octagreen in Putney if you show your ID…”
In-office tech can be a bit hit-and-miss with recruits describing “systems crashing every other week”, faulty “document management systems” and regular “breakdowns of software”. That being said, others note that the firm is making efforts to “improve our access to legal technology” and the IT team are said to be “keen to support investment into helpful products both hardware and software”.

All in all, Russell-Cooke has done well in welcoming newbies into its strong and unusually communal culture that has prevailed over its 140-odd year existence.