The Lawyer Career Report is designed to give lawyers a clear picture of partnership prospects at the
100 largest UK firms and the top 30 international firms in London.
All figures are supplied by the firms themselves, except in three cases, which we have
indicated in the text. The headcount figures, which were also all supplied by the firms, are taken
from The Lawyer UK 100 2005.
The headcount figures are, in the vast majority of cases, taken from the previous year-end.
However, headcount figures are notoriously difficult to collate; queries should be directed to the
firms themselves.
In most cases, the number of equity partners has been supplied by the firms themselves. In a
handful of cases we have estimated the number of equity partners from information supplied by
unofficial sources with knowledge of the firms.
For the purposes of our research, we have not specified hires into equity. That would
constitute a separate project. Readers should refer to our data on equity-salaried split within
different firms and draw their own conclusions.
Years refer to the beginning of the financial year. Therefore 2005 partners refer to those
partners made up on 1 May 2005. In some cases firms have supplied figures on a calendar year
basis; if so, this is indicated clearly within the text.
The lateral hire figures for 2005-06 cover May to December of that financial year. While few
firms have made vast numbers of hires so far in 2006, readers should be aware that our lateral
figures slightly underplay the current total of laterals across the board.
