Just because there wasn't enough pressure on poor old lawyers already, UK firm Taylor Wessing has introduced a splendid new policy whereby details of its associates' billable hours will be sent around the office for all to see, criticise and scoff at.

RollonFriday reports that the firm started telling associates how many hours have been recorded by their colleagues over the last month, as well as the year-to-date.

Folklaw imagines that, naturally, all associates must be thrilled with this decision and just love this extra dash of heart-thumping, gut-churning, chest-constricting pressure, with those who fall short of the daily demands having their dirty laundry, so to speak, flung around the office.

Taylor Wessing's move follows the recent news that lawyers at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain are being publicly dissed if they're not sufficiently bringing in the pounds.

A spokeswoman for Taylor Wessing told RollonFriday that the new policy was an attempt to get associates to share work amongst themselves more equally. Well, that was our English translation of the corporate speak below:

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"Obviously, as a result of trialling the publication of utilisation rates to each of our business groups independently, we introduced a spirit of competition to ensure those hours are achieved, but our goal was also to help associates manage their workload by equalising what was at the time an uneven use of capacity. We are reviewing the impact of this trial on an ongoing basis to ensure it remains effective."