Recording a podcast recently, one of my hosts, the media lawyer and writer David Allen Green, argued that City law is intellectually humdrum. The gist was that much commercial practice is vapid and repetitive and that City law is a club that sucks up the academically solid and socially acceptable but not those with independent intellects. This leaves more agile and questioning minds to gravitate towards mid-tier practice or the Bar.
It’s a line I’ve heard a lot over the years, and it’s not my personal view. The idea that the magic circle is stuffed with dullards in comparison to the polymaths and renaissance men of the mid-tier is a big stretch. There’s a lot more price-sensitive, bog-standard lawyering done in the mid-tier than cutting-edge practice in funky boutiques.
