Magic Circle and Silver Circle law firms, explained

Neither “Magic Circle” nor “Silver Circle” is an official designation - no regulator or trade body confers the title, and no firm can lose it by a formal process. Both are informal labels, coined by the legal press, that have nonetheless become the shorthand the market itself uses to describe two tiers of elite City law firms.

The Magic Circle is the older and more settled term, generally understood to mean five London-headquartered firms with global, multinational practices and the market’s highest profitability: A&O Shearman, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Linklaters, and Slaughter and May. That list has shifted with the market rather than stayed frozen - A&O Shearman itself is the product of Allen & Overy’s 2024 merger with the US firm Shearman & Sterling, a reminder that even a firm’s Magic Circle status rests on where it currently sits in the market rather than any fixed entitlement.

Silver Circle, coined by The Lawyer magazine around 2005, describes a second tier: firms with a strong, often specialist City practice and a premium UK and international client base, but generally lower turnover than the Magic Circle firms and less emphasis on being a full-service global player. The firms historically named in that group have included Ashurst, Herbert Smith (now Herbert Smith Freehills, following its 2012 merger with the Australian firm Freehills), Macfarlanes, SJ Berwin, and Travers Smith - though, as commentators on the term regularly point out, identifying who currently belongs in the Silver Circle is considerably less settled than the Magic Circle list, and mergers and strategic shifts have moved firms in and out of it over time.

What both terms really capture is reputation and market positioning rather than any measurable threshold - useful shorthand for lawyers and clients alike, but informal labels all the same.