I asked top-tier law firms Bell Gully, DLA Piper, Chapman Tripp, Buddle Findlay, MinterEllisonRuddWatts, Russell McVeagh, Meredith Connell, Duncan Cotterill, Dentons Kensington Swan and Simpson Grierson if they had increased wages.
Bell Gully declined to comment, saying the firm would not be able to proceed with a response but thanked me for thinking of them. Cute.
DLA Piper and Meredith Connell left me on 'read'. Having had extensive experience being 'ghosted' in my personal life, I thought I would front-foot the situation by providing more than four working days to respond - a year in journalism time, in my view.
Duncan Cotterill's chief executive Pete Boyle was not impressed. "Personally, I do also query [sic] why as a journalist who writes about better wellbeing conditions for staff you chose to send your email at 5.11am on a Monday," he wrote.
Touché fine sir, touché! One could argue that as a freelancer I'm the master of my own time - and I didn't realise that I had to inflexibly work a 9-5 day. Nonetheless, point taken, and I've considered the possibility of adding a disclaimer to my personal email signature, as follows:
"I work flexibly. While I may be sending this email outside of working hours I do not expect you to read or reply to it outside of your own. Agility. Flexibility. Resilience. Namaste."
Moving on. Let's look at what the majority of the top-tier law firms are doing:
Dentons Kensington Swan
Business development director Pippa Grey said that, recognising the pressure on its people and their families as a result of increasing living costs, salaries for all staff increased by 7.5 per cent.
Buddle Findlay
People and culture national manager Fiona Tribe said the firm had increased wages this year as part of its annual salary review process. Further increases were afforded to junior solicitors in response to further market movement, she said.
Chapman Tripp
Clients and markets director Deborah Caldwell said the firm employs an annual remuneration review and tends not to change salaries part-way through unless for exceptional circumstances.
Duncan Cotterill
Chief executive Peter Boyle said the firm had increased wages "because we want to reward our talented and awesome staff".
MinterEllisonRuddWatts
Chief executive Andrew Poole said in its annual remuneration review process, MinterEllisonRuddWatts considers several factors including market movements, inflation, firm performance and individual performance.
"After considering all the factors, this year's review saw an average salary increase from 1 January equivalent to or greater than the current inflation rate of seven per cent for legal and business services staff."
Russell McVeagh
Corporate communications manager Joanna Comerford said salary increases for all people - legal and non-legal - across the business was announced on July 12 and backdated to July 1, 2022.
"This was to thank our entire team for their continued commitment to Russell McVeagh and to recognise and acknowledge that over the last few years we have been operating in a challenging environment with the impacts of the pandemic and the increasing costs of living that are affecting everyone."
Simpson Grierson
The firm reviews salaries at the start of every year, and makes some out-of-cycle adjustments during the course of the year, senior communications manager Joanne Fullam said.
Where to from here?
In true legal fashion, some firms didn't specify what those wage increases were, how they were determined, and whether they applied to all staff.
And to make matters worse, I failed to ask whether there had been any restructures or redundancies as a result of the pandemic. Instead I asked about wage subsidies and whether firms had paid it back. Those who did, paid it back.
Duncan Cotterill's Boyle highlighted my failings: "I also note that we provided a detailed answer to your first and second questions on August 27, 2020."
It's old news, fine sir, I get it. Noted. But I suppose it was 5.11am on a Monday morning after all.
