Did the recent NQ pay rise to £100k sway their decision?
Weil Gotshal & Manges has revealed yet another strong retention performance with 100% of the firm’s March 2016 qualifiers committing their future to the US giant.
The New York-headquartered outfit — that offers around 15 London training contracts annually — boosted its newly qualified (NQ) lawyers’ pay packets by 3% just before Christmas, meaning that it’s now paying newly-qualified solicitors an eye-watering £100,000 a year.
Clearly deemed adequate recompense for the lengthy hours spent at their desks, all three of the firms’ qualifying associates-to-be happily accepted full-time positions.
Weil Gotshal confirmed that the NQs would be spread across a range of key practice areas, including corporate, private funds and litigation.
The global outfit — best known for its private equity practice — continues an impressive retention run, posting 100% last autumn, on that occasion keeping all nine of its trainees.
Despite US firms traditionally having a much smaller trainee intake compared to their City-headquartered competitors, Jonathan Wood — graduate recruitment partner at Weil Gotshal — said:
We are delighted that, as with previous years, all of our trainees qualifying in March have accepted offers from their chosen practice areas and are continuing with the firm following qualification. Our award winning graduate recruitment programme has enabled us to attract and retain the brightest talent.
Last week international outfit Nabarro put a disappointing autumn retention result behind it to reveal an encouraging spring figure of 89%. Meanwhile, elite magic circle firm Slaughter and May was the first out the retention-blocks revealing a strong 95% spring 2016 retention figure.
Who pays most? The Legal Cheek Firms Most List has all the latest salary figures.