A year at gunnercooke: Flexibility, Support, Diversity

One year on from starting at gunnercooke, and although I have been used to working in a fee-share model, I have found that the freedom of planning the way that I want to deliver my work is beyond anything I have experienced. The flexibility, support and diversity is fantastic. gunnercooke‘s approach is not to offer total flexibility to the point of feeling abandoned. Instead, it is a platform allowing to ask: “what do you want to do and how can we help you get there?”

One of the first positive impressions I had twelve months ago was the level of efficiency and helpfulness of the back office, you can have the freedom of remote working with the support of a back office team.

It is clear that there is a sound, yet constantly evolving structure. This machine is powered by a real can-do attitude that pleasantly differs from the rest of the legal sector. Lots of options are already available to the partners and if an issue has not been encountered before, gunnercooke will help find solutions thanks to its experienced team.

Furthermore, gunnercooke prompts (but doesn’t force) us to improve on a whole range of themes. How are we organised? Could things be done better? How is our work-life balance? All those aspects improve my professional and personal life and eventually my financial results as well.

Diversity is crucial to gunnercooke in the type of specialities but also the people. There are partners from all over the world but also closer to home. This diversity has shaped the gunnercooke philosophy as being strong and friendly. As I am used to evolving in both a personal and professional world full of differences, gunnercooke feels very much like home.

The firm is well represented from both a gender and ethnicity perspective which makes interacting within the organisation so much more interesting. In that respect. I have been given the opportunity to work on a mentorship programme with a charity (Career Ready) and I am very much looking forward to start.

When the pandemic hit, the flexibility of gunnercooke, matched by the support structure for the partners meant that the switch to working from an office to working from home was rather smooth. I am lucky enough to work in a speciality that was not seriously impacted by the pandemic however we obviously felt the difference on the social aspect. I have had no face-to-face contacts with my colleagues and clients for several months now. However, the diversity, support and friendships at gunnercooke have helped us all to manage.

In this palpable uncertainty, gunnercooke has struck the balance of giving me flexibility whilst building a reliable structure for me to feel confident in the work I do for hopefully many years to come.