After the cut comes the job hunt. There was a time when the partners due to be shown the exit from the likes of Ashurst, Clifford Chance and Linklaters would have gravitated naturally to one of the legions of US firms looking to aggressively grow their business in London. In the current climate, such moves look far less assured.

If they're not seeing them already, recruiters soon will notice partner CVs fluttering around the City like confetti. Despite the economic conditions, there are still a number of US firms eager to grow their London outposts, although there are far more caveats now.

"It's difficult, but there are a number of firms interested in transactional lawyers of a high calibre, if the expectation that there will be a potential upturn in the fourth quarter of 2009 [pans out]," says Seamus Hoar of recruitment firm Hoar Marshall. "But, as always, it's dependent on the quality of client relationships."

And it's dependent on what sort of pay-cut moving partners are prepared to take. A top equity partner at Linklaters is unlikely to find a new firm that will value his book of business anywhere near their current earnings, even in bull markets. Most major London firms have managed to institutionalise key client relationships so that portable books of business in the style of a New York rainmaker are few and far between.

Taking a bet on someone taking home more than £1.5m but without a promise of business appears, not surprisingly, beyond the reach of most. "Firms will do a lot more due diligence," says Jonathan Simpson, a projects partner at Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker's London office. "There was a time when a magic circle partner could walk into a partnership at some smaller City or US firms."

Simpson says that his firm has seen CVs from partners at every magic circle firm except Slaughter and May. The job-seekers are keen to join an office that recently added a seven-partner team from US rival Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft. For some, apparently, there's still an appetite for growth.

The London head of one US firm suggests looking outside of the magic circle. "If you look at smaller practices, some partners still have entrepreneurial skills that haven't been atrophied by clients waiting at their door for 20 years," he says.

For some, the magic circle is losing its gloss.