I must confess that when Friederike, the Legal Week reporter who covers Linklaters, told me a few weeks back that she was working on a story about the firm launching another partnership restructuring, my pundit powers had utterly failed me – I hadn't seen that one coming at all.

This means the magic circle law firm is going through its second major restructuring in three years, after the ambiguously-named New World programme saw more than 30 partners managed out in 2009.

Even with economic clouds darkening and the eurozone saga draining what levels of confidence could be found, another restructuring seemed incredible. Linklaters has now been through three major shake-ups in a decade and has attempted an unprecedented level of upheaval in the management of a major international law firm. The traditional view of the law firm model is that the partnership and associate base can't withstand that level of turbulence without things going seriously wrong. We're about to find out if that assumption is right.