The Legal Cheek View
Once Ipswich’s pre-eminent law firm (and still partners with the now-premier league football club), Birketts offers good quality work coupled with a great work/life balance both in the City and across the East of England.
The full-service law firm has offices in Ipswich, Norwich, Cambridge, Chelmsford, London, Sevenoaks and, most recently, Bristol. Each year, Birketts takes 30 trainees across its seven offices, nearly doubling their intake in the last three years. Recruits undertake seats in the firm’s four core practice areas: corporate and commercial, dispute resolution, property, and private client, each encompassing a broad spectrum of specialisms for both businesses and individuals.
Birketts is a firm in the ascension. With a growing headcount of 127 partners and over 1,000 staff across the country, the firm’s ambition to span “the Wash to the Severn” is firmly within reach. The most recent publicly available financials show firmwide revenues of approximately £85 million, with the firm benefitting from mergers with London insurance boutique EC3 in 2020, as well as Kent and London based Batchelors Solicitors in 2023. Promotions and laterals have also helped growth, with 10 making partner in the firm’s most recent promotion round as Birketts trainee Chris Schwer was elected as new senior partner.
In spite of this significant growth in work — which is up a whopping 68% in client numbers in the past year or so — partners, associates, and trainees alike claim the firm has maintained its friendly atmosphere. “As cliché as it may sound, I think it would be seriously hard to find another law firm with a friendlier bunch of people” states one happy beneficiary of the “supportive culture”. Trainees are “genuine friends” who book holidays and weekends away together, whilst higher-ups are “really approachable people” who “don’t take themselves too seriously or think they are better than any of us”, according to the rookies we spoke with.
Sharp-elbow culture is simply a myth at Birketts, with one content recruit heaping buckets of praise on their cohort: “I love my fellow trainees and I feel that we have bonded through a lot! We get on so well and I want them all to succeed. I never felt competitive with or against them. We always share information and opportunities with each other and they are always happy to answer questions.” A genuinely flat hierarchy and open-plan office spaces foster the feeling that superiors “really value the opinions and efforts of junior staff” and supervisors are said to always be “very open to questions, supportive and really good with feedback.”
While international and client secondments may not be on offer, trainees are given the opportunity to travel around offices, and the quality of training on offer receives heaps of praise regardless: “Robust, rigorous, caring. Excellent supervisors and trainers who care about your development and want to see you thrive and achieve your goals.” The training contract consists of “interesting work and social events” with quarterly trainee sessions and a good dash of the more informal stuff on the job.
Whilst there are differences between teams — corporate for example offers frequent black-letter law training whilst real estate is mainly market updates — most are enamoured with their teaching so far: “Varied range of work and opportunities to exercise different skills which is largely positive. Many different departments to explore. Supervision on the whole has been good. The only thing that would make it a ten would be for an improved seat rotation process which would better improve your chances of getting a range of contentious / non contentious seats in the areas you see yourself qualifying into. I also like that I get work from almost all fee earners in the team” said one content rookie.
Both during and after formal training the work/life balance is a major attraction of the firm. The office is said to “pretty much clear out at 5:30pm” and there is never an expectation to stay late or work weekends unless there’s a really big deal on. Rookies report partners telling them to “clock off and go have a good evening” and there’s no sense of sacrificing your social life to meet deadlines. The trade-off for this idyllic life is the £30,000 to £34,000 starting salary, rising to between £46,000 and £65,000 depending on location on qualification. A far cry from the hefty City pay packets, but still fairly decent for legal life in the regions.
As for the work itself, expect “fascinating and complex work from brilliant and interesting clients!” In London, trainees brag of “London quality work without the London lifestyle” whilst those in the regions say that “it’s really nice to see large local clients and be heavily involved in transactions”. The firm really does do deals across an array of industries and practice areas, with recent highlights including advising on the sale of Southwold Pier in Suffolk, working with Anglia Ruskin University on their merger with Writtle University College and supporting the launch of the world’s first fine dining restaurant staffed entirely by homeless people with pro bono legal advice!
While the mix of work inevitably varies between departments, trainees are generally pleased with the tasks that they’re given. As one wise recruit notes: “Naturally some work is more interesting that other work but this does not mean it is less important. As a trainee, you are given ‘typical trainee tasks’ which can be dull but the reason for providing you with these particular tasks is to develop skills and understanding around a subject ultimately letting you grow into more challenging tasks. It depends what you find interesting, for example those that find international commercial work stimulating may not feel that, for example, private client work is as stimulating.”
Legal tech is not one of Birkett’s strong points with some juniors we spoke with complaining of “buggy software” and “firmwide systems errors”. However, there has been noticeable efforts to improve this across the board, including a new tech steering group and tech champions who we’re told are “working hard on bringing everything up to date and making the most of new tech”.
Luckily, this problem doesn’t seem to extend to home working, with the firm providing a monitor and a contribution towards any additional equipment. The IT support for remote working is also said to be “really good”. Not that trainees will typically need this, as recruits are expected in the office every day — though some teams are said to let new recruits WFH one day per week.
Perks “could be better” but there is still the standard private healthcare, cycle to work scheme and a subsidised gym membership on offer and trainees also get one paid day each year to go volunteer in the local community. Free fruit and decent coffee machines make up the rest of the package in some of the firm’s offices.
Rookies have, however, been uplifted by the recent refurbs to nearly every Birketts office. That is, apart from Cambridge, which “is in need of a bit of an update” Whilst juniors are clear that, whatever is done, “it’s still an office building”, the firmwide revamps have seen the introduction of spaces with “great natural light, standing desks, beautiful wooden desks, and ample meeting rooms and break out spaces.” What’s more, we hear a trip to Chelmsford entails dining with Tony, the office’s personal chef who sends out “a very varied and delicious daily menu” and even encourages lawyers to send in requests for any particular meals they’d like that week!
Outside of the office, Birketts is keen in its charitable endeavours. Marathons, walks, sky-dives, sleepouts, and bike rides are never far around the corner, the firm looking to give back to the regional communities in which it thrives.