Legal Business Blogs

Addleshaws restarts salary review for all staff and pledges to backdate increases

Addleshaw Goddard has restarted its delayed salary review for all staff, including the annual review of fixed profit share for salaried partners, and the next profit distribution for equity partners.

In August the firm said it would freeze its salary review until the autumn as a result of Britain’s vote to leave the EU. The decision to restart the review was made at a board meeting last Thursday (20 October).

An Addleshaws spokesperson said: ‘We said we would re-visit this around the half year point when we expected to have a more complete picture and given levels of activity and improvements we have seen of late we are sufficiently confident to press ahead. We will be backdating all increases to 1 September.

He added: ‘Individual decisions will be communicated during early November and any salary increases including backdated payments will be processed in the December payroll.’

Last week Legal Business revealed that senior management at the firm was in talks to delay staff salary reviews further, while divisions were challenged to cut internal travel costs by 50%.

It was understood that the delay on salary reviews would have left associates hardest hit, with discussions as to whether they would see salaries backdated to September, and whether any new salaries would potentially only go live from 1 January or later.

In addition, divisions within the firm have been told to cut internal travel in half, with travel costs between the Leeds and Manchester offices and the London office being closely scrutinised.

Last month Gowling WLG restarted its delayed salary review, which was backdated to July 2016 and was applicable to all staff excluding fixed share and equity partners.

Berwin Leighton Paiser has also decided to freeze its pay and bonuses until November. In June managing partner Lisa Mayhew told staff in an email the reason was ‘political and financial uncertainty in the UK following the recent vote to leave the EU.’

kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk