​Just over 23% of lawyers in our survey indicated that they expected to remain within their current firm for between 3 and 5 years. This included nearly 40% of senior associates with a further 10% of them intending to leave within the next 1 to 2 years. A further 33% of lawyers indicated that they didn't know how long they intended to stay.

Most law firms experience this retention problem at this stage in their lawyers' careers. This creates a constant need to replace lawyers at this level of experience and often requires inducements to attract them. In turn this circle often ends with the new senior associate recruited on better terms than the person he or she replaced. As firms face a near-universal need to cap salaries and bonuses (at least to some extent) and increase utilisation and fee income, this creates tensions in the market with some firms struggling to recruit suitable people. Once newly joined, each new lawyer quite reasonably then needs time to get up to speed to achieve an appropriate level of performance. Alternative approaches that focus on increasing retention seem preferable. 

We asked the lawyers in our survey to indicate what would encourage them to stay longer in their current firms. Perhaps unsurprisingly increased income was the single, most common response with just over 16% indicating that this would be likely to make them stay. 84% however indicated that other factors would lead them to stay longer:

• Receiving more recognition for my work (the most important feature for 14% of respondents)

• Having more challenging work to do (12%)

• More opportunities for business development (10%)

• More autonomy over my time and workload (10%)

• Greater variety in my work (8%)

• Better work/life balance (8%)

• More opportunities for flexible working (8%)**

These responses support previous management studies which indicate that factors around recognition, meaning and purpose, (i.e. the intrinsic rewards that people derive from working) usually outweigh extrinsic ones such as income and bonus.

Providing appropriate interventions which develop and foster these intrinsic rewards positively impacts retention rates. To be appropriate they should not only be effective (i.e. lead to retention) but also cost beneficial. That is, the amount of the turnover saving should be greater than the cost of the retention programme.

For case study details regarding our work and the consistent, positive outcomes we achieve in this area, do get in touch.

Our Law Careers Survey will be published in full later in the year. If you would like a copy of the report when published,  please email us.