The results of RollOnFriday’s Best Law Firms to Work At 2025 survey are here, revealing where people in private practice are happy, and where they curl into a ball and pray for a recruitment consultant to call.
The survey saw over 7,000 people rating how satisfied they are with their firm’s pay, work/life balance, career development, management, culture, and office.
This year’s poll found the average person in private practice is… pretty content, giving their firm an average score of 67%.
The typical law firm inhabitant is least satisfied with pay (61%) and most satisfied with the office and amenities (71%). About 1,000 more women entered the survey than men, but the two sexes felt similarly, producing similar average scores across all six categories.
Partners were the happiest constituency overall, putting their overall satisfaction with the firms they own, run and conquered at 77%. The next jolliest bunch was business services staff, at 72%, followed by trainees with 70%.
Satisfaction drops off on qualification, with junior solicitors giving an average overall score of 62%, and senior solicitors giving the lowest score, of 59%.
But of course there is no single, sector-wide firm. It’s a constellation of law shops out there, and where one is laughs and hugs, another is screams and wedgies.
At the top of the heap, for a stunning fourth year in a row, stands Burges Salmon. At least it has to share the throne in 2025, because Michelmores is a joint-winner, getting to number one for the first time. Mills & Reeve took the bronze medal, and Bird & Bird and Horwich Farrelly achieved a very creditable 4th and 5th place, respectively.
ROF thinks anything over 70% is outstanding and denotes a very happy firm, so praise should also be heaped upon Paul, Weiss, Goodwin Procter, Clarke Willmott, White & Case, Debevoise & Plimpton, Harbottle & Lewis, Russell-Cooke, TLT, Browne Jacobson, Hogan Lovells and Macfarlanes.
No firm fell into the ‘Extremely dissatisfied’ band of scores, although Shakespeare Martineau came closest with 34%. As such, it is to be the Golden Turd. At least Keoghs (37%) can keep it company in the Dissatisfied category.
Among the Magic Circle, Freshfields came top with 64%. Below it, Clifford Chance (56%), A&O Shearman (54%) and Linklaters (52%) were closely bunched. As is now traditional, Slaughter and May trailed behind, this year scoring 49%.
Respondents picked how satisfied they were with each of six metrics: their pay, their career development, their work/life balance, the firm’s culture, its office and amenities, and its management. Anyone working in the firm was entitled to enter. Their selections were converted into a percentage and added to their colleagues’ marks to determine an overall score for each category and for their firm as a whole. Submissions were received for 125 additional firms, but thresholds for entry meant they did not qualify for inclusion – sorry to respondents whose firms didn’t make the cut.
Thanks to the thousands of you who voted. Check back over the next few editions to see how they all got here, when ROF dives into each category – aided by your insightful and juicy comments.
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/rollonfridays-best-law-firms-work-2025-results