Only 55% of Mayer Brown's newly qualified lawyers will be staying on at the firm, and that's despite it having halved its trainee intake.
While the firm offered jobs to 10 out of its 11 trainees qualifying this September, only six were willing to accept the offers, and a seventh is being employed on a short-term contract.
The cohort is smaller than in previous years as Mayer Brown quietly halved the size of its September intakes in 2014, after struggling for years to find enough suitable jobs for qualifying trainees. Last Autumn only 55% of its 18 NQs were retained and, embarrassingly after slashing its intake, it has not been able to improve on that statistic this year. And as the chart below shows, this is a long-standing problem for the firm which has not had an acceptance rate of 65% or above since 2009 (compare those stats to Freshfields' performance).
RollOnFriday asked Mayer Brown why its retention rate was consistently so poor and how the firm plans to improve it. A spokeswoman said, “Our intention is to give our trainees excellent training and the opportunity to build a long term career at the firm". She said, "[We] do our best to match preferences, in terms of qualifying departments, with the needs of the business", and that the firm was "working closely" with the trainees who turned down its offers, "to understand the reasons behind this”.
Mayer Brown now sits at the bottom of the table of retention rates this Autumn:
But there's still all to play for. If you know your firm's stats, tip off RollOnFriday.
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While the firm offered jobs to 10 out of its 11 trainees qualifying this September, only six were willing to accept the offers, and a seventh is being employed on a short-term contract.
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Mayer Brown trainees consider their offers |
The cohort is smaller than in previous years as Mayer Brown quietly halved the size of its September intakes in 2014, after struggling for years to find enough suitable jobs for qualifying trainees. Last Autumn only 55% of its 18 NQs were retained and, embarrassingly after slashing its intake, it has not been able to improve on that statistic this year. And as the chart below shows, this is a long-standing problem for the firm which has not had an acceptance rate of 65% or above since 2009 (compare those stats to Freshfields' performance).
RollOnFriday asked Mayer Brown why its retention rate was consistently so poor and how the firm plans to improve it. A spokeswoman said, “Our intention is to give our trainees excellent training and the opportunity to build a long term career at the firm". She said, "[We] do our best to match preferences, in terms of qualifying departments, with the needs of the business", and that the firm was "working closely" with the trainees who turned down its offers, "to understand the reasons behind this”.
Mayer Brown now sits at the bottom of the table of retention rates this Autumn:
But there's still all to play for. If you know your firm's stats, tip off RollOnFriday.