I must confess that when Friederike, the Legal Week reporter who covers Linklaters, told me a few weeks back that she was working on a story about the firm launching another partnership restructuring, my pundit powers had utterly failed me – I hadn’t seen that one coming at all.

This means the magic circle law firm is going through its second major restructuring in three years, after the ambiguously-named New World programme saw more than 30 partners managed out in 2009.