"Significant threat" of poaching key legal staff

The risk of key staff being poached by rivals, taking major clients with them, now poses a “significant threat” to City law firms, according to new research by Thomson Reuters Legal. A third of top 100 UK law firm finance directors see it as a major risk to profitability. Thomson Reuters’ Samantha Steer says: “The spectre of star lawyers or whole teams defecting to rivals is starting to stalk City firms once again. Team defections can also tend to lead to faster pay inflation for lawyers across the firms concerned.”