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Allen & Overy's Secret to Success: Yearbook and Musical

By Martha Neil

March 5, 2008, 4:46 pm CST

A musical. A website. A yearbook. Planned get-togethers with classmates.

Seemingly, these must be part of a high school or college group’s activities, but they’re not. All are features of Allen & Overy’s program for law firm alumni. Launched in 2005, it now involves some 2,000 former lawyers and staff of the big-name U.K.-based international firm, who also get special discounts available to current firm employees and can use an A&O office when they are in London, reports the Lawyer. On the social side, a golf day and a firm-produced musical (last year’s was The Pirates of Penzance) that allows current and former colleagues to spend time together are main events.

“Alumni are primarily kept up to date online through a dedicated website that features news, a careers section, a directory of members, details of upcoming events, access to the members’ benefits section and a selection of profiles on members’ lives after leaving A&O,” explains Alex Pease, the partner who chairs the program. The alumni website is also linked to the firm website.

There is an obvious business purpose for maintaining good relationships with former lawyers and staff: including them in the A&O “family” encourages client referrals and even a return to law firm employment by some. However, much of what the alumni program provides is social and networking opportunities, rather than direct, quantifiable benefits to the firm, Pease said.

“Being the first law firm in the U.K. to open up our program to all staff has also meant we have benefited from a really diverse range of relationships,” he tells the Lawyer. “We want people to feel good about A&O, whether they still work here or have left, so to have such a wealth of goodwill is tremendously positive.”