Freshfields reviews

3.7

69% would recommend to a friend

(641 total reviews)

Edward Braham and Stephan Eilers

50% approve of CEO

71% positive business outlook

Freshfields has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 641 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Freshfields employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Legal industry (3.8 stars).

Reviews by job title

641 reviews
1.0
Mar 5, 2022

Phew… where to begin?

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Unstuffy environment - Legal and Non-Legal Staff receive same benefit package. - They are good about communicating the time the office will close the day before major holidays. - Casual Fridays - Some schedule flexibility

Cons

- Some Assistants are very overworked, while others do absolutely nothing all day long. Both will receive the same salary, regardless of the difference in work-load. - If you’re competent, prepare yourself for triple the work and four times the scrutiny. You’re better off pretending to be completely incompetent — they’ll assign you a slow desk where the lawyers are totally self-sufficient. - If you are competent at 3E and Client Billing, you will be inundated with billing requests. Staying late was a daily occurrence due to the never ending sloppy bills and edits to work detail narratives. Management doesn’t care if the whole workday is devoted to cleaning up other peoples’ sloppy work. - If you complain about being overworked, or having to deal with nasty assistants who simply do not care about their work product, be prepared to be punished. - As long as assistants are at their desks on time, HR doesn’t care if no work is done, or if two hour lunches are taken for made-up doctor appointments, or if folks disappear to gossip or water their plants. There are no considerations or exceptions made for the assistants working through their lunch hour during 12 hour days. - Middle management is useless. - There is bare bones IT on site in the NY office. You have to call the London help desk 9 times out of 10. Their technology is outdated, or majorly flawed in design (i.e., the phones are an absolute mess). They don’t roll out new technology at the same time firm-wide. So, the NY Office might be using one program while Frankfurt is using something else. - Their billing practices are odd and unlike anywhere else I’ve worked. - Non-existent Diversity. Non-existent push to hire Diverse candidates. Tone deaf when these issues are raised. - Incredibly high turnover in every department, including staff and lawyers. Not even partners are exempt

1.0
Jun 21, 2021

Most draining years of my career

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Big name on CV, ability for global experience

Cons

Where do i begin… the majority of the MBD leadership are wholly incompetent with a limited view of the world and even more limited capability for innovation and change. Pitching function runs like a dictatorship from the dark ages. All of the teams are overstretched and overworked. Global teams are most obviously understaffed however the leadership brush this aside by expecting that the members will do extra hours and give more than they are contracted to do whilst badging overtime as a positive. The disparity between London and Manchester is huge. London teams offer minimal output for maximum benefits, whereas the Manchester teams do the majority of the work for little reward - the odd thank you in an email does not make up for all those hours spent creating content and high value work that increases our revenue. Progression is pretty impossible. At best they will stick ‘senior’ at the start of your title but that’s as much as it goes, don’t allow the illusion of career progression cloud your path it just won’t happen.

1.0
Nov 26, 2019

Average

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good benefits Some great people to work with

Cons

Too many supervisors and seniors and not enough staff to do the work. Supervisors are often underskilled and don’t know what the operators actually do but somehow manage to talk the talk and get promoted. Day staff treated differently night staff Overloading of work We often got told by some fee earners (mostly associates and senior associates) how much they earn per hour as if it should make us work x10 harder for them. Lack of respect from fee earners over the phone (like above) Absolutely no progression no matter how hard you work

Viewing 28 - 30 of 641 Reviews

Glassdoor has 883 Freshfields reviews submitted anonymously by Freshfields employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Freshfields is right for you.