National outfit also confirms it’s recruiting more legal apprentices
Bond Dickinson has lifted a post-Brexit referendum pay review deferral it had imposed on all its lawyers earlier this year.
Back in September, the firm’s managing partner, Jonathan Blair, told lawyers that a decision had been taken to ‘defer’ pay reviews. Citing a “dip in activity levels,” Blair — who has been in the top spot since 2007 — reassured staff that the firm would review the situation again in November.
True to its word, Bond Dickinson — which has seven city offices across the United Kingdom (UK) — has now released a statement confirming that pay talks are back on the table. Issued yesterday, the statement said:
Further to our decision to defer our salary review process the board has reviewed our position and we are pleased to confirm that we will be proceeding with our salary review. All increases will be backdated to 1 November 2016, which was the effective date of the original review before we deferred it.
Last week international law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) revealed it was restarting pay reviews for its UK staff after a post-referendum freeze. But unlike Bond Dickinson, BLP bigwigs confirmed it would not backdate pay to July when it first implemented the deferral. In what could be seen as a controversial move, this means BLP lawyers miss out on four months’ worth of pay increases.
Back to Bond Dickinson: the firm has also revealed that it is set to recruit a further three legal apprentices.
Based in the national outfit’s Plymouth outpost, the young apprentices — who will eventually qualify as paralegals — will start the two-year course next September. The legal trio will also receive expert training courtesy of CILEx Law School.
Commenting on the announcement, Sam Lee, head of Recruitment at Bond Dickinson, said:
We currently have seven legal apprentices across the business; apprentices from the first and second intakes have already completed their programmes and are now established fee earners in the firm. The apprenticeship programme and our partnership with CILEx Law School have proved to be an excellent formula for recruiting and retaining young talent.