Shambolic company with no regard for employees
Pros
There are very few 'pros' of working at The Legal 500. They used to offer researchers trips abroad, but had stopped by the time I left, and my understanding is that those have not resumed. The only other positive thing I can say is the company will hire just about anyone on their research staff, so they gave me a job quickly out of my post-grad, which allowed me to pad my CV and move on to much better things.
Cons
Management is in complete disarray - they do not care about their employees' wellbeing and they do not really listen to employee concerns. There are always promises that things will get better if employees just stick it out a little longer, but it never does get better. On editorial, the workload is entirely unmanageable. They pretend that they don't want people working overtime, but in reality there is no other option and they know that. There is no benefits package and the pension contribution is the absolute minimum. The pay is also not competitive. The Legal 500 product is a joke. There are virtually no editorial standards and editors have explicitly referred to "superficial research" to describe what their researchers are expected to do. The founder and CEO is entirely absent. No one ever speaks with him and he never speaks with anyone else. This attitude trickles down through the upper management into the mid management. The result is a truly toxic work environment where no one feels they can speak up, employees are not heard and the overall mood of the team (again, editorial) is one of apathy and resentment. At this company, you will never be appreciated working in editorial. They will squeeze every last drop of work they can from you until you burn out and then you're completely expendable. Remember, this is not the rant of a researcher. This is from a former editor, who didn't have to put up with a lot of this nonsense, but recognised it all the same. Bullying is a serious problem at this organisation, and because there is no proper HR function there is very little recourse. It's more than just bullying, too. Sexual harassment was an issue on at least three occasions that I was aware of in the five years I worked there. Again, these issues were not dealt with, and two of those women ended up leaving the company. My advice is this: unless you absolutely need a job - you're desperate - you should wait it out. Don't work here. And if you do, don't get stuck. If it's just a stop while you continue to try to find better, fine. Otherwise, trust me, you can do better. Don't get stuck here. Remember, not all companies are like this.