Having recently made over 400 job cuts globally, there may be a bit of cheer for some former A&O employees. Females across the City might also be buoyed by the news that twenty-three lawyers and support staff jettisoned from Allen & Overy’s private client practice are setting up their own firm which will mainly be staffed by women.

The new firm to be called Maurice Turnor Gardner is likely to attract particular attention as a start-up in the City because it will be staffed and run mostly by women. Only one of the partners is male, the other five are female and there are only four male employees in total. To reassure the chaps out there, Richard Turnor, the lone male partner, said that Maurice Turnor Graham did not intend to send out a feminist message and that it would recruit both men and women.

Ironically, given the unique position these former A&O lawyers have created as a City-law employer, Allen & Overy itself has just made 20 promotions to its partnership, forty per cent of whom are women. This means that the proportion of new women partners is at record levels.