CMS Cameron McKenna have seen dramatic double-digit drops in both profits and revenues for the 2009-10 financial year. Profits per equity partner (PEP) have fallen 18 per cent to £453,000 in 2009-10, from £554,000 last year. And that figure was 15 per cent down on 2007-08’s £655,000, meaning partners have seen PEP fall more than £200,000 in two years.

Meanwhile Eversheds have had an equally dramatic, 28% increase in PEP to £517,000 from last year’s figure of £404,000 despite a drop in revenues of 3% to £355m from the 2008-09 figure of £365.9m. PEP is still down from the £552,000 posted at the end of the 2007-08 financial year but it is rapidly heading back in the right direction.

Should Camerons have been more liberal with their axe? Cynics (and departed ‘Shedders) will undoubtably point at the four rounds of redundancies Eversheds carried out on the way to these results. But whatever else their recovery strategy included, when it comes to PEP, it seems to have done the job.