Greedy, grasping, duplicitous, self-serving, silver-tongued, slimy, pompous… and that’s being diplomatic. It has become fashionable to knock lawyers, especially successful ones. Few professional groups are as maligned as solicitors and their more voluble (and grandiose) bedfellows, the barristers.

But, m’lud, are we being entirely fair? Just how much do they really earn – and are they worth it? If you look at the hourly rates charged by the top law firms, it appears that clients might be well advised to keep the phone calls to a minimum. Yet the fact remains that an expensive lawyer may save you more than a few bob in the long run. Remember the relieved look on Paul McCartney’s face after he emerged from his divorce hearing – his solicitor, Fiona Shackleton, having saved him upwards of £100m in his settlement with Heather Mills.

The law is a polarised profession. While reforms on fixed fees have hit thousands of legal-aid practitioners beavering away in backstreet offices, partners in City law firms are trousering record profits. There are almost 150,000 practising lawyers in England and Wales – up from 91,000 a decade ago. Last year, the top 100 City law firms employed 46,000 lawyers, generating £12.25 billion in revenues and £4.2 billion in profit. This year, at least 800 lawyers will earn £1m or more. They remain largely an Oxbridge elite – over 60% of the top players went to either Oxford or Cambridge, and nearly all were privately educated.

The 50 lawyers profiled here are among the most distinguished in their fields. While some partners are on a fixed salary, equity partners are generally remunerated on some form of lock-step system – a firm’s profits are pooled and distributed according to seniority. But increasingly, our firms are adopting the US model known as “eat what you kill” – the more money you bring into a firm, the more of the profit you keep.

Rates of charging vary. For City firms these range from £600 an hour to £1,400 an hour for a partner. Leading barristers have a wider spectrum. Tax silks come out on top. When instructing the best tax silks for a conference that might last up to two hours, requiring an additional four hours’ preparation, fees will start at a minimum of £20,000. According to one instructing solicitor: “They very quickly escalate rewards from there – soon reaching £40,000 or £50,000 for more complex work.” At this level, hourly rates up to £4,000 are routine. So who are the key players – and what do they earn?

Dealmakers

Nigel Boardman, 57, £2.3m
Boardman is the best-known lawyer in the City. As Slaughter and May’s star dealmaker, he fought off Sir Philip Green’s £9 billion bid for M&S, negotiated the £420m financing of Arsenal’s Emirates stadium, and is currently advising BHP‑Billiton on their £70 billion hostile bid for Rio Tinto. He personifies the strong work ethos of the firm. One story tells of the trainee who shared his office getting up to leave at 8pm. As he reached for his coat, Boardman asked, “Are you cold?” He describes his 80-hour-a-week work schedule as “fun”. Boardman is fiercely loyal to his clients, which include 12 FTSE100 companies: “If I act for M&S, I buy my clothes at M&S, if I act for Shell, I stop at Shell petrol stations. I identify with them. I share their misfortunes and their excesses.” He even waves the Arsenal flag at most home games. He sometimes escapes to a holiday home in Aveyron, in the Midi-Pyrénées, near two other Slaughter and May partners. He is a father of six.

David Cheyne, 58, £1.8m
From a military family, Cheyne now commands an army of 2,500 lawyers at Linklaters, where he is senior partner. He was delighted when The Sunday Times put his as the only “magic circle” law firm in the 100 Best Companies to Work For, and believes “change needs to be constant”. This has required “de-equitising” partners to improve the firm’s profitability. “When I joined in 1972, I was not expected to work very hard, and didn’t: I wasn’t paid very much.” His first salary was £950 a year. Things soon changed. Was he noticeably more ambitious and aggressive than his contemporaries? “Yes.” And as a boss? “I am not unduly tolerant of someone who doesn’t learn very, very quickly.”

He has three sons: one in the army, one a hedge-fund manager, one a student. He takes three-week holidays in April and August, and has homes in Henley and Notting Hill. “I shoot and I collect things: antiques, paintings. My wife describes me as an accumulator.”

Alan Paul, 54, £1.6m
Not one of those lawyers who, he says, “has huge self-confidence even when they don’t know what they are doing”. Paul led Allen & Overy’s M&A practice to the top of the 2007 dealmaking tables, advising ABN AMRO on its £49 billion takeover by the Royal Bank of Scotland, which beat Barclays to the prize in the first competitive, hostile bid for a leading bank in the EU. He also advised Reuters on its £8.7 billion acquisition by Thomson.

He strongly believes that team strength is more important than the individual. “You’d be a nutcase to do this job if you didn’t enjoy it: you spend so much of your life working. I believe in balance, although my wife would say it doesn’t show much.”

At 13, he had a trial as a professional footballer. He now spends time watching his three boys and one girl (“all too sensible to be lawyers”) playing sport. He has a house in Roehampton, London, and is looking to buy one in France. He plays golf “badly”.

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