Nine Linklaters associates have signed up for the firm's fixed-hours career path, dubbed 'yourlink', six months after its launch.

Associates in the magic circle firm's German offices have been given the option to sign up to a 40-hour week, on reduced pay, to give them a better work/life balance.

Of the nine lawyers to have taken up the offer, five are new hires, including technology, media and telecoms counsel Anna-Katharina Lohbeck (pictured), who joined from Ashurst last month, while four have switched over from the firm's traditional associate career path.

Those on the 40-hour a week deal are paid less than their counterparts and are not eligible for partnership. First year 'yourlink' associates receive €80,000 (£71,500), compared to €120,000 (£107,310) for those on the standard package.

Pay increases are also much flatter year-on-year, and bonuses are significantly smaller than that of their colleagues.

Linklaters Germany HR head and interim COO Thomas Schmidt said that he expected 10%-20% of the firm's associates in Germany to eventually move to the 40-hour contract.

Currently the firm has 137 associates across its Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt and Duesseldorf offices.

Schmidt said that the 'yourlink' model gives Linklaters an advantage in the competitive German recruitment market, in that it will help the firm to recruit or retain lawyers who would otherwise look for less demanding roles outside of private practice.

"We hire about 50 lawyers per year, and the talent pool is quite tight in Germany," he said. "This gives us the opportunity to tap into a pool of talent with different needs with regards to work/life balance who would normally have gone in-house or to the government."

The competition to recruit lawyers is particularly fierce in Germany where it can take at least seven years to qualify as a lawyer, reducing the potential talent pool.

Those on the 'yourlink' pathway include lawyers from the firm's private equity and corporate practices, which Schmidt said was not something he expected when the project was launched.

"Private equity clients are not expecting lawyers not to respond after 6pm, but our lawyer works four days a week. He then has the Friday off and has the ability to really switch off and not look at his phone or check his emails," Schmidt said.

Schmidt added that that the firm had also hired three project managers in the last 12-18 months in Germany who were helping with the allocation of work between associates on the standard and 'yourlink' career paths.

Associates are able to switch back to the standard associate model if they wish to, or if their circumstances change, in order to be considered for partnership.

"It is possible to switch into the classical career track, then make partner. Over the span of your life you might have different needs, so it shouldn't be limiting if you switch onto the 'yourlink' model," he said.

Schmidt said that other parts of the firm were looking carefully at the programme, which had been "very inspiring" to those in different jurisdictions.

"There is a lot of interest, but we haven't made a decision on whether we are going to roll out the same model. I wouldn't necessarily say we will do the same thing in another market and call it the same thing - it is down to the needs of specific markets and what people are looking for, whether that is agile working or job sharing," he said.