Dickie Dees boosts NQ retention rate up to 87 per cent

Readers' comments (15)

• Anonymous | 26-Jul-2012 10:38 pm

  Where are all the doom-mongers now?

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• Anonymous | 27-Jul-2012 0:12 am

  Well done to Dickie Dees for retaining more trainees this year than in the two previous years.
  
  Hopefully this proves that in terms of treatment of staff that they have turned a corner.

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• Anonymous | 27-Jul-2012 7:14 am

  A very surprising result.

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• Anonymous | 27-Jul-2012 9:06 am

  Actually I think the doom mongers still have a valid point. This is just an average result, given the problems in the NE market an NQ would grasp at any job going.
  
  I just wonder how many of these jobs are in Leeds. The rumour is that the Leeds office is generating far more fees than the Newcastle office. How long before the partners there ask for their deserved slice of the overall profits.

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• Anonymous | 27-Jul-2012 9:08 am

  Anon 10.38pm,
  
  Quick open the champagne - Dickie Dees have posted average results on retention!

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• Anonymous | 27-Jul-2012 10:28 am

  The real question has to be 'why so few trainees Dickie Dees'?
  
  The firm has 6 offices (including Brussels). So this is basically 2 NQs in each (plus one left over). Surely a firm as big as Dickie Dees ought to have 30-40 trainees each year. Or are they actually a much smaller firm than they make themselves out to be?

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• Anonymous | 27-Jul-2012 11:08 am

  Dickinson Dees recent financial results (a fall in real terms re: turnover) doesn't suggest the firm is growing.
  
  Sorry to be negative / realistic but I expect most of these 'new' jobs are likely to be existing roles where Dickinson Dees staff have left to join other firms.

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• South Korean Flag | 27-Jul-2012 11:57 am

  The partnership must need some new juniors to get rid of when further 'cost cutting measures' are required following its extensive and unheralded pruning of junior and mid-level solicitors out the back door over recent months.

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• Mexican Hat | 27-Jul-2012 1:03 pm

  The problem isn't that they can't recruit Juniors, it's that they can't move on any of their underperforming seniors.
  
  Those 13 NQs must have one of the lowest chances of making partner of any firm in the UK. I think DD have made up two partners in 3 years.
  
  The issue is stagnation. When good associates can't make the step up, they leave. If they don't they end up doing work that is below them. The problem then flows through the firm. You end up with a position where people aren't trying to recruit from your firm because the market knows that you don't get experience commensurate with your PQE.

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• Anonymous | 27-Jul-2012 1:12 pm

  Frankly some of these comments are pathetic. Any firm reporting high retention rates shoul be praised - these young lawyers are the future of our profession. It is easy to knock firms when they hve a difficult time, which Dickinson Dees did, but failing to recognise when the tide is changing and recognsing the efforts of those who have helped to achieve that is small minded. Time for some correspondents to grow up and stop being small minded and petty.

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