Founding Partner Graham Huntley and Associate Jessica Thomas interviewed in Thomson Reuters

Founding Partner Graham Huntley and Associate Jessica Thomas have been interviewed in Thomson Reuters in relation to the firm’s business model and how it drives employee engagement.

Graham and Jessica’s interview was published in Thomson Reuters. Read their full interview here.

“A bonfire of the conflicts is a good enough reason for a large law partner to start up a litigation boutique, but it was the least of what Graham Huntley had in mind when he jumped ship from Hogan Lovells to found London-based Signature Litigation LLP. Together with CEO Kevin Munslow, a qualified accountant, he set about creating a new kind of firm, with structural, cultural and financial factors that would set it apart…

…The most eye-catching element of Signature’s innovative structure is its bonus scheme, which includes not just partners but every member of staff, top to bottom, in the profit share. “Traditional law firm structure is designed to create as much profit as possible each year and then drain it out. It retains all the upside for the partners. Here we retain the upside for all employees: If the firm does well, then everyone should benefit. When things go hard in a family, you don’t ditch your second cousin,” Huntley explains. “We don’t have partners making discretionary decisions about people’s end-of-year compensation.”

This attitude is hugely attractive to young lawyers looking to kick-start their careers. Commercial litigator Jessica Thomas was offered a job by the top-40 City firm at which she trained, but when she heard from a former colleague about the high-quality work he’d seen in six months at Signature it encouraged her to respond to initial overtures and find out more. “Going through Signature’s recruitment process made me realise they were offering what I was looking for – having real input in the firm and its growth, and being part of that conversation.””