City lawyers believe they are increasingly delivering on their claims of commercial awareness, but partners are still slow to embrace risk-sharing fee deals with clients. Alex Aldridge reports

City lawyers' commercial awareness has come along in leaps and bounds in recent years, according to a survey of senior partners, with three out of four respondents rating the profession's business nous as 'good' or 'excellent'.

The latest Legal Week Big Question poll found 54% of respondents rated partners' commercial awareness at top 50 UK law firms as 'good', while 21% had it down as 'excellent'. A further 20% rated partners as 'OK' while only 5% viewed commercial knowledge as 'poor'.