The results of the RollOnFriday Firm of the Year 2018 survey are here.

In the last two months a record 5,400 people working at UK law firms rated their firm's pay, career development, management, work-life balance and culture. And also the loos and snacks. The results represent the definitive guide to which firms have happy staff, and which are a cauldron of betrayal and rage where the toilets overflow and the canteen only serves fear.

Last week Burges Salmon, Osborne Clarke and Mills & Reeve were each proclaimed Firm of the Year 2018 after their staff gave them the highest marks in the land. Irwin Mitchell was unveiled as the Golden Turd. But now it is time to see where everyone else fell.



(In calculating the overall scores, loos and snacks were given two times less weight than other categories.)

Of the 5,408 respondents, 2,764 identified as female and 2,374 as male. Women scored their firms, on average, 71%. Men produced almost exactly the same score: 70%. However, the 270 staff who identified as 'other' or preferred not to specify their gender gave a much lower average score of 51%.

  No-one would suspect Brian of giving a bad review. 

Trainees were the most satisfied staff band. Eager and enjoying the influx of cash, they gave an average score of 77%. The next happiest band comprised the partners, with an average score of 76%. The least happy were 3PQE solicitors, who scored their firms 63% on average.



Because labels are important, RollOnFriday has split firms into five leagues: Excellent (80% and above), Very Good (70-79%), OK (65-69%), Meh (60-64%), Ruh-roh (50-59%) and Rancid (sub-50%). Each has a story this week.
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Comments

Anonymous 02 February 18 14:37

I had to Google Womble Bond Dickinson to check RoF wasn't making a weird joke. Conclusions: 1. I am behind the times. 2. That is a terrible name.

Anonymous 02 February 18 17:11

Poor old Irwin Mitchell??. Even removing the idiots from senior management duties hasn’t helped them.

Anonymous 03 February 18 20:13

Find it hard to believe comment saying "on message" firms got top ranking, since I work for one of them, where there's no pressure to be "on message". Surely the larger city firms who didn't do so well would be the ones expecting staff to sing the corporate song? I've also worked for a firm near the bottom, whose corporate "message" changed each year, was unfathomable & bore no resemblance to working there! All I can say whilst nowhere's perfect, the firm I'm at is the best I've worked at in my long Legal career, and deserves top ranking. The aim is often to work for the 'least worst' place, as I have learned by experience.

Anonymous 09 February 18 22:28

Presumably another ridiculous email will come from kennedys birmingham, as it did last year when kennedys came close to getting the turd award, to say we really value our staff, clearly they don't and how very naive of the partner in kennedys birmingham to state otherwise!