As 2008 begins to disappear into the rear-view mirror, we can only hope that we will begin to flush up the other side of the financial u-bend sometime in the next 12 months. In a mixed bag of titbits we have looked for a bit of positive news so here goes…

City powerhouse Linklaters claimed first place in a global mergers and acquisitions league table in 2008, beating US rival Sullivan & Cromwell to the top spot. It is the first time in the past four years that a competitor has ousted the US firm from its lead position. Freshfields and Clifford Chance were also in the top ten coming third and sixth respectively. Great feats of M&A activity are not likely to be on the cards this years but we will see.

Meanwhile, on a less cheery note…

In-house lawyers at the major investment banks in London are bracing themselves for fresh  redundancies in the coming months, after seeing 10 per cent of legal staff at some banks losing their jobs in the last quarter of 2008.

And, if that wasn’t bad enough, lawyers elsewhere are also eyeing up the lifeboats as the economic storm worsens, with only a third of partners feeling secure in their jobs. According to a YouGovCentaur survey of nearly 2,000 legal professionals published in The Lawyer , only 15 per cent of associates feel safe from redundancy, while only 34 per cent of partners felt strongly that they were secure in their jobs.

We did look…