Pros
1. Equity partners apparently make a lot of money. 2. A lot of the juniors in Sydney are nice.
Cons
1. The firm's frugality is the stuff of legend. Work that requires an entire department at other firms is expected to be split between fee-earners and the skeleton crew of support staff, on top of their other duties. The tiny IT department has the Sisyphean task of keeping a huge network running on a shoestring budget, so systems are often slow or completely broken. As far as I'm aware there is no accounts receivable department, as solicitors are expected to chase their own delinquent bills. Colour photocopying requires managing partner approval. Reimbursement of expenses requires navigating a bureaucracy that even Kafka couldn't imagine in his most fevered dreams. 2. Since it doesn't cost management anything to promote staff, promotions come thick and fast. This means you'll often find inexperienced solicitors with fancy titles who don't know what they're doing. Worse still, they're often put in charge of "training" even less experienced staff. 3. Although promotions are given out freely, getting a payrise requires fighting tooth and nail. 4. Secretaries are paid badly and treated awfully. As a result, all the decent ones leave and solicitors wind up doing their own (and their partner's) secretarial work. 5. Because the firm is so frugal and fee-earners wind up doing so much administrative/non-legal work, the training of junior staff is often overlooked. This can have a hugely negative impact on the career prospects of those taking up graduate roles at the firm, as some other firms have a sub rosa policy of not hiring HWLE personnel who haven't had significant experience at other firms. 6. The HR department openly detests having to deal with issues concerning anyone below partner level. 7. The firm causes positive reviews to be added onto this site to boost its overall ranking. The reviews that the firm authors are generally glowing, five-star endorsements with one or two minor complaints added for alleged verisimilitude. 8. Firm is run by edict of the managing partner. Other partners have no say.