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Georg Linde, born in 1971, is a managing partner in the Frankfurt office of the US law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher.
He specializes in corporate takeovers.
Photo: Manjit Jari
SPIEGEL:
Anyone who joins your law firm is greeted with a “starter bonus” of EUR 15,000 in the first month.
And if you last 12 months, you will receive a total salary of 175,000 euros.
Why are you throwing money at young professionals?
Georg Linde:
I'm aware that a lot of people earn a lot less, and of course I know the saying "Money spoils character".
But I see my employees as co-entrepreneurs, and the profit per partner in our law firm has increased by a double-digit percentage in each of the last two years.
Should the partners keep all this?
I think it would be unfair not to share this money with our young colleagues.
Four-digit hourly rate
SPIEGEL:
Do you still remember your first salary?
Linden:
Of course.
I got 130,000 German marks a year, that was an outrageous amount even back then.
I come from an East German academic family.
We always had a lot of books at home, but little money.
I also remember the moment when my hourly rate exceeded the monthly pension of my grandmother in Thuringia.
That was a strange feeling.
But she said a clever sentence to me when I once complained about having to work so much: "We're living under capitalism now, so you'll just have to raise the prices." That the prices for good legal advice are escalating, are effects of the market.
My hourly rate used to be 250 DM, now it's in dollars and in four figures.
SPIEGEL:
Where is the boom in your industry coming from?
Linde:
2021 was the best year in history for any law firm that wasn't particularly clumsy.
The corona pandemic has changed so many business models and at the same time there is such an increase in regulation that more and more companies need top legal advice.
The legislator does a lot for us lawyers by creating more and more specifications.
But the initiative often comes from the clients themselves.
For example, we are now busy helping large private equity firms divest themselves of all Russian holdings.
There are still no sanctions that would make this necessary on this scale, but nobody wants to do business with Russia anymore.
SPIEGEL:
Do you remember what you bought with your first salary?
Linde:
On the day of my job interview, before the first money was in my account, I went to the station bookstore and bought all the books I had always wanted.
The majority of the first salary went on the deposit and brokerage fee for the new apartment and on two suits.
Both pants were torn shortly after I bought them, one while riding my bike, the other when I climbed over a fence with my son.
And then all that money was gone.
This is also the reason why we introduced the starter bonus.
A lot of young people burn out when they start with us.
SPIEGEL:
Why is that?
Unlike in the USA, there are no student loans here that have to be repaid.
Linde:
Anyone who goes on a trip around the world after graduation is still broke afterwards.
Of course we also have applicants who grew up in the Taunus and state vaulting as a hobby, they probably don't have any money worries.
But we generally have a communist approach: the amount of the bonus is the same for all employees, regardless of the number of hours worked, there is currently a starter bonus of 15,000 euros in the first year, later correspondingly more at the end of the year.
You have to be there, that's the only requirement.
DER SPIEGEL:
How high is your fluctuation?
Linde:
Not particularly high, and in fact, unlike many other law firms, we don't have a shortage of applicants.
Around 1,000 young people apply to us each year as lawyers, legal trainees or research assistants, and we hire 30 to 40 of them.
SPIEGEL:
How many hours of work do you expect from your associates that you can bill your clients for?
Linde:
In contrast to many other law firms, we do not have any hourly targets for our employees.
I know that there are law firms that calculate 2,000 »billable hours« per associate and year, and for that reason alone they are of course highly profitable.
But I think that's the wrong approach.
Sure, we work hard when it counts, and if someone's lazy, we'd have a problem too.
But we are not a »sweatshop«.
We want to generate profit through the quality of the work and not through the number of hours worked.
SPIEGEL: And how many "billable" hours do associates work for you each year?
Linde:
If we leave out the associates who only joined this year and only look at those who have worked for us for a whole year, we came to an average of 1790 hours in 2021.
SPIEGEL:
But you can't do that with a 40-hour week.
At least not if you assume that there are also holidays, public holidays, training courses and sick days.
And yes, not every working hour can be billed 1:1 to a customer.
Linde:
That's right, we sometimes work more than 40 hours.
We are service providers through and through.
If a client has an important problem, I drop everything.
Then it doesn't matter whether I'm on my way to the opera - I'm going to the office.
I can't say to a client who has the Federal Cartel Office at her door: I'll take care of it tomorrow morning.
We are the emergency call, and you have to be able to deal with that in our job.
SPIEGEL:
So you also expect permanent availability from young professionals?
Linde:
I expect that they want to and are able to deal with the imponderables of the job.
It's not like we work all the time.
I was in the office on Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Monday and I was there all alone.
When it comes down to it and there is a pressing problem, we sometimes work late into the night, but that means you can spend a long weekend in Paris once the project is over.
SPIEGEL:
Does that mean you can only take vacation spontaneously when it suits you?
Linde:
No, annual leave can be planned in the long term.
Anyone who hasn't taken enough vacation by October will also get a call from me.
I don't want our employees to waste their vacation days and I make sure everyone takes their 30 days off.
SPIEGEL:
Willkie Farr & Gallagher's careers page says: "We are open to discussing part-time arrangements."
That doesn't sound particularly enthusiastic.
Can what you expect of your employees even be achieved part-time?
Go every day at 3 p.m.?
Impossible!
Linde:
Part-time can also mean working two weeks and having two weeks off.
Something like that is conceivable.
The situation is different if someone wants to leave at 3 p.m. every day to pick up the children from daycare.
SPIEGEL:
That's not a particularly unusual request.
When the daycare closes, the children have to be picked up.
Linde:
I have children myself and I know how hard the parents are.
But we earn enough to be able to organize childcare.
My wife at the time always worked full-time.
When our children were small, we also lost a net salary for looking after the children.
Spouse tax splitting is a career-threatening legacy of the 1950s for working women.
Luckily not here, because women usually earn more than their husbands or wives.
SPIEGEL:
But having a child that you only ever see at night when they're sleeping doesn't seem particularly desirable.
Children's room in the office
Linde:
For our children, I was always the one who could be called at any time because, unlike my wife at the time, I can organize my work flexibly.
I always answer the phone with my children.
Always.
That was never different.
I walked out of a meeting once to get my little son's plane out of the tree.
We even have a children's room in the office.
I don't want children to grow up there, but I also know that there are situations in which the day care center is suddenly closed because of lice or the childminder is sick, and we support our employees there.
SPIEGEL:
Wouldn't it be nicer to just take time off in such cases instead of dragging the child to the office?
Linden:
Certainly.
This is often the case, but not always.
We have to be guided by the wishes of our clients.
Companies only hire external lawyers when it is urgent and complicated.
The permanent lawyers from the legal departments of the companies take care of everything else.
Anyone who comes to us needs quick help.
If you can't imagine that, you're in the wrong place with us.
SPIEGEL:
You're recruiting young professionals with a poster that shows twelve young lawyers in uniforms with aviator goggles and is based on the film "Top Gun."
»Top Gun« was co-financed and co-designed by the US military.
In the film, the US pilots, who of course never start a fight themselves, but always only defend themselves, shoot down four Soviet jets at the end.
In real life, that would almost certainly have triggered World War III.
Military cult and twisted truths - does your law firm stand for that?
Linde:
Oh, of course we don't want to give that impression.
Recreating movie posters is a tradition with us, we do it every year, and the photo shoot is always great fun for all employees and a nice team building event.
But choosing a film is not that easy.
Because we are an American law firm, there must be a US connection.
It's supposed to be about teams and also something about heroism and dedication.
»Top Gun 2«, the start of which has now been postponed due to Corona, seemed a good choice to us.
But yes, the poster is probably too martial in times of the Ukraine war.
We are not wreckers.
Since the Blues Brothers advertising was harmless.
SPIEGEL:
How do you choose your employees?
Linde:
I'm looking for a twinkle in the eyes.
They have to be people who want to move and change something, who enjoy being advocates.
And who take their career into their own hands and say to themselves: I'm interested in this or that project, I want to be part of it.
SPIEGEL:
And who got at least nine points in both state exams, which only very few manage to do.
Linde:
Oh, there aren't that few.
Studies are now so schooled that young people are really guided through it.
Even the stays abroad are predetermined and timed.
Sure, grades are important.
But more important for us is that they are interesting people.
SPIEGEL:
What do you think the perfect applicants look like?
Linde:
We just hired a young woman who became German Junior Champion in synchronized swimming.
Another colleague financed his studies as a jazz saxophonist.
I also think being involved as a youth soccer coach is great, for example.
If you still have good grades, I'll invite you immediately.
SPIEGEL:
Are the grades really that meaningful for later success in the job?
Linde:
Nine points in the exam are a good indicator of a mixture of intellect and diligence.
Those who are only diligent cannot reach them.
But intellect alone is not enough.
SPIEGEL:
Do you even look at applicants with lower scores?
Linde:
If you worked for us as a trainee teacher, then yes.
And, of course, nine points are also easier to achieve for someone who grew up in a sheltered family than for someone who has a gambling mother or an alcoholic father.
That was the case with one of my first employees.
He came to me as an intern at the time.
Today he is a judge.
I strive to see the individual story behind the grades and give everyone a chance who deserves it.
But it's possible that someone slips through me.
Nine out of ten don't have what it takes to be a partner
SPIEGEL:
And how many of those you hire make it to a partner?
Linde:
On average one in ten.
We're very transparent about that: I can't promise everyone that I'll make them a partner.
But I promise everyone I'll take their career seriously and tell them if I don't think they're making it.
I think that's only fair.
We've had talented young people here who, after a year or two, said they couldn't take the pressure anymore.
We constantly have to make decisions about huge sums of money from other people.
This job isn't for everyone.
SPIEGEL:
Where are your lawyers going then?
Linde:
Some become judges, but many also switch to the client side, where there is sometimes even more money.
I am also happy to help myself as a facilitator and have a number of former colleagues who I am now working with again;
me as an external lawyer, she on the company side.
We've never paid severance to get rid of someone.
It's not a bad thing that the job doesn't suit everyone.
SPIEGEL:
Lawyers employed by your clients get even higher salaries?
Linden:
Sure.
Working for private equity funds is even more lucrative.
But we are talking about 0.25 percent of the German legal profession.
We work in a niche.
And the people who come to us don't come for the money.
SPIEGEL:
But?
Linde:
Because they want to develop further, make a difference.
Of course, our work is not as directly visible as that of a craftsman.
But she makes a difference.
SPIEGEL:
What are the applicants' wishes when they come to the interview?
Linde:
The carbon footprint, the CO2 balance, is important to many and also to work for the right clients and to give something back to society.
Most have a precise idea of what they want, but the wishes are very individual.
What unites everyone is the right to further training.
When I was an associate, you were sent to a seminar for two days.
Nobody wants to do that anymore.
When they have questions, no one goes to the library and first reads through books on the subject, so the idea is that the partner in the law firm takes on the role of YouTube explainer.
It's very demanding for us, but I don't think it's bad at all.
In return, the young people are also very committed and give a lot back.
SPIEGEL:
A lot of working hours?
Linde:
Lots of flexibility.
The boundary between work and private life is drawn less strictly, everything flows into one another.
If the client wants to meet at 1 p.m., go to the gym at 11 a.m. and vice versa.
Personally, I'm much stricter.
When I'm at home, I'm at home, I'm not working there.
SPIEGEL:
But you rush to the office when there's a fire.
Linden:
Of course.