Five quick-fire international mergers and three-and-a-half years are all it will have taken Norton Rose to transform its business from struggling UK mid-tier practice to global giant by the time its merger with Fulbright & Jaworski goes live this summer.

Any way you look at it, the scale of what the firm has achieved is impressive, as our analysis this week illustrates. Even rivals – usually quick to criticise – readily concede that the mergers Norton Rose has pushed through are hard to knock.

Yes, there is no financial integration, and yes, it was always going to be easier for a Norton Rose or a Lovells to do deals of this nature than for a magic circle firm. But neither of these points are enough to damn the unions.