Modern law firms still need some bright sparks

Ruthless restructurings and obsessive performance monitoring means it has been a long time since aspiring lawyers have been able to relax once that elusive partner promotion is landed. Spare a thought in particular for those made up in corporate, though, who face a greater challenge than most.

Cheyne, Boardman, Rawlinson, Lawes – a quick glance through Chambers' current rankings of M&A advisers points to a notable trend: the absence of partners under 45 who have yet achieved the kind of stellar reputations that City law firms used to build their brands on. Partly this is the inevitable result of market perception lingering past the point that top corporate advisers are either winding down or grudgingly shouldering more management. But it is more than that.

Talk to partners at London's top deal teams and in general, there is little sign of a next generation of M&A heavyweights emerging to take over from the current guard. There are a number of likely reasons for this – some positive, some less so.

The huge expansion of London as a deal centre over the past two decades has left a little less space for brilliant individuals to make their mark in a much larger market.

And over the past five years, top firms have shipped off some of their most promising partners to more active foreign hubs in emerging economies. Subdued markets in London are hardly giving young partners a chance to shine.

There is also the fact that large City law firms have (quite rightly) sought to institutionalise their business and key client relationships both to reflect their global scale and make themselves less vulnerable to predatory recruitment.

But the underlying question is whether the modern global law firm is still geared up to produce the kind of boardroom-friendly tacticians that win the confidence of executives at bluechip clients.

The short answer is that it's not yet clear. Still, Allen & Overy may prove a litmus test on the matter. It strongly divides those who see its modernisation as a brilliant 'how to' guide for high-end legal globalisation from the detractors who claim it is in danger of homogenising out all the individualistic brilliance for which it won its reputation (those who get overly nostalgic for 1990s-style individualistic brilliance should remember it sometimes came attached to a large dollop of boorish/eccentric/socially questionable behaviour).

What can be said is even elite City firms still have to manage a delicate balance between forging sophisticated governance to pursue their global ambitions while fostering the kind of entrepreneurial instinct needed to succeed at the highest level.

Perhaps Freshfields' biggest achievement recently has been sustaining its global success while maintaining a partnership that still looks energetically focused on winning business. If the era of the old-school deal guru is passing, firms can't just fill the void with a committee.