We at Law.com International are as loath to using the term ‘Magic Circle’ as most of the firms that were once famously part of it. But, time and again, it draws is back.
Once a catchy descriptor of the go-to advisors to Corporate Britain, in recent years the term has become less meaningful. Over the past two decades, deals became genetically more transatlantic, and the four firms most often named to the group—Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Allen & Overy and Linklaters—became more international while each day they ceded yet more U.K. market share to U.S. firms.
Today, it’s widely understood that the ‘Magic Circle’ brand is outdated; if observers came to the market anew, it’s unlikely they’d identify the quartet as particularly deserving of special designation.
But…
The four do still rank top for U.K. revenue.
Law.com International’s authoritative new list of The Law Firms with the Largest UK Market Share, 2024 tells us as much, with Linklaters ranking top, and Freshfields exhibiting the strongest U.K. growth (13%)—curious given its extraordinary courting of the U.S.
So let’s for a moment, just for our entertainment, say that the concept of the ‘magic circle’ is too established to eradicate. If we can’t remove it, can we reconfigure it? How would a new magic circle look? Which firms have the strongest chance of dominating the U.K. market over the coming, say, 10 years?
