Our culture

‘People here come from a wide range of backgrounds. They relish the new and the different. And no matter how busy they are, their doors are always open. So whatever the problem, there’s always someone who can help you solve it.’
Farah Ispahani, corporate practice partner

We try to create a friendly and inclusive culture in which making time for each other is important and everyone’s contribution is valued.

We prize the individuality of the people who work here and are committed to sustaining a culture that nurtures talent and enables individuals to thrive. We also strive to engender a culture of trust, outstanding teamwork and excellence. Intrinsic to this is creating a working environment that attracts a diverse range of people and enables them to flourish. It also means investing in our communities to help develop people’s potential and encouraging talented people, whatever their background, to consider working for a firm like ours.

We aim to foster a supportive, collegial environment in which any individual can call on the diversity of talent in the firm to examine problems and possible solutions from every angle.

Memberships

We are members of both the Employers’ Forum on Disability and Opportunity Now, an organisation representing employers who want to transform the workplace by ensuring inclusiveness for women.

We aim to use these memberships more effectively during the next year so we can benefit from the organisations’ knowledge and experience. In particular, given the number of female trainees we recruit each year, we recognise that we need to review our working practices and environment to determine whether changes can be made to encourage female lawyers to stay longer with the firm, hopefully through to becoming eligible for partnership selection. To this end, an associate working group has been established to consider the issues of flexible working and alternative career paths.

Freshfields was ranked best in the legal sector in The Guardian’s parents at work survey in July 2007, which set out to rate the UK’s top employers on how well they provide for parents among their workers.
Our US offices came second in a survey on the best career opportunities for women in US law firms conducted by the Women’s Law Association at Harvard Law School in 2006. The survey asked around 4,000 women from 105 firms to score their satisfaction with their firms’ training and advancement opportunities, atmosphere, work/family balance, mentoring and other areas.
Underpinning our firm, our work and our commitment to being socially and environmentally responsible is a set of values and behaviours we strive towards: excellence in all we do, outstanding teamwork, trusted relationships with our clients and imagination.