Contraction and globalisation bring out the claws

Clerkship offers came out Friday ... Firms use the interview process to bag their competitors ... Contraction sets the tone ... Recruitment numbers chopped in half ... Job Jockey reports 

Corporate law firms' public relations strategy in the clerkship season is a bit like politicians' spin in an election campaign: if you've got a good story to tell, go positive; otherwise roll out the attack ads.

Summer clerkship offers were released on Friday (Sept. 27) and with a slowdown in the local legal market and fierce competition from new entrants, it has been a remarkably negative campaign for the hearts and minds of the next generation of young lawyers. 

I clerked over summer two years ago (2011-12) and to see how times have changed I interviewed a batch of young turks vying for spots in this year's class.

As always, firms gave candidates an impressive array of formal and informal functions to suit up for, show off at and make a case for a gig over summer.

What was different this year were the signals firms sent to the wannabe-clerks.

The big change in the legal market has been the increasing pace of globalisation. It was two years ago that all the dominoes started to fall: Blake Dawson became Ashurst Australia before voting for full integration last week. Mallesons merged with King & Wood and Freehills with Herbert Smith. Allens formed an alliance with Linklaters, but eschewed a full merger.

With the tectonic shift in the market every firm was putting their own particular spin on the wisdom of mergers and alliances.

Partners went to extraordinary lengths to explain to potential recruits the folly of their opponents' strategies, with discussion of the global market often taking up almost half the 45 minute interview. One of my sources said: 

"Firms characterised the global market either as an amazing commercial opportunity that also allows employees the opportunity to travel, or alternatively as a risky move that makes it less likely for the firm to be referred international work." 

"My Clayton Utz interviewers were probably the most critical of the other firms," one another contact.

"One partner commented that the Allens-Linklaters model (of an alliance, not a merger) was a significant risk, because the two firms would operate with different aims, not necessarily in each other's best interests. He said anything short of a full financial merger is a bad idea."

Corrs Chambers Westgarth apparently was a little more circumspect.

"Corrs were soft on the international strategy of other firms. They told us that it could be right for other firms but just wasn't the direction they'd gone in."

At some local firms, like Clayton Utz and Minter Ellison, the partners were telling interviewees that international outfits like Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer would never send work to firms that had now merged with their competition.

They explained there were hundreds of non-aligned firms worldwide - a much broader pool to source referrals from if the point of tie-ups was to win work.

Corrs was at pains to explain the depth of their international work at their sit-down wine-and-dine-athon "A Taste of Corrs" which, as usual, involved matched wine and cheese produced by Corrs' clients.

Some firms even educated interviewees about currency fluctuations, saying that a falling Australian dollar could put local partners at risk. Candidates who wanted to be grad lawyers and not finance whizzes could only smile and nod.

Aside from the general wisdom of global mergers, digging the boot into other firms' choice of partner was a popular sport.

One candidate was startled by the attack by a Minter Ellison interviewer on King & Wood Mallesons, who said that working so closely with the Chinese government would put clients off, adding that the names "King and Wood" were "made-up to sound impressive".

Allens boasted it had scored the best date with its Linklaters alignment, the only Magical Circle firm, and disparaged Blake Dawson for having to "make do" with Ashurst, which it claimed had sent much less interesting work than the old Blakes had expected.

What a difference two years makes. I remember when I attended the Allens' cocktail evening and chief executive partner Michael Rose dedicated his speech to an analysis of Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors as a caution against believing firms' messages about their international alliances.

Apparently, like the two ambassadors depicted in fine furs with maps of the world, law firms would soon try to woo us by saying "we're big in China" and we should be on our guard against their spin.

Allens now seems to be saying "we're big in the Mother Country" and hoping that will impress. 

One thing that did disturb some of the applicants were questions from partners about what the other firms have been telling them. 

The question was inappropriate and put young hopefuls in an uncomfortable position. 

However, firms were all singing from the same sheet in saying that it would not be a bumper crop this year.

"All firms were open that they were significantly reducing their intake," said one person I spoke to.

"But they paired it with the positive, that they wanted to be able to offer everyone graduate positions so if you did get a clerkship you'd be in a great position, specially for promotions in about 10 years time."

That's forward thinking! Firms that boasted having offered grad positions to every single clerk in previous years included Freehills, Ashurst, Gilbert + Tobin and Corrs.

When asked to quantify, top tier firms said they were in the lookout for 15 to 20 clerks, which is a little more than half the spots going two years ago.

Mid-tiers ranged from four to 12 and Baker McKenzie said they were offering just two. It's going to be hard to field teams in the annual clerk sports competitions with numbers like that.

"Mallesons made it clear they were shrinking their intake much more than any other firm. They said other firms were not being open about how few graduate positions they were offering."

Well that's good to know – because Mallesons got a pretty bad rap for delaying the start of students who clerked two years ago.

"Firms understood how annoyed people were to have grad jobs pushed back or not to be offered grad jobs at all.  

They also capitalised on the general fear surrounding firms that are rumoured to be having tough times, like Mallesons and Clayton Utz, almost as if to say, sure you'll get a job now, but who knows when they'll fire you."

A sobering thought for the lucky students who got offers on Friday.