“[L]awyers don’t start work until earliest 9:30!” tweeted magic circle trainee and vlogger Eve Cornwell yesterday, after one of her followers expressed surprise at her ‘lawyer morning routine’ video.

lawyers don’t start work until earliest 9:30! ????

i rlly chose the right profession ? https://t.co/f751YieeBG

— Eve Cornwell (@Evecornwell) January 6, 2020

Is Cornwell right? Well, basically, yes — for lawyers at City of London law firms, but it can be a different story outside corporate law and outside London. And our figures show lawyers at Cornwell’s firm, Linklaters, arriving on average at 9:12am (although figures vary between departments and Cornwell seems to be working in one of the later arriving teams at the moment).

According to this year’s Legal Cheek’s annual survey of average arrive and leave the office times, the lawyers who enjoy the longest lie-ins can be found at the London offices of US firms. Solicitors at Sullivan & Cromwell clock in on average at a leisurely 9:41am each morning (and leave on average at 8:35pm), with Debevoise & Plimpton’s and Cleary Gottlieb’s UK lawyers rocking up next latest (both arrive at 9:38am on average), followed by those at Paul Hastings (9:36am), Latham & Watkins (9:33am), Ropes & Gray (9:28am) and Kirkland & Ellis (9:28am).

This can partly be explained by the long hours culture (and incredible pay!) at many US firms, but also by the fact that New York (where these firms are usually headquartered) is five hours behind London and often require support later in the day from UK colleagues.

The UK-headquartered firm with the latest arrival time is Allen & Overy (9:25am), the magic circle rival to Cornwell’s firm, Linklaters.

At the other end of the spectrum, lawyers at Fletchers, DAC Beachcroft and Bevan Brittan (firms all predominantly based outside London) arrive earliest, start work at 8:20am, 8:25am and 8:30am respectively.

You can view the full list of firms’ average arrive and leave time on our Firms Most List — click through and then search ‘Earliest arrival time’ or ‘Latest leave time’.

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A partner at Slaughter and May has likened the firm’s top legal talent to a bunch of wolves.

Slaughters corporate partner David Watkins recently returned to the firm’s London office following a seven-year spell in Hong Kong, The Lawyer (£) reported earlier this week. Watkins — who joined the elite outfit in 2001 — had been overseeing the Slaughters’ expansion into the Asia market.

And it appears things got pretty wild (quite literally) during Watkins’ stint overseas. Reflecting on his time in Honkers, the top lawyer told the website:

“We have a very strong pack of wolves. There has been a flood of very vibrant, young, active people and they have formed our strong push to enhance our Asian offering.”

Watkins’ somewhat unusual analogy is presumably in reference to his colleagues’ resilience, loyalty and ability to work as a team, as opposed to their capacity to tear animals limb from limb with their teeth.

Wolf comparisons aside, Slaughters is understood to be one of the most profitable law firms in the world — profit per equity partner (PEP) is rumoured to be the highest in Europe at over £2 million, however, nobody really knows for sure.

Watkins’ Hong Kong replacement is fellow corporate specialist Chris McGaffin. He joined the firm in 2005 and is now the 13th partner in Slaughters’ Hong Kong office.

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