Retaining Lawyers : A study on employee retention across Swedish business law firms

Sammanfattning: High rates of employee turnover in the legal sector are an internationally recognized problem. Despite persistent efforts from business law firms, many lawyers choose to leave their employer. This suggests these business law firms struggle with talent management and employee retention. Based on several concepts from organizational theory, this study investigates which motivational forces contribute to employee retention at Swedish business law firms. Data has been collected through semi-structured interviews with six respondents; working as associates, senior associate and partner at their respective firms. The empirical findings show that affective, contractual and calculative forces contribute most to lawyers choosing to stay at their law firms. Meanwhile, normative, alternative, behavioral, moral/ethical and constituent factors contributed little or nothing to employee retention. Complementary factors such as compensation, fringe benefits and work-life balance were also not regarded as decisive in the lawyers’ decisions to remain.