Trainee and then corporate associate - Associate Freshfields Employee Review

Management decided to offer all PAs redundancy about 18 months ago as part of a cost cutting exercise and relocate the whole support staff to Manchester. Many of the PAs who had been there for years left, as did support staff, so the culture which had been very good when I started, was mostly lost. Associates felt they had no proper support and were just being beasted on hours constantly, with no down time. The firm became too cost focused and made staff feel undervalued. The firm is also feeling the strain from competitive US firms, who are poaching the best partners.