Depressing and Dysfunctional - Anonymous employee Norton Rose Fulbright Employee Review

From a staff perspective with nearly 13 years at this firm, it is the worst place I ever worked. I only stuck it out because of it's stability during the recession. I hoped the Norton Rose combination would improve working conditions, but it only made it worse. It has turned into a factory where managers are king. All the quality, competent managers have left and due to reduced salaries and benefits and lazy HR people, they have hired incompetent managers. But because they're managers they're always right and anyone who disagrees is wrong. Benefits have been reduced, annual pay raises haven't kept up with inflation, but most staff's workload expectation has doubled. Paid holidays are average. Things that improve moral have been eliminated. No Christmas... excuse me, "Holiday" decorations were put up last year. The annual "holiday" party for the last 5 years has been a joke, far from the nice night out with your significant other that it used to be. Little things like closing the office early and having a half-day before a major/long holiday weekend are non-existent. We're often the last workers in the building and close to the last in the downtown area on those days, while most other companies let out after lunch. Staff get a significant amount of paid time off but management make it nearly impossible to use. Recent security changes in IT have severely hampered work productivity, with needs to frequently call IT for access or permissions to things that sometimes don't get approved for days. Attorneys are required to put in 8 billable hours a day which means many often have to work 12 or more hours to get that billable time. It is a dead-end job. There is little room for staff advancement and where there is room the firm rarely promotes from within, choosing to hire from outside instead.