Back in the late 1940s, a young accountant was summoned to the office of a partner at the "hugely influential" Fresh-fields after a run-in with the Bank of England over the whereabouts of a banker whose assets he was trying to trace. "Shortly, I will be called out of the office," the partner told him after a brief exchange of pleasantries. "On my desk you will find an address. If you are ungentlemanly enough to read it, you will obtain the information you want."

The anecdote, which appears in David Kynaston's History of the City of London, illustrates the quality of what is now Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer's establishment credentials.

The firm remains adviser to the Bank of England to the present day. But its close ties with the bank could have been its undoing, if it had not decided to loosen its dependence on Threadneedle Street by ditching its policy of shying away from advising commercial banks.

This allowed a group of young whippersnappers – including Anthony Salz, Alan Peck and Barry O'Brien – to muscle in on Linklaters' and Slaughter and May's patch by leveraging off links with the investment banks to secure M&A mandates during the takeover boom of the mid to late-1980s.

The success of this policy gave the firm a deserved reputation for dynamism, as did its enthusiastic expansion on to the international stage. But throughout this period the firm also held on doggedly to some traditions that it regarded as having been a pre-requisite for this success. These were symbolised by the firm's adherence to a pure lockstep part-nership model and the collegiate culture this fostered.

Earlier this year – and with more than half an eye on Linklaters' success – the firm's partnership took a deep collective breath and voted to usher in salaried partners for the first time. For good measure, they also finally agreed to reform the firm's almost recklessly generous pension scheme. It was of a type that most firms abolished many years ago.

The combined effect of these decisions has been to usher in an unprecedented period of upheaval as the equity part-nership undergoes what most observers – both inside and outside the firm – regard as a long overdue 'prune' in the mould of arch-rival Linklaters.

The fact that the firm's new management team has persuaded the partnership to grasp the nettle is a sign in itself that the firm is emerging from an awkward period of indecisiveness that accompanied the departure of two hugely influential figures – Peck, who stood down as chief executive in 2003, and Salz, who bowed out as senior partner this year. As their shadow recedes, the firm looks intent on moving into a new era.