Toilets are a sanctuary within law firms, providing a moment's peace and, for some staff, the highlight of their working day. So their quality is important, and it is why RollOnFriday's Firm of the Year 2017 asked the nearly 5,000 respondents to reveal whether their loos were sound-proofed thrones or churning pits of sulphur. 

Stephenson Harwood claimed first place with 89% after a majority of staff rated its facilities "excellent", while US firm Shearman & Sterling took second with 85%, where the only complaint was "lack of hand soap". Firm of the Year 2017 Burges Salmon came joint third with Mishcon de Reya on 84%, thanks to "excellent" toilets which "are still going strong". Although a dissenting trainee said that "various individuals in the blokes loos seem to think it's perfectly acceptable to leave a massive stinking 'croc slide' down the toilet". And a puzzled partner asked, "one urinal and three wash-hand basins. Why?"
  So plush, lawyers wear bags on their feet and go in their pants

CMS took joint fifth place with 82%, where the worst its female staff could muster was "the hand dryers are too loud". Clyde & Co was awarded a sparkling 74%, although a (proud?) paralegal said the toilets "get smashed regularly". That may explain why a junior solicitor complained that "aggressive female cleaners come into the male toilets and bang on the doors". Bird & Bird also scored 74%, thanks to a revamped office which boasted exciting new unisex toilets. They are apparently referred to as "superloos", but a male lawyer said, "it is certainly not super walking out of your cubicle having suffered with a bad case of the 'beer sh*ts' to come face to face with 'Gemma' the hot new secretary/trainee/associate/partner".

At Mills & Reeve, otherwise flying high on 72%, the staff toilets in Cambridge are, for one lawyer at least, "the worst aspect of the firm". They "occasionally smell like festival toilets and have hand driers that are about as effective as waving your hands in front of an asthmatic poodle".

At DWF the ladies loos, "whilst clean", were "very poorly lit", which meant that, "when getting ready for a client event, you end up applying make-up at random, with interesting results". But a a solicitor said that the toilet situation had improved since "we got our own toilets and those animals at HSBC could no longer share with us and piss on the floor and shit in the bins".



Squire Patton Boggs' bogs used to be "dreadful", but were recently refurbished to a "very high standard". That will please the London office's "phantom fapper" who was "regularly heard tugging one out on the third floor". A trainee told RollOnFriday the workplace wanker was still at large, although "judging by the strained breathing and grunts, we're pretty sure who it is".

Norton Rose Fulbright and Bond Dickinson managed to pinch off just above 65%, with BD praised for "incredible" toilets in the Newcastle office, which were an "excellent place to hide". At Norton Rose Fulbright, a trainee wrote that he has "had the pleasure of visiting several of our offices across the global network" and could report that issues "vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but broadly include: poor aiming, blockages, peculiar odours, sleeping (and snoring) in cubicles, spitting in urinals and toilet paper so coarse it will leave your cheeks redder than a map of America on 9 November". Happily for the UK office, "London remains champion for the toilet flushes, which reverberate throughout the surrounding offices - it's like that moment in Jurassic Park when Jeff Goldblum realises T-Rex is coming... except it's not T-Rex, it's a banking partner who's dropped off his heavy client lunch and now has a crippling proof-reading task for you on a Friday afternoon". A junior solicitor agreed that the fourth floor flush "sounds like the mournful lowing of the world's most doleful cow". It's "quite off putting if you're sat in an office near them". Maybe, but it's worse at the firms touching cloth at the bottom of the table.
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Comments

Anonymous 08 March 17 02:05

Law must be a really crappy profession if, as you say in your first sentence, toilets are (for some staff) the highlight of the working day.