If at first you don’t succeed, then try, try and try again. That is the philosophy being doggedly pursued by Clifford Chance’s (CC’s) management as it attempts to bring the firm’s partnership pay structure up to date.

Ironically, given CC’s status as the most global UK law firm, it actually has the least flexible lockstep system of all the big four international giants. Even Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, the most psychologically wedded to the lockstep of the big four, modified its system in order to accommodate its German merger partner, Bruckhaus Westrick Heller Loeber.