TLT (Bristol)

Our view....

TLT is still a baby of a firm - it was formed by a merger between Trumps and Lawrence Tuckets in 2000 and only acquired a London office in April 2005 when it merged with boutique firm Lawrence Jones. But in a few short years it has become one of the most profitable outfits in the region.

Profits per equity partner for 2005/2006 hit £300,000, up from £210,000 the year before. Compare this with the £252,000 posted by the more established Clarke Willmott, and the relatively woeful £180,000 at Bond Pearce. It's still short of the profits posted by Bristol's two grandest firms, Burges Salmon (£363,000) and Osborne Clarke (£425,000), but it looks like delivering on its ambition to be the number three firm in Bristol - a desire which looked pretty fanciful only a year ago.

The firm has five practice areas: real estate, commercial services, employment, banking and lender services and private business. Traditionally it capitalised on the fact that other regional firms didn't tend to have much of a regional focus, and it has picked up good work from smaller, regional based companies such as Avon Rubber Group and Aardman Animations. Now that it's made more of a name for itself the proportion of finance and corporate work it does for bigger ticket clients - Barclays, Lloyds, Punch Taverns etc. - is increasing, and there's a commensurate rise in its profits.

Assistants say that your experience at the firm will depend on the sort of deals on which you're working. On the upside, if you work for more local clients you'll be allowed off the leash, given early responsibility and lots of client contact and put in reasonable hours. On the downside, you can find yourself working hard on the more minor aspects of a deal for Barclays whilst lawyers at City firms bag the more interesting stuff.

But with that in mind, the firm does more than most to try and ensure that staff have a decent work/life balance. Many of its lawyers work flexible hours or share jobs, and it's clearly a chummy place to work (the firm made it into the Sunday Times 100 best companies to work for list in 2005).

The firm also makes a big play of how everyone has a part to play in its growth, and it really does seem to be a more egalitarian environment than most law firms. Everyone is asked to become involved in business development activities, the offices are open plan, everyone dresses down and the requirements for making partner are sufficiently transparent to be published on the firm's intranet.

TLT has the ability and desire to expand - managing partner David Pester has stated his aim of taking the firm into the top 50. There are good prospects for ambitious assistants and the money for those who make equity is excellent. One to watch.

N.B. Salaries stated are for Bristol only. From NQ onwards, salaries stated are an average of the band available at each PQE level. London NQs get £48k.

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