Bingham has another year to write home about in City

Turnover was up by 6 per cent in 2010, from $40.8m (£25.38m) to $43.2, while profit was up by 7 per cent to $13.4m. Revenue per lawyer rose by 6 per cent, from £1.05m to $1.12m.

London managing partner James Roome says the firm’s impressive record in the capital was effectively down to its continued strength in restructuring and financial litigation.

Since the economic crash the firm has managed to land slots on the some of the biggest restructuring mandates around. Roome himself led the team that advised the bondholders on the £1.64bn restructuring of Greek mobile phone operator Wind Hellas last year.

Roome, who also co-chairs the firm’s global financial restructuring group, was also on the team that advised the mezzanine lenders on the restructuring of Gala Coral.

“We’ve always been more of an advisory practice,” he says. “People come to us for advice rather than just transactions and that’s worked well through the downturn. For us that ­represents good value per lawyer.”

Despite working on dozens of restructurings during 2010, Roome says he is uncertain about how busy the practice will be this year. “It’s been a quieter start to the year in terms of the big deals and people are talking about a lot deals that might not happen,” he adds.

While the firm is notoriously conservative when it comes to lateral hires, one area Roome would like to develop in London is its work in the investment management space.

“We have a market-leading practice in the US, but we haven’t managed to replicate that in the UK,” he admits.