Eversheds join Field Fisher Waterhouse and LG in kickstarting their graduate recruitment processes back to life. Like many of its peers, Eversheds closed the hatches last year as the redundancy storm hit. The firm had four rounds of layoffs so sensibly tightened the entry spigot for new arrivals.

Which means there’s something of a bottleneck to clear in relative terms. Eversheds intends to take on 27 newcomers deferred from last year and  another 49 from its 2010 intake. That puts its intake total on a par with 2009’s full compliment which might seem bullish in the circumstances.

CEO Bryan Hughes told the Lawyer: “Whilst the economy remains fragile in some areas we’re seeing the benefits of having proactively managed our business as our performance continues to improve.”

At the same time, Eversheds has remodelled its associate bonus structure to reflect the 2010 economy. There will be more focus on business development skills rather than just chargeable hours. Individual performance and the financial performance of an assocaites’ team within each practice group will be considered. Up to 30% of base salary could be paid as bonus.

Good to see firms coming out of crisis mode, hopefully more on the horizon…