There’s a curiously distorted feel to our annual results for 2011-12, underlining the oxymoronic state of the legal industry, a profession often discussed these days as if it is in one of only two states: coining it in or on the verge of crisis.

This year, 16 of the top 50 saw falls in profit per equity partner (PEP), six of them by more than 10%. At the other end of the scale, six firms saw PEP rocket more than 20%.