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Our view....
The Eversheds' Birmingham and Nottingham offices merged in 2003, and together now cover the East and
West Midlands. Good news for Nottingham lawyers, who saw their
pay go up to Birmingham rates. Slightly less good
news for the clients who saw billing rates rise accordingly too.
It was also bad news for the
Nottingham-based legal systems team which was given the boot.
Complaints were made about some of the staff being fobbed off with
statutory redundancy, despite having worked for the firm for eight
years. Hardly in keeping with the firm's stated aim to be a "great
place to work".
Birmingham has traditionally been Eversheds' star office,
but if the merger was designed to keep it at the top of its game
then so far it has failed. The
local market was staggered when senior partner Adrian Bland jumped
ship in 2003 - and to arch-rivals Wragges to boot. Rumours were that
he disliked the change in the firm's management style with its
increased focus on billing - and it seems
others agreed with him. The office subsequently lost their head of
property tax, local rainmaker Milton Psyllides (who took early retirement)
and a whole raft of other partners. Most recently it's seen the back
of its head of IT to Wragges, a corporate partner to Hammonds and
its head of HR law to DLA. Assistants started flicking through the jobs
pages, amidst grumblings that partnership was
no more than a distant dream and working hours were up to City levels.
However the firm is trying to address
this by increasing the number of partners it makes up. A record 24
were appointed up in 2006, and there will be sighs of relief that
profits per equity partner leapt to a very respectable £552,000 in
2008. But half of the firms partners are on salaries rather than
equity, so they won't be making anything like this. And as the firm
increases its focus on London, and the lucrative European and
international work it hopes to channel through it, there's a concern
that Birmingham may slip further.
Still, for now the consensus is that
the office has Eversheds'
best corporate department, and it is still generally regarded as one
of the best in the city. Whether this will continue remains to be
seen. In the meantime, heed the comments of one associate -
"London work, London hours, Birmingham pay..."
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