People: Development

We can't compromise on talent. To do the best work for our clients we have to invest in the most capable, adaptable and commercially astute team players we can find, from all types of background.

However, maintaining the right level of resources against work levels is vital for the firm and for the continual development of lawyers and business services professionals: on-the-job training and knowledge enhancement are key components for the progression of all of our people. Despite this challenging year, we continue to invest, as we always have, in the highest levels of training and education to equip our people with the skills they need to progress and to exceed our clients’ expectations.

Development

During the year the firm introduced a new global appraisal model for our business services professionals – this continues the work from the previous financial year when we introduced a new career framework for business services, mapped everyone in the firm and aligned training, development information and career progression with the new framework. The new global appraisal model provides greater consistency and transparency for our business services staff, and allows the firm to identify issues such as the effectiveness of training courses on performance. In the coming year, the firm also intends to bring global consistency to the lawyer appraisal framework and to better align training, the lawyers’ development programme and the benchmarks for progression to partnership.

The technical expertise we have established in developing the profession’s leading talent is readily combined with our legal knowledge in the form of training for our clients. Over the past year we have launched a series of international training initiatives across various offices on topics related to the economic crisis (for example, see Client training, right column).

Law and practice in Amsterdam

The path to qualifying as a lawyer varies between one jurisdiction and the next. The challenge is to ensure international standards of excellence while also meeting local qualification requirements.

With these competing demands in mind, over the last year the Amsterdam office has taken a new approach to training junior lawyers during their first three years after university: ‘Recht en Praktijk’ (Law and Practice), which was singled out as the Best Training Programme in Europe at the Managing Partners’ Forum Awards 2008.

The programme combines education and vocation and is fully integrated with the Clifford Chance Academy. Networking – with fellow trainees, with lawyers from other firms at Dutch Bar Association-approved courses and with colleagues from international offices – is another key component of the programme. Year Two sees trainees step up to ‘de Hoogtestage’ (‘High Altitude Training’). It’s an intensive three-week residential course where Clifford Chance partners lead immersion-style teaching sessions alongside well-known academic specialists.

The Clifford Chance Academy at a glance¹

Number of courses offered

Region	2008/09	2007/08	2006/07
Americas	47	34	14
Asia	39	35	25
Europe and Middle East	488	381	317
Number of business skills courses for lawyers
2008/09: up 13% to 396 courses
2007/08: up 20% to 346 courses
Number of business services courses
2008/09: up 117% to 156 courses
2007/08: up 53% to 72 courses
1These statistics do not include practice area-based legal training or e-learning.

Number of participants

Region	2008/09	2007/08	2006/07
Americas	671	727	208
Asia	416	285	224
Europe and Middle East	5,368	4,295	3,434

Participant satisfaction

	2008/09	2007/08	2006/07
Average satisfaction score (out of 5)	4.6	4.6	4.5