Wragge & Co (Birmingham)

Our view....

Wragge & Co is a UK-headquartered international law firm providing a full range of legal services to clients worldwide. Wragges has 122 partners operating from offices in Birmingham, Brussels, Guangzhou, London and Munich, plus affiliated offices in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Paris.

The firm did well in the boom, regularly posting double digit rises in turnover which stood at £125 million for 2007/2008. But the downturn had its inevitable effect on a firm with such a focus on property (28% of its work is real estate). Revenue dropped by 18% in 2008/9 and then again by 7% to £96.2m in 2009/10. And headcount took a nosedive after 32 redundancies were made in 2010.

Recently things do seem to be on the up for the firm, which posted an impressive 17% hike in revenue to £113m in 2010/11. And the riches have spread to partnership with profits per partner jumping from £276k to £329k in the same period (although still way down on the £470k PEP of 2008). Still, as one of the few proper partnerships left in the regions (every partner has a stake in the equity), this is good news for aspiring assistants. It's also good news for trainees - the firm's trainee retention rate is traditionally very high.

Wragges has been slowly expanding its international footprint, adding a Munich office and two China offices in 2009. More recently, the firm launched a Paris office in 2010. And after eyeing up the Middle East for a few years, it has entered into affiliations with two firms in the UAE (one in Dubai and one in Abu Dhabi).

The test is now ensuring that the firm increases the quality as well as quantity of its work, and the signs are promising. The firm's client base includes more than 30 FTSE 100 companies including the likes of GlaxoSmithKline, BP, BT, HSBC and 3i. The firm's work areas are corporate, human resources, dispute resolution, finance projects, technology and real estate.

Whatever its plans for the future, Wragges remains a solid firm with an excellent reputation. Lawyers at the firm praise the "supportive culture", "excellent training" and, more importantly, "lots of boozing".

Bear in mind that the sort of work the firm undertakes for big-hitting clients necessitates long hours, and insiders grumble that the firm "expects London hours and benchmarks itself against London firms but pays Birmingham salaries". But that must be a concern of any regional firm doing first rate work, and at least - according to our readers, it has the best biscuits and cakes of any firm in the country. In our view, the pick of Birmingham.