Ashurst

Although Ashurst now sits within the global megafirm bracket following its 2012 tie-up with Aussie outfit Blake Dawson — which has given it a major presence in Asia — in London its ‘silver circle’ roots remain. To translate the jargon: Ashurst has a strong finance speciality built around a slightly gentler culture to a Magic Circle firm.

That helps to support excellent training — the firm has scored consistently well in this category of the Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey — and, once you are ready to handle it, desirable work. Trainees report receiving “comprehensive department-specific training” and are “rarely given dogsbody work”. But one trainee does note that working from home has made some elements of the training contract “tough” and “ironically, in the more technical departments the work can be less stimulating”. The firm’s Glasgow office is on hand, though, to do much of the volume work.

Work/life balance is pretty standard for a City law firm, with an average leave time of around 8pm. “You rarely have to cancel plans” when not working from home, reports one insider, but “this depends on the department that you are in”. In this new post-COVID world, another trainee tells us that “as is the case for anyone working from home, it can be hard to demarcate working time from rest periods, and it is easy to hop back online to respond to late night emails”.

During ‘normal’ times, however, one trainee summarises their experience like this: “I play a lot of sport (organised on Tuesdays and Wednesdays after work) and take the hit on other evenings if need be. My superiors encourage me to leave the office as soon as I can (work permitting), which is encouraging. Some days can be long though and I’ve had a few bad Friday evenings, which is never fun. I haven’t worked any weekends though.”

Another trainee emphasises the big differences in working hours between departments: “At the moment my work/life balance is great, I leave at 6pm most nights. Sometimes it becomes a lot worse but my latest stay has been 5am and that has only happened twice and I have worked a handful of weekends in my two years here.”

Decent scores for perks in this year’s Legal Cheek Survey, with trainees trumpeting the benefits of free drinks on Thursdays and Fridays, as well as an on-site GP, beautician and physio to ease away those aches and pains.

Meanwhile, in an encouraging sign that the firm’s tech savviness is improving, firm BlackBerrys have been replaced with iPhones while “a real push” is being made to use more automation and contract review software. “Our technology was upgraded last year prior to moving to the new offices” one junior lawyer tells us, “and having a high-quality laptop and easy remote access has made it easy to work from home effectively.”

The relatively new office is said to “be changing the way that we work” with “flexible working a lot easier and more accepted” – particularly in a post-COVID world.  However, not everyone is happy. “The office move appears to have actually slowed things down. We have a new filesite system which has regressed, the WiFi frequently drops out and we don’t get phone signal,” grumbles one insider.

On the secondment front, placements with clients are on the rise; around 20% of Ashurst rookies did one in the last 12 months, with destinations including Barclays, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs. A similar proportion do international placements, with Hong Kong and Brussels among the most popular destinations.