Freshfields to go live with new associate pay model
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Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer will implement its revamped associate career development model in London from spring 2010 with the system to be rolled out globally from 2011.
The so-called career milestones system has come following consultation with associates, making Freshfields the latest firm to move away from using post-qualification experience (PQE) to assess development.
Allen & Overy, Denton Wilde Sapte and Norton Rose have already stopped using PQE, while CMS Cameron McKenna and Simmons & Simmons are understood to be conducting reviews of their development systems.
The Freshfields model will see associates placed at one of three career milestones, based on seven key elements, such as technical skills, client relationships, business advisory skills and project management.
The system has been designed to offer more flexibility than PQE.
HR director Kevin Hogarth said: “It allows people to move through at a faster or slower pace and allows us to focus on where someone might need to progress to reach the next milestone.”
Initial appraisals of London associates will take place in March and April 2010. These will offer an indication of which milestone an associate is likely to be placed on in April 2011 and give clear objectives for the 12-month period.
Bonuses will be paid as normal in 2010, but will be based on progress against milestone progression from 2011. However, Freshfields insisted that the move would not have a significant impact on remuneration policy.
Hogarth added: “We’re not making any immediate changes to the way we approach salaries and bonuses; the focus is on development, not on pay.
“If we want to attract and retain the best people we can’t have a system that restricts what we can pay as a bonus.”
The firm hopes to extend the system globally and has begun consulting with its international offices to assess how it can be applied across each jurisdiction.
Readers' comments (1)
Anonymous | 18-Nov-2009 4:22 am
Let's talk about what flexibility really means: While the firm instituted a pay freeze and partners keep complaining about alleged evaporation of profit, record earnings have been posted last time. Albeit even clients openly wonder how Freshfields manages to keep 1.6 mio Euro PEP level in the crisis, continued cost cutting is in the focus. "Flexibility" means thinking flexibily about what Freshfields ows its associates and staff and "flexibly" interpreting the deals cut in good times. The partners should have the balls to live through this crisis as entrepreneurs and swallow the profit downfall as do many other partners in top tier firms such as Hengeler where such whining and tampering with present pay deals is unheard of.
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