The Legal Cheek View
IPOs, acquisitions, restructurings, relocations and, finally, delisting — you name it, DWF has done it. After becoming Big Law’s largest listed law firm all the way back in 2019, DWF has had an eventful couple of years. The firm revamped its operating model to share profits firmwide, upgraded its offices in Liverpool and Southampton, found a new CEO in Matthew Doughty, diversified its service offering by swallowing up other law firms, insurance companies, and data analytics providers and on top of all that it now has its own forest as part of its 2045 net zero ambitions!
DWF’s private equity buyout by Inflexion Private Equity Partners — also the proud owners of Chambers & Partners — has so far paid success, with the firm’s annual turnover sitting around £435 million. The firm has also made 26 senior promotions in its latest round, with 13 making partner and a further 13 moving to a higher level within the partnership structure.
The global spread here includes 11 offices in the UK — Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle and Southampton — and 20 offices abroad. Despite only launching its first international office in Dubai in 2015, DWF’s listing spurred the business on to carry out an ambitious period of geographic expansion. It quickly set up shop across the globe in many new locations including Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the US, and fostered exclusive associations in Argentina, Colombia, Panama, Singapore, South Africa and Turkey, and Hong Kong.
Unfortunately for any aspiring globetrotters, this worldwide growth hasn’t inspired any international secondment options yet. However, client secondments to a range of multinationals — including Amazon, JD Sports, Virgin Money and Barclays — are most certainly available, with around 30% of trainees enjoying one each year.
Insiders at the firm report DWF is an excellent place to undergo your legal training. “Everyone who I have come across in the business is happy to answer any questions and supervisors provide constructive and useful feedback,” one rookie reveals. “I have improved greatly during my training contract, which is a credit to supervisors and the training received at DWF.” Trainees say the firm offers a “good balance between adequate supervision and levels of responsibility to encourage independent thinking” with regular teamwide training supplemented by more informal one-to-one supervision.
Note, however, that this can be team-dependent with one insider noting that “some seats are fantastic and you’re in court and meeting clients on site visits and doing highly technical, actual legal work; other seats you toil away doing sad admin because you are a warm body in a seat and someone needs to do it.” Recruits attribute an increase in admin work to DWF’s recent decision to cut some support staff roles, following a redundancy consultation: “The decline of wonderful admin staff has increased time wasting for fee earners and it has a huge knock-on effect on legal training, obviously as you don’t get to train.” But, that being said, rookies do still give their supervisors and wider teams very high praise for their individual support: “Great team of lawyers, who are always willing to help and take the time out to explain any legal or technical query that a trainee may have.”
The quality of work is also highly rated by trainees. “I am able to be involved in a variety of matters, and express interest / undertake opportunities in sectors I am interested in personally. I have undertaken high value complex legal work throughout my training contract, and feel challenged which has helped my development immensely” is one satisfied rookie’s review. Expect a “high degree of responsibility” and lots of involvement in “high-profile cases”, alongside the inevitable more routine “admin tasks”. According to one LC mole, “there is some work that is more routine than other work, but that is the nature of being a trainee. 99% of the work is extremely interesting, and the workload is varied; no two cases I have worked on have been the same.”
Recent highlights in the firm’s UK hubs include advising Daisy Group on its merger with Virgin Media O2 and supporting the Department for Work and Pensions on a contact centre modernisation programme. The variety of deals taking place at DWF speaks to a diverse service offering, which now counts an inaugural vegan team as part of its collage. That’s right, in what has to be a BigLaw first, DWF has launched a specialist vegan team which is expected to take on work including food labelling, advertising, employment issues and even vegan-friendly pensions.
And if you wanted anything even more New Law than a vegan-specialist team, you only need to look as far as DWF’s internal embrace of technology: “We have excellent legal tech,” boasts one insider. “We have developed a number of different softwares over the last few years which are really efficient for carrying out tasks, e.g. DWF Draft which takes the form of specially created questionnaires that once completed populate a draft based on the answers you have given.” Another explains, “we had a really impressive induction on legal tech, and there’s even a legal tech seat”, referring to DWF’s lawtech seat which aims to usher in a new swathe of techy trainees with STEM backgrounds. The recent roll-out of Microsoft CoPilot and Legora has marked the inaugural stages of DWF’s digital transformation programme, though some rookies definitely feel like the firm still needs to get the basics right, with one revealing the LC that their ‘new’ laptops “sound like they’re trying to generate electricity for a small city with how hard the fan is going in it”.
Unsurprisingly, the firm’s “very flexible” working from home set-up was also well-received. Trainees say that all the equipment you need (including an extra screen) is provided on request and there’s no complaints with the firm’s current policy which allows new recruits to split their time between the office and their home 50/50.
Another area praised by our sources is peer camaraderie. The “very supportive and close cohort” from the fellow trainees to paralegals to other juniors — “supportive and friendly” is the overarching theme. Across all the offices there are “regular trainee socials” with monthly drinks in the bistro in Manchester touted as a highlight in the HQ.
An open-plan office in London and hot desking in Glasgow speaks to the lack of hierarchy the firm fosters across all its office spaces with rookies everywhere reporting partners who “are easy to chat to and willing to answer any questions”. Although there are still “some nefarious individuals”, insiders say that “on the whole superiors are all fantastic and could not do more for you.” Another current trainee told LC, “In the nicest way possible, everyone is just normal. I feel able to approach supervisors and partners with questions or concerns” — high praise indeed for a lawyer. Another remarked that “peers across all levels of the firm are supportive. The culture of the firm is one of its greatest assets. Everybody is ‘one team’ and it does not feel hierarchised.”
Some of the highest praise at DWF — and perhaps some of the most surprising too given the size of the firm — is for the work/life balance on offer. Insiders report top-notch work/life balance with one boasting they have never worked past about 7pm. Some finish at 5.30/6pm, weekends and annual leave are strictly off-limits and there is no face-time culture — “no expectation to stay late, no pressure is put on trainees to work longer hours”, noted one. Another offered this: “The workload as a trainee is never light, however DWF allows trainees to work from home (depending on client needs), and always encourages trainees to speak up if they have taken on too much work. There are a couple of late nights involved in any training contract, but I have found that it has been easy to maintain a work/life balance whilst training at DWF.”
Enthusiasm drops, however, when it comes to the subject of perks. “There are little to no noticeable perks at the firm,” claims one trainee. Another adds that “the free coffee machine” provided last month has been the most generous bonus they’ve received in the best-part of two years. There is also no canteen in any of the offices, though some are holding out for a refurb sometime soon… On a more positive note, there is still a “strong pension scheme”, health insurance as well as “£200ish to spend on physio, massage etc.” to name a few bonuses on offer. There’s also “regular gym classes and activity clubs” in some offices.
If finding themselves perk-less bothers trainees, they can always look out the window. “DWF’s London office is in the ‘Walkie-Talkie Building’ — the office offers 360 degree views of London, and you even see Windsor Castle on a clear day,” reports one insider. With the Sky Garden upstairs and “unreal sunsets” in the Winter, trainees in the capital are pretty happy. Regional recruits were less impressed. Despite being in a “great location” the Manchester office is reported as being “quite basic” and the Glasgow office faces the same grumbles. However, Edinburgh is said to to be “great” and Southampton have just upgraded to a newly refurbed hub after doubling their headcount over the past few years.
DWF does not disclose its newly qualified (NQ) solicitors’ salaries, but trainees in London can start on around £38,000 while rookie pay in Scotland and the regions sits around £26,000 and Belfast trainees earn £21,255 in year one.