Position: 48 =
Firm: Dickinson Dees
Turnover: £60m
Profit per equity partner: £336K
Earnings per partner: £238K
Equity spread: £215K-£375K
Net profit: £12.8m
Profit margin: 21 per cent
Revenue per fee-earner: £132K
Revenue per lawyer: £242K
Revenue per partner: £741K
Revenue per equity partner: £1.62m
Total number of fee-earners: 456
Total number of qualified partners: 248
Total number of partners: 81
Total number of equity partners: 37
Total number of female partners: 12
Total number of female equity partners: 5
Total number of staff: 937
Leverage ratio (equity partners/fee-earners):1:5.7
INTERNAL PROMOTIONS
2006-07: Competition 2, property 2, litigation 1, private client 1
2005-06: Litigation 2
2004-05: Property 2, competition 1, litigation 1
LATERALS
2006-07: Family 1
2005-06: Charity 1
2004-05: 0
Intake as percentage of partnership: 9.9
New female partners as percentage of intake:14.3
Equity structure: 40 equity partners, 31 non-equity
Practice area(s) most heavily promoted:Competition, property
*Figures supplied relate to the calendar year
Despite taking larger office space in London, Dickinson Dees has not yet opened a permanent base in the City. Instead, opportunities for corporate lawyers are likely to increase in 2007-08 at the new Leeds office, which was opened in late 2006.
Promotions remain the focus of growth, with 12 in the past three years compared with two lateral hires. The best partnership prospects are for property, competition and litigation associates.
- Web:
- Telephone: 0191 279 9046
- Fax: 0191 279 9716
- No. of Trainees: 36
- No. of Trainee Vacancies: 20
- Training contract application deadline:31-Ju-08
- Selection
- Individual interview: No
- Panel interview: Yes
- Assessment day: No
- Psychometric test: Yes
- Written exercise: Yes
- Presentation: Yes
- No. of Seats: 4
- Opportunities Abroad: Yes
- Vacation Schemes
- No. placements: 30
Summer vacation scheme application deadline: 31-Jan-08
- GDL/CPE Intake: 35%
- GDL/CPE funding
- Fees: Yes
- Maintenance: £4,000
- LPC funding
- Fees: Yes
- Maintenance: £4,000
- Salary/benefits
- Start: £20,000
- Qualification: £36,000
- Season ticket loan: Yes
- Healthcare: Yes
- Pension scheme: Yes
- Life assurance: Yes
- Bonus scheme: Yes
- Gym membership: No
- Subsidised lunch: No
Readers' comments (4)
Anonymous | 8-Apr-2010 6:57 am
1) Dickinson Dees have no Leeds office. They simply could not compete with the big ticket firms there.
2) They did take over a high street firm in York. There was never really an attempt to merge the two firms and each office looks down on the other.
3) the salaries shown look far above what is actually offered. In particular the on qualification salary has been boosted.
4) the PEP figure is out of date. That may have been accurate then but now it is way lower.
5) the fee earners number is misleading. It was boosted in 2005 to make the firm look bigger. Many of those counted are secretaries with no fee earning targets.
6) the real measure of the firm is the assistant numbers numbers compared to partners. There are far too many partners in each department. There are often more partners than assistants, unheard of in a bigger firm like Beachcroft, Eversheds or Linklaters. This means associates have limited career prospects; they end up doing work 2-4 years behind their qualification and assistants do the work of trainees / paralegals.
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Walter Worked There | 23-Oct-2010 9:49 am
I worked at Dickinson Dees.
I could honestly not recommend the firm to anyone.
I knew I wanted to leave very early on. The firm fell way short of the sales pitch I was given in the interview. Unfortunately the market in legal jobs was poor so I had to stay for two years.
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Anonymous | 15-Jul-2011 10:08 am
From reports in the press on 15 July 2011 , there were only 11 trainee places in each year. This suggests 22 training contracts.
The retention rate at the end of the training contract was 36%.
This was reported as the lowest training contract retention rate in the country (although it should be noted that many firms have yet to report their figures).
The firm is due to close its York office in 2012 and open in Leeds. The firm has assured people that no redundancies will be made.
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Anonymous | 21-Dec-2011 5:09 pm
Since this article Dickinson Dees LLP have dropped from 48th to 59th (at a time when firms are merging and some have disappeared from the market).
Statistics can be malleable but falling turnover, falling rank and the lowest trainee retention rates of any large UK firm are hard to spin.
Someone in there is an excellent law firm. However until tough decisions are made it will remain a sleeping giant.
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