Olswang (London)

Our view...

Olswang is undeniably the sexiest firm in the City, combining a high-profile media (and new media) practice with a succesful corporate department. Success has come at a certain price - the firm has moved on from the brash media boutique of the 1990s to adopt a more mature imagine and working style - but it's also brought in a greater variety of eye-catching work.

Its smart new offices in Holborn (with Sky TV in reception and obligatory Starbucks) hint at a youthful firm with little City baggage to drag it down. Perhaps this is why Magic Circle lawyers used to sniff at Olswang's corporate work, until they realised the young pretender was there to stay. With profits and turnover up again in 2005 Olswang is, if anything, increasing its share of the market.

Part of the success can be put down to its decision to embrace the resurgent property market by stealing an officeful of former DJ Freeman lawyers. As well as a means of branching out from the firm's core TMT sector specialism, this new strength has allowed them to act on deals such as the sale of the Warner Village cinema circuit. However, we did get the impression the firm was perhaps overly keen to promote its new talents when we received a press release entitled 'Olswang advises on biggest property deal in Slough for two years'.

Despite similar meritorious projects, media remains the firm's stronghold. A sample of recent deals include advising M&C Saatchi on its recent £67m AIM flotation, acting on Top-Up TV (the bolt-on Freeview service arising from the ashes of ITV Digital) and helping O2 set up a virtual mobile network in partnership with Tesco. They're also pretty hot at defamation (they're the firm Stuart Rose chose for his potential libel spat with Goldman Sachs) and have a growing reputation on the sports field, having advised Fifa on the sale of its media rights to the 2010 World Cup.

Despite recently losing a couple of high-profile partners, Olswang also remains unrivalled at film and TV production, with clients such as the BBC, Channel 4, DreamWorks and HBO. Recent deals have included advising on BSkyB's carriage of MTV and Nickelodeon, and the production and distribution of 'Calendar Girls'. And as an added bonus, assistants report that the whole firm is frequently invited along to a free screening of  the films it has worked on.

However, it's not all fizzy pop and popcorn - assistants at Olswang do work very hard. Targets are not given to individuals, they are given to groups. You might wonder if this is a touch invidious - if you take a longer lunch than you should, or leave the office before your workmates then you have to deal with the guilt of letting your mates down. Perhaps so, but people working at the firm enthused about how well the lawyers and support staff got along with each other. And if you do feel hard done by, there's always the prospect of one of those departmental ski weekends on the horizon.

We did hear a couple of grumbles about the firm's 'short term' recruitment and retention policy. These were borne out by 2004's rather average trainee retention figures - once again almost 40% of them got the chop. This can't have been helped by a slow TMT market - competitors Bird & Bird and Taylor Wessing didn't do much better - but there is a larger issue to be addressed here if the firm wants to continue to attract the best lawyers. The fact that the firm kept all its qualifiers on in 2005 may indicate that it's beginning to change.

Whatever, Olswang is a great place for those looking for a first class grounding in new media law. Olswang's position is strong, and all the signs for the future are good. If this is your area, if you are ambitious, hard working and have a strong personality, then you can do no better.