Young ones at risk

The major commercial law firms are under-recruiting and feeding the long-hours culture in the name of increased profitability, a City-based young lawyer told a conference session.Herbert Smith employment solicitor Jane Swann told delegates at a Young Solicitors Group forum that 'firms are going to have to earn less money' if they are to avoid losing young staff.

She said 'you can't recruit eight people to do the job of ten', and indicated that the long-hours culture pervading the City was in part the result of too few young lawyers being employed.Ms Swann also recommended that solicitors' firms harmonise their career paths and jettison some outmoded models.

She called for a three-tier structure, consisting of partners, senior assistants and junior assistant levels.

Many firms were already adopting this structure, having abolished the ambiguous status of salaried partnership.Veronica Dean, head of employment in the midlands at Hammond Suddards Edge, acknowledged that partnership was not the Holy Grail for the current generation of young lawyers that it was for their predecessors.

'It is a big life decision to go for partnership,' she said.

'And many young people see how hard our partners work and they decide against it.'However, Ms Dean was less convinced that the long hours required by some firms were unfair.

She pointed out: 'If you are a member of a firm that works long hours on some big deals, then you get paid to do those hours.

And there is a trade-off in terms of lifestyle; but you pays your money, you takes your choice.'Jonathan Ames