White & Case’s London office has been around for decades and looks set, along with competitors Shearman & Sterling and Weil Gotshal, to be here for good. In 2008 it contributed nearly 17% of the firm’s global turnover –  $246 million – and it employs some 380 lawyers.

All of whom are extremely well paid. NQ rates may be lower than at some of its competitors, but it’s appreciably more wedge than the Magic Circle pays and it rockets up to £143,000 for a lawyer with five years PQE. Add to this top quality international work, a bonus that kicks in once associates beat their target of 1,750 chargeable hours and a guaranteed overseas seat for trainees and it looks like a cracking deal.

Inevitably it’s not all beer and skittles: the firm was sufficiently credit crunched to cull 15% – 20% of its global partnership together with some 200 associates and 200 support staff. But insiders gave the London office points for having been “very transparent about what’s going on”, and an 87% NQ retention rate in September 2009 is at the upper end of the City scale.

Hours may be tough but they’re not brutal, there’s a “good team spirit among associates” and the firm makes a big play of taking diversity very seriously – even if “not enough of the partners are female”. The new offices on Broad Street are very smart (albeit with extremely slow lifts), there are good monthly drinks and some of the best biscuits in the City. Particularly the white chocolate ones.

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