Statistics Not Enough to Determine Firm’s Success
A lot of US law firms have enjoyed retention percentage increase for this year. But is it a true and accurate measure of a law firm’s success?
Most law firms do not have uniform number of London trainees. While some only took in 2, other firms accepted as many as 21. Though achieving a higher retention percentage is a source of pride for US law firms, current statistics are irrelevant per se in terms of showing that a law firm’s training programs, treatment and other policies have a huge effect on trainee retention.
Mayer Brown, a law firm with an international syndication of lawyers and other law professionals, has a trainee retention percentage of 81%. Bingham McCutchen, also a large law firm with 1,000 lawyers on the ready, has a perfect trainee retention rate of 100%.
But while it seems Bingham McCutchen ups Mayer Brown on the retention scale, the latter beats the former in the actual number of trainees retained. Mayer Brown was able to produce 21 trainees prepped for qualification this September 2008, which contrast starkly to Bingham McCutchen’s 2 trainees.
It may be the case then that percentage statistics is inappropriate for this matter.
Mayer Brown , founded in Chicago, is one of the largest international law firms in the world.
Read more about http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=134258&d=415&h=417&f=416″>Mayer Brown in “US firms top London retention rankings.”
