Oct 12, 2023
Kennedys reviews
3.6
59% would recommend to a friend
John Bruce
78% approve of CEO
63% positive business outlook
Kennedys has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 395 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Kennedys employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Legal industry (3.8 stars).
Race / Ethnicity
Gender
Sexual orientation
Disability
Parent or family caregiver
Veteran status
Reviews by job title
395 reviews
2.0
Jun 20, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
- Generally well-stocked pantry with choice of biscuits, choice of coffee flavours, and even choice of milk (oat, soy, cow) - open-concept may be welcomed by some who prefer a more collaborative environment where partners do not hide out in their ivory rooms. - opportunities to interact with colleagues from foreign offices - opportunities for short stints at foreign offices. - organized manner of onboarding insurer clients and developing relationships with insurer clients - while medical benefits are not top-tier like other international firms, they are generally better than the local firms. - gym benefits of $200 per month - management does not insist on formal office attire - management does not insist that you work in office and even provides various support for WFH (monitor, keyboard, mouse, laptop) - generally, everyone leaves office before 9pm. There is no need to stay in office for the sake of doing so (unlike the big local law firms where junior associates slog through the night in office just for show when they can do the work at home) - birthday celebrations every month - printing of personal docs in office is fine as there is no need to assign printings to any particular file (similarly, clients stand to gain as they are generally not billed for small-scale printing while are not out-sourced)
Cons
-Although marketed as an international firm, its resources are akin to that of small chinatown local law firms. - Each secretary can serve up to 7 - 10 lawyers (as the firm doesnt want to hire more secretaries in order to cut costs) - As a result, lawyers (including those with more than 5 yrs of experience) are forced to do secretarial/administrative work - these costs get passed on to clients unnecessarily. - Unlike big law firms, overtime transport claims are not automatically claimable. -Turnover rate is high (especially for motor team) - While most departments are able to deal with straightforward and simple matters, don't expect us to deal with large scale litigation - We do not even have a court clerk who is trained to do filings on e-litigation. - Generally lack of research resources due to management's decision to cut costs (we don't even have access to the latest versions of halsbury on lexisnexis and multiple users share a single lawnet account) - Management tries to preach and motivate staff - but this comes across empty - Open concept office which isnt practical (just to save costs) - even the managing partner does not have a room. Hence, difficulty in taking calls attending conferences in - Salary is low even compared to local mid-sized law firms. - For lawyers, dont expect to get $1,000 increment every year like what your friends in the local big law firms do. - There is a fixed algorithm for calculation of lawyers' annual bonuses - with the highest tier being 1 month - and that's only if you achieve close to 1700hrs of billables. The attitude by the management is that 1 month bonus is such a great thing and pretend to be unaware that other firms are paying more than 5 months bonuses for the same amount of billables. - dental benefits are so little that they probably cover only a single consultation per annum and no more. - look at the number of associates/senior associates who have made partner over the years since kennedys started in singapore (2 or less) and you would know that this organisation has no intention of growing organically or developing your career/ books. You are left to your own devices. The partners here are still busy trying to climb up their ladders to bother much about you
3.0
Jun 13, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
Good teams within the company and nice people.
Cons
Unreasonable billing hours, unreasonable bonus targets. Don’t invest in support staff. Poor career progression.
Viewing 100 - 102 of 395 Reviews