The Legal Cheek View
Forsters is now housed within a swish new office at 22 Baker Street, Marylebone — a move which has apparently gone down very well with rookies. It’s decorated to a “high specification”, one source tells us, and now means “all teams are back under one roof”. The ultra-modern gaff, is quite the contrast to the firm’s previous HQ, a collection of converted Georgian terraces near Bond Street station that featured a warren of separate rooms. Break out space is everywhere in the new place, with an imaginative selection of pods and meeting rooms for collaboration, dotted with frequent cafes and coffee stations. A stunning roof terrace overlooking the West End tops it off.
Forsters partners and trainees all seem pretty close: “as a trainee, I have personally formed close working relationships with lawyers of all ages and positions within the firm”. Trainees really appreciate how partners take the time to provide feedback and to get to know everyone. “Partners are very approachable and will happily take time to answer any questions,” says one insider. A couple of respondents gave a slightly different view on this, with one saying: “Generally the firm is highly approachable, and superiors take great interest in trainees, however, due to our four-month seats, it sometimes feels as though superiors are more detached with trainees as they change over regularly.”
Trainee ranks are particularly close-knit, according to our spies. “As a trainee cohort, we really have each other’s backs,” one source tells us. While another expands: “We eat lunch together and socialise on the evenings and weekends. You always have a few trainees who can share their experience of the seat you are going into, providing helpful tips for success.” In short, Forsters’ culture and community appears to be one of its strongest assets.
Training here means lots of exposure to quality work at an early stage. As one Forsters’ rookie reports: “The amount of responsibility we are given is incredible — we are able to run our own (albeit small fry) files and are given plenty of client contact. Thorough feedback is provided at regular intervals”. Another adds: “I feel I am constantly involved in work outside of my comfort zone, but it is very stimulating as a result”. Rookies also get the opportunity to do six, four-month seats, meaning they get to sample a broader range of the firm’s practice areas. Trainees receive formal training sessions with members of the team or knowledge development lawyer specialists as well as more ‘informal’ at desk overviews.
The firm certainly has come a long way since it was founded in 1998 by ten partners as a breakaway from one of the UK’s oldest law firms, Frere Cholmeley Bischoff. Forsters takes its name from John Forster, one of the founding partners of what was to become Frere Cholmeley Bischoff in 1770. Natasha Rees has been the firm’s senior partner for several years, succeeding one of the founding partners, Smita Edwards, who stepped down after a successful tenure.
Edwards has overseen a period of solid and sustained growth across its key specialties—private client, real estate, employment, corporate, and banking—with the latest available figures showing revenues exceeding £75 million and profit per equity partner (PEP) at approximately £550,000. This growth has been driven in part by a string of new hires including a team of employment lawyers from Winckworth Sherwood.
Forsters’ lawyers get stuck into a range of interesting and often high-profile matters, such as the Supreme Court case of Fearn v Tate. The firm successfully acted for residents of a development on London’s South Bank, who brought a claim under the Human Rights Act 1998 against the Tate Modern in an attempt to protect their right to privacy from the museum’s tenth floor viewing gallery. The ruling is seen as a milestone for development as it extends the law of nuisance (undergrad law students take note!) to protect against visual intrusion.
Headline grabbing work aside, the culture remains one where reasonable hours are the norm. With no expectation to hang around in the office, just in case, once you have finished your tasks for the day and partners being “very hot on wellbeing”, work/life balance has exceeded many trainees’ expectations. “I’m not sure I’ve ever worked past 8pm in my nearly two years as a trainee, one spy tells Legal Cheek. ”On a couple of rare occasions I have done a few hours at a weekend — out of my own choice — this led to a concerned, ‘Is everything okay?’ email from my supervisor.”
Another source details: “Holidays, CSR days, external interests and down time are all encouraged. It is clear that many of the lawyers here have come to Forsters looking for excellent work/life balance. Longer days are rare and, in my experience, arise only when a team is working towards a deadline; there is a sense of groups of colleagues putting in the hours together rather than certain unlucky individuals having to stay late”.
There aren’t many gadgets or gizmos to help trainees with their workloads, as the tech is described by newcomers as “far from innovative”. However, the firm did provide new laptops last year, which was a welcome move for the trainees.
The perks are nothing to write home about but equally, we heard no real complaints. As well as the usual benefits, sources told us they had decent shared parental leave, the option for a sabbatical every five years, up to two weeks’ qualification leave, and “some sports tickets available to take clients too which is excellent!”
There are no MoneyLaw salaries on offer, but that’s the trade-off for reasonable hours. First and second year rates currently sit at £45,500 and £48,500 respectively, while newly qualified associates earn £81,000. International secondments, meanwhile, are not a thing — having said that, it is relatively common to take trainees on business trips. But to some the upsides of ploughing a different furrow across town in the West End will no doubt override such considerations.
The firm also demonstrates its charitable side through a recent partnership with the Marylebone Project, which provides life-changing services for women facing homelessness. The firm supports the project through fundraising, material donations, social activities and volunteering.