With financial results from CC, Freshfields and Linklaters coming out pretty much as expected, I haven't currently got much to add. You can feel the tectonic plates of the industry and its hierarchy shifting, but that has been evident since late 2008. 

However, there is one aspect that stands out from talking to City firms, and that is the extent to which the concept of scale has become almost a bogeyman for top law firms. In particular, there is much discussion from Linklaters and Freshfields about how no one cares about size anymore. What else could explain both firms making so little of ending CC's long reign as the UK's largest law firm in revenue terms? Such sentiments are, I think, largely related to CC's colossal struggles with scale over the last decade, which, despite its best efforts, have yet to be entirely resolved. Freshfields and Linklaters, for their own part, remain scarred by their own post-merger hassles in Europe between 2002 and 2005 and have no intention of repeating past mistakes.

Scale, of course, is now also indelibly linked to huge banking practices and conjures up notions of legal teams that are high-leverage, unwieldy, bordering on the commoditised and low on rainmaking skills.

But while the concept of scale has fallen so far from favour, there's a little more to the equation than big = bad. If the magic circle (bar Slaughters) were really that anti-big, then the group was extremely careless to have grown 10-fold over the last 20 years. The bottom line is what my old history teacher used to say when asserting his requirements for assigned essays: "I don't want quantity, I want quality… and quantity."

The mid-term aim for the UK contenders for global elite status remains magic circle critical mass/white shoe profitability. Critical mass in this context – and probably for the next five years – means fee income in the ballpark of £1bn-£1.5bn. As long as that is achieved, quality takes precedence – quality of practice, quality of partnership and quality of profits. On that yardstick – their own yardstick – it has been a bloody good year for Linklaters and Freshfields. Conversely, CC doesn't need me to point out that its challenges go further than cyclical exposure to banking or one year of exceptional market conditions.

As I argued once before, these shifts in attitude have enormous implications for the legal market, and hold real opportunities for the best firms outside the magic circle. The age of consolidation as a simple, one-way process in legal services is dead. There will be much more stratification or segmentation of the market as top firms get ready to withdraw from certain practice areas. Likewise, the same firms will take flags off the map if they don't fit in with their quality ethic.

It will be interesting to see the extent to which clients recognise and support this trend. In some areas it will be bring them more value and a better service – in others, the comfort of a top brand law firm may be something they must learn to live without.