Picture the four major U.K.-founded law firms, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy and Linklaters, planning a race to a star-spangled finish line. A motor race, if you will.

Freshfields is the one carefully building its car, craning in a slick V6 engine, applying all manner of expensive aerodynamic retrofits, at intervals glancing at its blueprint. Clifford Chance is back in the design phase, its first car having spun spectacularly into the crash barrier, and is now tinkering with relatively low-key models, different drivers, seeing what goes.