Sidley Austin (London)

Our view...

An international giant, Sidley Austin - where alumni include, inter alia, Michelle Obama and her husband - has seen its traditional structured finance-heavy offering change during the downturn.

Currently running at about 100 lawyers in London (out of 1,800 worldwide) the firm is of a reasonable size. Securitisation was always a big deal here - but there's hardly been heaps of that work around for the past few years, so there's been a natural diversification within the office. Although most of its work is limited to corporate and banking, and whilst it does a bit of property and IP realistically there won't be much room for those without a strong financial background.

Sidley & Austin is a pretty anglicised firm, and has had an office in London since 1974. But don't hope for too relaxed an approach to the long-hours culture; this is still a US firms. And you don't get paid the rates on the right by knocking off at 6:00 every evening, and you should expect to work as hard here as at any UK firm. Also bear in mind that whilst they have a long history here, noone knows what will happen as a result of the merger. Due to their size support will be better than at many US firms, but decisions about your future will still be made thousands of miles away, and if they suddenly decide to relaunch their European headquarters in Frankfurt you will find yourself without a job and with some very expensive tastes to cater for....

Still, you could do some damage with the salary in the meantime.