You are here: Home: Employer insights: Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP: About the organisation
What qualifies a law firm for membership of the magic circle. Is it heritage? Size? Profit per equity partner (PEP)? Or sheer prestige?
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer meets these criteria: the oldest firm within the circle, 2500 lawyers in 27 countries and a 2010 PEP of nearly £1.5m. It captures big deals, advising Porsche on its €10bn bite out of Volkswagen and the Pearl Group on a cash offer of £5bn for the insurance firm Resolution. Other high profile cases include advising Northern Rock and Manchester United PLC when they became takeover targets.
Financial services providers are Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s bread and butter. M&A, competition and private equity are specialties and the restructuring team was instructed by the Bank of England on a £50bn special liquidity scheme. The firm’s commercial litigators have a reputation for resolving particularly complex cases.
The Legal 500 puts Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in the first tier for civil and regulatory investigations, banking litigation, investment and retail, commercial litigation, international arbitration, corporate restructuring and insolvency, securitisation, corporate and regulatory insurance, insolvency and restructuring insurance, infrastructure, environment and rail.
It is a second tier firm in the following areas: equity markets – US capability, private equity – transactions, VAT and indirect tax, fraud – corporate crime; public international law; tax litigation; acquisition finance; debt capital markets; derivatives and structured products; investment funds; equity capital markets – US capability; pensions; insurance and reinsurance litigation; product liability – defendant; mining and minerals; private finance initiative; administrative and public law; construction; property finance; pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.
Trainee salary
£39,000 per annum (first year)
£44,000 per annum (second year)
Salary on qualification
£61,500 per annum
The firm was the first to break assistant lockstep, a system where pay increases for every year of post-qualification experience. This has been replaced with career milestones, a skill-based model that requires fee earners to meet specific criteria to progress.
There is also an on-site gym to burn off calories consumed in the subsidised restaurant, as well as an on-site doctor and dentist.
The Freshfields in Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer can trace its history back to 1743 when it was appointed solicitor to the Bank of England. It was once said that it has ‘something of the English gent about it’.
‘English’, however, isn’t how you’d describe a firm whose deals span multiple jurisdictions and whose teams are comprised of lawyers from an international network. It’s possible to get into a busy lift at the London headquarters and not hear a word of English.
Diversity is taken seriously. The blues and blondes stereotype no longer applies, with the current trainee population coming from 45 different universities. The firm placed in The Times Top 50 Employers for Women 2011 and is a member of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme.
The graduate website acknowledges trainees will be ‘late for dinner’ but that is euphemistic. The reality is leaving at six can be a treat especially for transaction-led practices such as corporate - lawyers sometimes have to work through the night to close a deal. This is one reason why there is an onsite dentist, doctor, restaurant and gym.
However, all-nighters can be the most exciting work; there is usually a team to shoulder the burden and partners often bring in huge bags of breakfast or donuts to raise morale and blood sugar.
The people at the firm are expected to take their work more seriously than themselves. The international offices were recently invited to shoot a short for a ‘film festival’. The Amsterdam office’s responded by paying homage to Michael Jackson’s music video thriller.
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Registered office: The Fountain Building, Howbery Park, Benson Lane, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 8BA UK