Pros
+ The opportunity to earn good commission from day one. If you are good and are also part of a strong; high-performing team, you can earn serious money! + Basic salaries are competitive for juniors and second-jobbers (when joining). + Relative autonomy in terms of your markets and accounts and the chance to account manage some top tier and global law firms. + Travel is possible, but rarely signed off without a compelling business case. + Very little red tape, bureaucracy and corporate policies, that allows for sales people to get stuck and focus on the day job. + Friendly and diverse sales team and good office banter (if you like that) and a few switched on and professional salespeople. + The Head of Sales is friendly and approachable, and has unparalleled experience at driving sales. + The Managing Director is very fair and takes a keen and vested interest in the sales team, and did an outstanding job of driving record growth and rallying the sales team throughout the pandemic and post-pandemic period.
Cons
- The Legal 500 has an autocratic management style from the Head of Sales down, which works for the business from a day-to-management perspective (especially of juniors) and the business has achieved growth, but only owing to an aggressive micro-management style of the sales team and constant pressure to hit targets, which never really lets up. - The Company imposed a 20% pay-cut with assumed consent during the first 10-11 months of the pandemic, with a pay-cut of 10% for one month, and then a return to full wages after 11-12 months. The Company also made wide use of the furlough scheme, for which it was criticised at the time, as well as redundancies. The Company did though maintain the commission scheme during this time to motivate and encourage growth, and also protected the juniors and those on lower salaries to not be affected by the pay-cut, which was fair. However, for many employees, especially those with dependents, the pay-cut was unfair and unethical - these were hard-working individuals who had no option but to accept the pay-cut. These pay-cuts apparently were not without precedent - the Company imposed similar pay-cuts during the global financial crisis several years previously. The justification from the business was that it was fighting for its survival, however the business continued to achieve growth, with the salary cuts maintained for far longer than necessary, which seemed heavy handed and excessive. - The Head of Sales essentially line manages a team of up to 25 salespeople (Legal 500) and runs a very tight ship, but this hampers any meaningful career development. Sales Managers (who receive no management training) are rarely even formally appointed to the role. There is no transparency on how these managers are appointed - a lot of it comes down to office politics. The Sales Managers are given only an illusion of autonomy, they have very little (if any) influence in terms of product development, sales strategy, and no hire/fire nor target-setting responsibilities. When employees are performing they have nowhere to go, and when they are underperforming, they can easily remain in the business with no robust performance plans in place. - While the Head of Sales is friendly and approachable - and empathetic - this means that they can also easily takes things personally. Any constructive criticism or suggestions can easily be taken as an attack on them personally or on the wider business. The management style is on the whole an autocratic one - "my way or the high way". As a result, the Head of Sales is often on the defensive, and salespeople have learnt to get on with the day job and no-one feels they have a vested part nor interest in the business, at least not outside of their own individual sales team. The Head of Sales frequently talks over colleagues, including their own sales managers in meetings. They are also known for frequent use of bad language in front of the whole office, which will offend some people. - There is no formal training, whatsoever, and performance appraisals are rare. Probation reviews are frequently late by several months - although one can safely assume to have passed probation after six months (so keep quiet!). I only had one performance appraisal (several months post-probation) during the entirety my employment. - While salaries are raised for juniors (which is fair and necessary), second-jobbers should join safe in the knowledge that no matter how hard they work, the salary they join on is the salary they will stay on (end of story). - The office politics are something to stay well clear of. Words and rumours work their way fast around the office, and can easily land you on the wrong-side of the management team. If you keep your head down and don't make waves you'll be fine though! -The Company is very lean, particularly on the admin and customer service side - this leaves salespeople expected to pick up the slack, chase debts, and constantly fight fires, which ultimately proves as the biggest distraction - especially for juniors. -The sales team get little to no time with the editorial team, which makes sense from an editorial integrity perspective, but means that salespeople are left to assume and interpret editorial processes in the absence of any training or familiarity. All relationships with editorial are ad-hoc, with editorial staff generally quite unapproachable and looking down on the sales team. - The benefits are pretty much just statutory - it is a shame the company doesn't make a more generous pension contribution nor even offer a heath cashplan. - The company has no ratecard, so profiles and inventory is sold for as much as you can get. Some rates are assumed as a starting point, but there is nothing set in stone, which means that clients can easily end up paying an unfair price relative to others. - Too much product development with no attempts to do away with legacy products that put the company at a competitive disadvantage.