Pros
Hybrid working Central London location
Cons
This is not a nice firm to work at and I would strongly discourage anyone from joining, The pay is not good, there are no bonuses, rarely any socials, and a very competitive and secretive environment amongst staff. The main issue is that the new CEO has brought with him extremely unrealistic billing targets which can only be met by working on average 10 hours a day, or committing fraud. With the low pay and unwelcoming workplace, there is really no incentive to stay and break your back for these unrealistic targets. There is also a very limited scope of legal work you are exposed to here. There is a lack of training, but still micromanagement from supervisors. Despite the amount of people leaving in their droves, HR does not appear to be taking any of these concerns seriously or making any changes. These targets may make the firm more profitable, but it is causing NLS to be a miserable place to work at, with staff often waking up extremely early or working very late and/or on weekends, to meet their targets. Due to the lack of networking, most members of staff on other teams do not even know each other’s name, and there is no cohesion or goodwill. There is also a lot of favouritism, with people having less experience or knowledge and still being promoted, whilst others are under appreciated, perhaps due to gender and race. Also, even though the setup is hybrid, you are expected to go to Court extremely frequently to meet your targets, but still go into the office at least twice a week. In practice, you do not work from home as frequently as advertised.
