Considering moving to Willkie Farr & Gallagher (London office), but don't know much about hours, culture, office environment etc. I'm 8.5 years pqe and apart from a 3.5 year stint at a Magic Circle law firm (where i was beasted) my career has been working at a fairly friendly old fashioned English city law firm where targets are only 1550 and they are keen for the office to be empty after 630pm. This would be nice, but in reality all the trainees and support staff go home at 5:30pm and you're left to bat on your own till late (not crazy late, but late enough to bemoan the junior colleagues who go home and the partners who are underpaying you). Typically i bill 1650-1700 so not too worried about moving to a firm where the hours are higher than 1550, but not sure how much higher the targets would be at Willkie Farr. Apparently they don't have targets, but there must be some level of expectation. Is it naive to think I could bill 8 hours a day (c. 1800h a year) then go home?

If anyone knows any inside info about Willkie Farr's London office (particularly telecoms and litigation depts), I would be interested to hear your views. They are offering a lot of money (more than magic circle, probably close to Wall St levels) so I assume hours are bad, but would like to hear from someone who has experienced this first hand.

Ta very much.