Career Prospects at Baker McKenzie

The Firm is small, which provides a lot of opportunity within each team to "move up the ranks". For me, this is a major drawcard of the Firm.

Promotion obviously follows the general track at a law firm - associate, senior associate, special counsel, partner, etc. The promotion pathway is clearly defined, and you generally know what you need to do to rank up each time, in terms of both years spent at the Firm and skills attained. Sometimes, there are opportunities to "move up the ranks" more quickly - I think generally this is dictated by the person involved, i.e. whether they want to climb the ladder more quickly.

Automatic promotion after 2 years with the Firm (from junior associate to general associate). HR are very transparent on the KPIs to progress from there onwards.

The opportunities that I was most excited for, especially at the graduate and associate level, were the travel/office opportunities. While we can't go overseas, I would enjoy the chance to work with my team in a different Australian office, E.g.., Melbourne. Progression wise, I like that most grads are on the same timeframe. Told about the KPAs etc for each level, but it would be interesting hearing from actual employees at different levels about their progression and what it took.

My experience with promotion opportunities is limited. I know that there are internal promotion paths available to all, particularly associates.