What are they looking for in Allen & Overy training contract candidates? What are they looking for in Clifford Chance training contract candidates? The law firms in the Magic Circle are Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters, and Slaughter and May. Below is a more detailed explanation of each company. Equity benefit partner for Magic Circle firms, the preferred way to measure the profitability of law firms based on how much their core partners earn, which typically exceeds £1 million per year. Of the 23 ranking positions in these first two levels, 13 are occupied by firms of the Magic Circle (eight are occupied by US firms and only two by other firms in the native city).
Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner is also an international law firm with 14 offices in 10 countries around the world, including Russia, Singapore, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, among many others. Although a rather old-fashioned term, the phrase “the magic circle” has only been used since the late 1990s; before that, prestigious law firms were called the “Club of Nine”, and included Lovells (now Hogan Lovells), Norton Rose (now Norton Rose Fulbright), Herbert Smith (now Herbert Smith Freehills) and Stephenson Harwood. By showing interest in Magic Circle law firms as soon as possible, you are clearly demonstrating a much deeper interest in what they do compared to those who only spent a few hours swiftly browsing through their latest updates before submitting their application. Tier 1 law firms are generally full-service law firms that have experienced, nationally recognized attorneys, in more than 10 practice areas.
Bloomberg Law reported last month on the reference law firms for major technology companies such as Apple and Microsoft. In recent years, a surprising consensus among Allen & Overy, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters and Clifford Chance is the desire to stop being qualified as a Magic Circle firm, an informal term from the 1990s that describes the most prestigious law firms based in London. What is often lost in this debate about the American law firm is not the wage gap at the NQ level, which is considerable, but the wage gap higher in the associates' wage bands. Not to be confused with the magician's union of the same name, this is a nickname for a select group of five London law firms that share a focus on corporate and financial work.
In addition, clients' tighter legal budgets are creating exciting opportunities in less prestigious and cheaper law firms, and even in the legal branches of professional services firms. Slaughter and May provide the typical opportunities common to law firms, including others within the Magic Circle. A career with this firm will shape you to be a next-generation lawyer by developing skills that are far south for the most intricate, high-level legal work. These five firms are far from being the largest in the UK or the world, and many other London firms are large, corporate and very international (Hogan Lovells and Norton Rose Fulbright come to mind).
