A law firm without politics, a year at gunnercooke by Russell Davidson

January 21, 2020
Russell Davidson

Partner

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I was really fed up at the last large law firm I worked with. “Targets, Targets, Targets” every day: the repeated pronouncements of greedy managing partners. OK, every firm has bills to pay, wages to meet, but I’d generated my own work for over 25 years, so didn’t need my time constantly being wasted with internal meetings where the regional managing partner was panicking because the billing and time recording stats didn’t meet head office’s requirements. The IT was poor too: various legacy systems that didn’t talk to each other, so you’d have to log in to time record, but then log out and back in again to do something else.

What a pleasure being a partner at gunnercooke – I can be my own boss. File opening is made easier by the excellent Compliance team, who HELP me vet a new client, NOT get in the way by placing repeated obstacles before me. Billing is made easier: you log-in, the system does it in two minutes. NO TIME RECORDING unless I want to do it. BLISS!

Best of all, there are NO POLITICS. All of us have “suffered” the time-wasting, and egos abundantly flaunted in other law firms. When all is said and done, every lawyer will one day depart this mortal coil and who will care whether he or she did this, that or the other? My colleagues are genial and knowledgeable of their specialisms and have no axes to grind. I get a reasoned, accurate answer to questions outside my own area of expertise, and if I refer work or get work referred there is a reciprocation on the fee and a clear understanding you don’t “nick” the client relationship. And Darryl and Sarah are there to help, not lecture: that’s a big plus.

Wish I’d come here years ago…..