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<< Recent History and the Future | Home | The UK Market >>

May 22, 2008

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Top UK Firms' Practice Sectors

• Companies are often best described by the products they sell and law firms are no exception.
• If you want to work in a specific practice area, or want to get an objective flavor of how a firm is positioned, it pays to see where their business comes from.

• Evidently the large firms can handle work in all service areas and have specialist partners in each of the four main practice areas of Corporate, Finance, Real Estate and Litigation.
• Most of the firms pride themselves on having large and profitable Corporate divisions. There are various proportions of Finance and Litigation however there tends to be relatively little exposure to Real Estate work (although this is now increasing).
• The "Other" category consists mostly of Tax, Competition, EU, Incentives, Employment and Projects.

Benefits From Large / Small Divisions

Large

• Brand status (useful for the CV).
• Excellent in-house education.
• Higher pay (e.g. Law School fees).
• More international secondments.
• Experience on deals that only large departments can handle.

Small

• Broader job description.
• More meaningful ties with colleagues.
• More responsibility.
• Big fish - small pond.
• May be more profitable.

• Whatever you decide, talking knowledgeably about the firm is bound to leave a good impression at the training contract interview.

These charts show the proportional increase in each firm's revenue and PEP by assuming that they were all equally sized in 2001:

• Despite the recent downturn most firms have significantly increased their revenues since 2001.
• However, this has predominantly been the result of increasing their headcount through adding lawyers, practice groups or through mergers either at home or abroad.

• This chart can be misleading.
• Most law firm profits are actually down since 2001.
• However, firms massively reduced their numbers of equity partners in 2003 when they reacted to the downturn.
• Many used this as justification for clearing out dead-wood and their over-adjustment led to a large increase in PEP across the board in 2003.
• Therefore the pyramid has got steeper:
  • It's harder to get to the very top.
    
    
  • BUT you will be paid much more when you get there!

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