Back when the downturn first started to bite, it was an acknowledged – if not popular – fact that many law firms were more heavily resourced than they needed to be, and so for many it was no great surprise when the first wave of redundancies hit the market in 2008-09.

Since then, of course, there has been something of a pandemic of job cuts – not least in recent months – as firms take increasingly tough measures to control costs as the long-awaited market recovery fails to emerge.

As such, our annual Employee Satisfaction Report (ESR), which this year canvassed the views of almost 4,000 lawyers below partner level at leading firms practising in the UK, has provided a regular barometer of the mood at the junior end of the market.

Unsurprisingly, results from the months immediately following the fall of Lehman Brothers showed junior lawyers' happiness plummet compared with surveys conducted before 2008, as firms brought in draconian measures to steady the ship amid unprecedented market upheaval.

However, much more surprising are the findings the ESR has thrown up in the years since. The results from this year's survey show many junior lawyers are increasingly unhappy with the way they are treated by partners and how valued they feel. But there has seemingly been little impact on the perception of the work being turned out, with associates' confidence in the quality of clients and the work they are doing for them this year returning to – and in some cases exceeding – pre-crisis levels.

Despite news of job cuts at top law firms refusing to go away, with Taylor Wessing and DAC Beachcroft this week becoming the latest top 50 firms to announce layoffs and Ashurst, Berwin Leighton Paisner, DWF and Maclay Murray & Spens all in the midst of redundancy rounds, associate perception of both the quality of clients and the work they are handling is at its highest point in four years.

And despite morale being hit, juniors are similarly content with both the prestige the firm they work for carries and the international opportunities now on offer, both of which score more highly now than since the beginnings of the crisis.

All of which points to law firms being better – or at least more efficiently – run now than before the recession. There is no denying job cuts are a high price to pay to refine your business but, with clients unrelenting in their push to drive down costs, it is interesting to see that achieving more with less is seemingly possible – at least in the short term.