Our friends at Graham Gill have just conducted a survey of 20 randomly-selected partners from the top 20 firms in The Lawyer 100. The survey asked the partners a fair question: had they seen their managing partner in the past week?
Of the respondents, 76 per cent said they had, although at least one fifth of those surveyed were actually on their holidays. Indeed, holiday is the main theme for many firms. A staggering 40 per cent of the randomly-selected Ashursts partners were on holiday or out of the office. Addleshaws was runner-up on absenteeism, with 35 per cent of partners out of the office.
Herbert Smith reminded Graham Gill that the firm doesn’t have a managing partner, and while one Norton Rose partner hadn’t seen Roger Birkby in the past week, he praised the firm’s leader, saying: “I see him often and feel I can call him any time I need to. He is quite accessible, which is to his credit.”
All of Richards Butler and Berwin Leighton Paisner‘s respondents said that they had seen their managing partner in the past week. Nabarros came a close second with 80 per cent of respondents stating that Nicole Paradise had been on their radar. One partner suggested that this statistic might be due to the fact that her office has glass walls, while another noted that this made her very accessible.
At the other end of the scale, Addleshaw Goddard performed poorly – only one in four of respondents had seen Mark Jones in the past week, though one widened the scope of visibility by asking: “In the flesh or in the press?”