Russell-Cooke

Having started out advising the Royal Family and important liberal politicians in the 1890s, Russell-Cooke developed strengths in its property, family and private client practices. Property is still the largest money spinner, generating roughly one-third of its turnover, but the firm has diversified its offering, with rookies enjoying seats in a range of areas from education law to criminal and finance work to dispute resolution. The firm also handles its fair share of litigation, private client and corporate matters, and even has its own French law team as well as a thriving consultancy arm, Flex. So far, all this diversity has spelled dividends with Russell-Cooke’s annual turnover understood to sit just below £50 million — not a bad time for new managing partner Jonathan Thornton to take the helm!

Not a bad time to be a trainee at Russell-Cooke either, with the firm offering a rare breadth of work to new recruits. Clients range from royal families to real estate developers to charities and social businesses. As a trainee, expect engaging work and lots of it. “I have been given lots of substantive tasks (drafting documents in transactional seats, drafting correspondence and court documents in litigation seats), I have also been given opportunities to take the lead on small matters,” one source tells us. “I have had lots of direct client contact. The work is as stimulating as it gets in a training contract.” Another offered this insight: “I have had an opportunity to engage in lots of interesting and high value cases which has certainly aided my development as a young professional.” More mundane tasks can’t be avoided as a trainee and “sometimes it is just bundling and calling HMRC,” one rookie laments. But recruits generally recognise these moments as part-and-parcel of being the most “cost-efficient” way to get the job done and they are always said to be few and far between.

Lean team sizes also means that newbies can take on “true responsibility” and get involved in “real” work. “Staff take the time to invest in you and you get extremely good quality of work and excellent contact with clients,” details one insider. Trainees can expect to be given the “responsibility and autonomy” to draft wills and powers of attorney for wealthy private clients, attend court independently and “even run your own files under the supervision of an associate/partner.”

The firm offers a four-seat training contract to around 10-12 trainees with a starting salary of £46,000 that rises to £48,500 in the second year. Although marginally lower rates than some of its London counterparts, there is consensus among trainees that the work/life balance makes for an excellent trade-off.

“Really good — possibly even better than I thought!” said one newbie when discussing the work/life balance at RC, “I have been asked on a number of occasions why I am still in the office/working if I am still there at 7pm”. A 9-5 is said to be very do-able with one junior lawyer reporting, “I have only had to leave after six on a handful of occasions during my entire training contract.” Though one rookie acknowledges “as with all law firms, sometimes you have to work early/late”, weekends are almost always free and busy periods tend to come in “short bursts”. Another insider offers this helpful summary: “Weekend working is very rare. More senior people have an appreciation of your work/life balance and that you have a life outside of the office. While you are expected to work hard, it is not the type of culture which says, ‘work all hours for the sake of it’. If you have urgent work, you will often naturally stay behind to complete it, but if it can be picked up the next day, then that is when such work is done.”

As for working from home, the firm requires trainees to go into the office four days a week while running a three-day policy for everyone else. This sometimes means that lonely trainees “have to come in on an emptier day when there doesn’t feel like there is much point”, but generally the policy works out pretty well. For those days spent working from home, trainees and juniors are facilitated with the basics such as a laptop, mouse and keyboard and can request an additional monitor — though one recruit adds that “a high-quality chair would be hugely appreciated!”

The offices themselves could be more impressive with a few gripes about the “distinctly average” Putney office being too far from central London and “in need of modernisation”. Elsewhere, the Bedford Row office in Holborn has been given a lick of paint which has “helped to brighten the office up” and the new Surrey hub in Kingston-upon-Thames is “certainly an improvement,” according to our inside sources. “Fully functional and comfortable but not fancy” is the consensus on Russell-Cooke’s working spaces, even if some critics were less tactful in their review of the “ugly purpose-built orange wood offices”.

On the bright-side, the training is said to be “high quality and responsive” with the perfect recipe of “personalised feedback”, “regular one to one sessions”, a “good level of supervision” and “meaningful work”. The quality, like with many firms, can vary between departments and supervisors with some labelled “impeccable” whilst others “leave you wanting”. “In some seats I have had excellent training and in others I have been left feeling very out of my depth,” one source tells us. On a more positive note, friendly home-grown partners, who can readily recall their days in the firm’s junior ranks, create “a really nice vibe” in the office. “The best thing about the firm,” one spy proclaims. “I would feel just as comfortable going to a legal executive with a question as I would a partner. The policy is very much open door. No question is too much bother.” Russell-Cooke has a reputation for decent partner promotion rates and the small trainee intake means that your odds of making it to the top are pretty good.

With such a merry sense of familial camaraderie, it is perhaps unsurprising that trainees say that there is “no real enforced hierarchy”. The firmwide open-door policy is said to be “invaluable as a trainee” and superiors are always “available for questions” any inquisitive trainee might have.

Despite the fact that rookies are split between the firm’s Putney, Holborn and Kingston offices, trainee cohorts are very close-knit, enjoying “lots of socials” thanks to a sizeable social budget. “We are a small, close-knit cohort of trainee solicitors (about 20 of us over two years). There have so far been more NQ roles than trainees, so it’s not competitive. When one trainee’s department gets a large project, trainees from other departments are able to step in to assist,” shares one jolly junior, while another adds: “We all get along very well, and this has been a very positive aspect of the training contract.” There’s said to be a yoga club, tennis club, running club, walking club, board-game club, reading club, film club — and the occasional club sandwich in the Putney office’s subsidised canteen — as well as lots of impromptu events, drinks and film parties which are all well attended and well organised across the offices.

There aren’t a ton of perks, beyond a trainee social budget and a subsidised café in Putney which serves up sandwiches, jacket potatoes and a weekly pie-day, but this doesn’t appear to be a problem for most: “The firm makes it clear the perks are the culture and work/life balance and the sacrifice of that is no flashy gym membership but it’s a pretty good sacrifice when you look at our hours”.

In-office the tech can be a bit hit-and-miss. Internal computer systems can be a little “slow and glitchy” but a recent firmwide upgrade has been a “huge improvement” and the “brilliant IT team” are always said to be on hand to help out.

All in all, Russell-Cooke has done well in welcoming newbies into its strong and unusually communal culture that has prevailed over its 140-odd year existence.