April 1, 2006
Best Places to Work
Law firms are rapidly losing their sweatshop image as more law firms are on the 2006 Fortune 100 Best Places to Work list than any other industry -- six firms: Alston & Bird (#19), Perkins Coie (#48), Nixon Peabody (#49), Arnold & Porter (#54), Bingham McCutchen (#82) and Morrison & Forrester(#88). If you read the Fortune report each year you might easily believe that the selection is based on which companies have the most exotic benefit programs. In fact, the selection is made for Fortune by the Great Place to Work Institute, Inc. in San Francisco. Firms usually nominate themselves by completing an online questionnaire, having at least 400 randomly selected employees participate in a Trust Index© survey and the employers complete a questionnaire. The Index makes up roughly two-thirds of a firm’s score and the questionnaire is equal to about one-third. The Institute also subjectively judges other materials submitted by the candidate including handbooks, videos, newsletters and similar information. The only real threshold criterion is that nominees must have at least 1000 employees. Nominees are given feedback on how their firm compares to other nominees, including the results of their employees’ comments on the Trust Index. The results are confidential.
A lesser known fact is that there are also Best Small and Best Medium Sized Places to Work Lists and there are no law firms on those lists. To be eligible a firm must have more than 50 but fewer than 1000 employees. The procedure is roughly the same as the Fortune list. For information go to www.greatplacestowork.com. Unique Benefits
We collect unique benefits from time to time and publish them to demonstrate how the other half is getting on. Consider the following actual employee benefits given by professional service firms:
pet insurance
tokens for a vending machine that dispenses candy wrapped in gift certificates
chair massages in the lobby
sports team sponsorships
summer flex hours
discount movie tickets
cappuccino bar
concierge service Reporting Unethical Activities
A new study by the Society for Human Resource Management finds that one-third of employees have witnessed unethical behavior at work, yet more than half of them say they did not report it. Lawyers, of course, have an obligation under the Code of Professional Responsibility to report unethical behavior, but that obligation does not extend to non-lawyers. A number of law firms, however, are providing training to staff members on ethics, especially those ethical issues that involve client funds, as an extension of their ethical obligation to clients. The staff is advised that they are expected to report to specifically designated partners. Insights on Generation Y
Many law firm managing partners are viewing “Generation Y” employees as being an extension of “Generation X.” This could be a major error according to a new survey which tells us that Generation Y (people born between 1978 and 1997) are closer to the baby boomer generation. According to the Pew Research Center survey, the career goals of the Y group are more strongly geared toward getting rich (81%) and famous (51%) compared to 62% and 29% for the Generation Xers. The issues that Generation Y’s worry about most are finances and debt, as compared to career issues for their predecessors. A particularly interesting result is that 85% of women plan to be in the workforce after having children and 69% are willing to make personal sacrifices to reach the top of their field. Legal Resource Group LLC specializes in serving the executive and administrative recruiting needs of law firms. We maintain the largest data base of law firm executive and Administrative staff in the world. This allows us to immediately identify the very best candidates. We find the best people, complete searches faster and have extremely reasonable fees. For further information, visit our website at www.LRGLLC.com , contact us by e-mail at inquiries@LRGLLC.com or by phone at 1-800-688-4147.
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