With the results of Legal Week's famed Associate Survey landing steaming-hot on your correspondent's desk this week, The Diary was spoilt for choice for candidates to win its prestigious Cuddliest Law Firm of the Week award.

Southwest outfit Burges Salmon gets the nod this time for its canny morale-boosting ruse of providing ice creams to employees on hot days. However, unless Bristol has been sweltering in its own tropical microclimate this summer, the incentive scheme should hardly break the bank during the UK's wettest 'summer' since records began (or since last year, anyway).

Shoosmiths, meanwhile, deserves a mention for its impressive largesse in the leisure department, giving away four £10,000 luxury holidays in a prize draw. However, if you work in one of the firm's more exotic outposts such as Milton Keynes, Northampton or Reading, where on earth could you want to go?