The ladies' room at Clifford Chance's (CC's) New York office is replete with small luxuries usually found in the dressing rooms of private clubs – moisturising lotion, hair spray, mouthwash and fragrance, among other niceties. But what really stands out are the bottles of Molton Brown soap perched to the right of each basin. Fine English soap gracing the counters of a washroom in midtown Manhattan is a minor yet telling detail. Like Molton Brown, CC is an institution that has transformed itself into an international brand – albeit one that has had a hell of a time keeping some of its US partners in line since a messy 2000 merger with New York's Rogers & Wells.

The war between the UK and US factions is long-finished, say CC partners on both sides of the Atlantic. They add that the firm's US offices (in New York and Washington DC) are now thriving. "The idea and reality of Rogers & Wells are over," says US managing partner Craig Medwick, a Rogers & Wells veteran. "Now we have the CC way of doing business. We have uniform expectations, a uniform selection process for partners and uniform training. The Clifford Chance academy is like the McDonald's academy." Unity and consistency, he says, have stopped the talent drain and allowed the firm to rebuild.

And that rebuilding is based in no small part on lateral partners: since 2006, CC has brought on 14 of them (the firm now has 88 partners in the US). For a firm that had lost some of its finest lawyers – among them, antitrust experts Kevin Arquit and Steven Newborn and litigators Kenneth Gallo and James Benedict – after the merger, it is a nice change to be on the receiving end of talent. Last autumn, its Washington DC office bagged a powerhouse three-partner litigation team, headed by Juan Morillo from Sidley Austin. Other hires include regulatory partner Thomas Pax from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman's Washington DC office; M&A partner John Graham from King & Spalding's New York arm; and finance partner John Howitt from Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker's New York office.

Indeed, CC's US operation seems to be on the rebound. Revenues in the US are on the rise: for the year ended 30 April, 2007, almost $320m (£163m), compared with $265m (£135m) in 2005. Overall, this has been a banner year for CC, the top firm in the Global 100′s gross revenue rankings. And, thanks in large part to the firm's lockstep compensation system, the Americans are sharing the wealth: for fiscal year 2007, worldwide revenue was $1.194bn (£2.36bn) and profits per equity partner topped $2m (£1.02m).

The firm's management has been devoting a lot of attention to its US offices. The fact is, CC emerged from its Rogers & Wells ordeal a chastened institution. Though still rooted in the UK (35% of the firm's lawyers are in the UK, compared to 13% in the US), it has made concessions to the realities of US legal practice – such as injecting flexibility into its lockstep system. It is also paying attention to soft issues such as morale: it recently installed capital markets lawyer Laura King as its 'people partner' to work on increasing retention rates and finding ways to set CC apart from other firms. "Her sole role is to look after people," says David Childs (pictured below left), the firm's managing partner since 2006.

These efforts seem to be bearing fruit. In The American Lawyer's 2007 mid-level satisfaction survey, the firm's New York office ranked 10th out of 81, while the Washington DC office ranked 27th of 62.

But being on the rebound is not the same as being out of the woods. Sceptics maintain that the firm's rising stock in the US is an illusion. "What is feeling good is the currency conversion," says one former partner about the effect of the escalating pound on the firm's overall revenues. Moreover, there is still a big gap between the US and UK offices. Now generating 14% of the firm's overall revenue, the US is behind the 25% contribution the firm has set as its goal.

In fact, CC's US operation had higher gross revenue – $344m (£176m) – in the year ended 30 April, 2002, the first full fiscal year after the merger, than it did in the most recent financial year; the firm projects its US revenue to hit $360m (£183m) in the year ending 30 April, although Childs will not estimate when the US offices will reach the 25% goal. Also, the US needs talent infusions in areas such as corporate and antitrust. While it has hired some solid lateral partners, the process has been long and slow.

It does not help that the New York office continues to be plagued by an image of a beleaguered firm. "They have stemmed the tide of people leaving, but that is because every big name has left," says consultant Peter Zeughauser, who advised the firm during its most tumultuous years. It has also been frustrating for CC partners in New York that plum deals originating in the London office often bypass them, while other New York firms, such as Sullivan & Cromwell and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, get the US work.

But Childs says that all that is changing. "Perception lags reality," he says. While Childs does not deny that some of his London partners were reluctant to give work to New York "in the first year or two after the merger", he adds that "we are past that now". The obstacle now, explains Childs, is that some of the firm's long-time London clients, such as Barclays, already have ties with other US firms, and it is hard to break those relationships. But that will change in the future, says Medwick, adding that clients are giving New York more work. Moreover, he says the firm gets "enormous amounts of resumes from partners". The firm is not merely stable these days, he suggests, but dynamic.

Not long ago, CC partners would have been thrilled with plain-vanilla stability. "We lost virtually every senior partner in DC," says Leiv Blad, managing partner of CC's Washington office, where the lawyer count plunged to 34 in 2005 from 90 at the time of the merger (it is now 60). "These people were my friends," says Blad. "I wanted them to stay." Childs acknowledges that there was "lots of sorting out" after the merger: "Some people who did not want to be part of our [lockstep] model left." As for the catching up that the firm has to do because of these departures, Childs calls that an "inevitable" part of the merger shakeout.

An unpretentious, roll-up-your-sleeves kind of partner, the London-based Childs is not a natural cheerleader. He is direct in his answers, if not a tad brusque. Yet Childs, formerly the firm's chief operating officer, has been getting good reviews for his performance, even from the firm's alumni. "He has done a great job and turned the bureaucracy around," says one former partner. Though Childs winces at the idea that CC has subdued – "Please don't say 'colonised'," he says – its American rebels, he makes no apologies for being hands-on: "We want strong management," he explains.

"I am an M&A guy – I try to boil things down to simple issues." Among his goals are building trust and confidence in management; increasing retention rates and morale; improving profitability; and helping the US offices meet their objectives.

There is progress on those fronts, says Childs, because the troublemakers are gone, and lockstep is no longer an issue. "The US partners are converts to the [lockstep] system," he says. After some drag-out post-merger fights over compensation, the firm finally adopted a three-part 'ladder' system in December 2005. Most equity partners fall into the 'main ladder', while 'ladder two', the low end of the compensation scale, is designed for partners of smaller jurisdictions and those in Eastern Europe. Finally, 'ladder three' (also known as the 'super ladder') pays 50% more than the main ladder and is reserved for superstars. Medwick says the spread among the main ladder partners is 2.5:1, and that half of the equity partners take home more than $2m. The super ladder was designed "to attract or retain the highest-quality people", Childs says. "The only place it was envisioned for was the US. The fact that we voted for it sends a signal that we understand the US market."

So far, no-one has landed on the super ladder, and no one is complaining – yet. Even a sought-after litigator like Morillo (he claims $12m (£6.1m) to $15m (£7.7m in billings) says he has no problem being on the firm's standard lockstep. "Lockstep works if the firm is sufficiently profitable," Morillo says. That said, he insists that "money was not determinative" in his choice of firms. Morillo says he was "aggressively compensated" at Sidley – "more like someone 10 years senior" – and that he and his team (former Sidley Austin partners Steven Cottreau and Steve Nickelsburg) got offers from a slew of firms including Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Latham & Watkins and Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft. Morillo represents ING North American Insurance Corporation and Mohawk Industries, among others.

Morillo does not fit the CC lateral mode. For one thing, he has a ton of business – a third of which is international. Not shy, Morillo also seems to refute the anti-star ethos that CC espouses. Moreover, he is a litigator in a firm dominated by corporate lawyers. So what does he see in a place like CC? The opportunity to put his mark on a relatively blank slate. "It is a place where there isn't someone like me," he says. And though he readily admits that CC is "one tier below the top New York firms", he sees it as a challenge.

Most laterals to CC are not looking for a blank slate; rather, they are attracted to its cross-border platform. "Most join us because they feel they can improve their practice through the international nature of our firm," says Childs. Indeed, virtually all the partners interviewed for this article cited its international presence as a drawing card. "I wanted a firm with a global perspective," says finance partner Zarrar Sehgal, who came from Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy. The worldwide reach of the firm is a big advantage, says Graham: "It is a mammoth firm. It helps you win just a little bit more business for your corner."

One lesson that the firm's management took from the Rogers & Wells experience is that it cannot impose its culture on non-believers. The firm's lateral strategy is to hire those who share its global vision and team ethos. "The question is whether the international nature of the firm is important to you or not," says Childs. "If you have a domestic practice, it will not be important for you to meet the guy in Shanghai."

Both Childs and Medwick stress that the firm is not looking for laterals with big books of business. "We have more work than we can handle," Medwick says. Though Childs says he is thrilled to hire a rainmaker like Morillo, he acknowledges that the former Sidley Austin partner is atypical. "We will not attract stars," he says, bristling at the term. "We want to be sure people join for the right reason. The biggest challenge is to build something that does not change our culture."

Many of the firm's US laterals report that they went through a thorough, if not eccentric, vetting process that was more akin to a law school endurance test. Graham says the process took eight to nine months and that his interview with the partner selection committee in London included "technical legal questions" that involved "more substance than shooting the breeze". Investment Act partner Brynn Peltz, a former Simpson Thacher senior counsel, also says she had a full-day test complete with fact-pattern hypotheticals. The hiring process, she says, is much stricter than with US firms. "I thought my children would have to be interviewed," she jokes.

Morillo also describes his CC courtship as "the most vigorous process I have seen". He says the firm interviewed his clients and did public searches about him and his team, finally producing a 20-page nominating memo that was distributed to the partnership. "I was impressed as hell," he says. The CC way, sums up Graham, is "not the style that would come from a US firm".

Of course, it is easy to swallow the CC style when things are on the uptick. "Our profits are up, so the New York partners have bought into it," says Medwick. But for all the positive talk about the joys of lockstep and the esprit de corps, there lurks an underlying note of caution. Morillo, for one, admits that "it took me a long time to get comfortable that litigation is a real practice there". The question of whether the firm can expand out of its traditional financial institution base is "still up in the air," he adds. The real test will likely come when the pound drops in value, the firm's financial practice hits a big bump, or some big US rainmaker insists on being put on the super ladder.

But for the lawyers who have toughed out the years of post-merger turbulence, there is a sense that they will survive the uncertainties ahead. After all, they were on board when the firm seemed destined to self-destruct – and they lived to see it prosper. "The people who stayed are really committed to the firm," says Blad. "We are here because we made the choice to stay." For a firm that has been through purgatory, that determination might be its greatest strength.

A version of this article also appears in the February edition of The American Lawyer, Legal Week's US sister title.