Pros
Colleagues were mainly fantastic, and a lovely bunch of people to work with (with a few notable exceptions). Free fruit (although quality and supply deteriorated significantly). Modern open-plan offices (however see cons below). Work-life balance relatively good.
Cons
The main issue is the effect of the dictatorial business decisions - namely, their merciless hiring and firing policy and their aggressive acquisition strategy. As of last week, at least 15 people in one office were made redundant, and the overall number across the firm is upwards of 60 employees, as reported by one Office Partner. The redundancies involved two ex-Turner Parkinson equity partners who very soon would have been with the firm for over two years. The official reason given by Knights for these redundancies is the over-resourcing of staff (mainly Paralegals); under Knights' model, fee-earners work at 80% capacity (in reality probably less), which was never going to end well given the current situation. The heartless redundancies (no offers of furlough were made even though the government had stated that this would be available), were then followed by a mandatory 10% pay cut to the wages of all staff earning 30k and above. The board members (shareholders) nobly volunteered to take a 30% pay cut, however interestingly an interim dividend of 1.1p per share was announced only a week before these measures were put in place. The redundancies and pay cuts were announced on a firm-wide conference call which has to be one of the weirdest experiences of my life. The CEO made a bizarre and ill-judged joke about being stuck at home and having to change his bedsheets and then went on to tell everyone that they would now be taking a pay cut and he wasn't quite done with making people redundant. Apparently the firm is in such a strong financial position that he can criticise every other law firm in Manchester and completely 100% certify that Knights will come out of a global pandemic not just unscathed but stronger than the rest of the competition. The offices are strange, bizarre places to work - or as one review below puts it "A really weird nightmare". No personal items allowed whatsoever, anything left out on desks or chairs or in the communal kitchens was removed or confiscated immediately, or at best you would receive a stern telling-off. "Tupperware-gate" was a particularly good example of this - any (clean) Tupperware belonging to employees was rounded up from the communal kitchen cupboards on at least two occasions with no prior warning, and unceremoniously chucked into the bins. Absolutely freezing - serious air-con problem was exacerbated even further when we were told that any complaints were to be made directly to the CEO as he felt that the temperature was just fine (which obviously no-one was prepared to do). Overall, there is no team culture present here whatsoever. This exists only within the underpaid, fearful masses - the vast majority of whom are too scared about getting fired on the spot to speak out, and so silently support each other as best they can.