While other City law firms continue to shed their private client practices, London firm Withers has been quietly expanding so that it now holds claim to be number one in its field.

For the past four years Withers has been engaged in a campaign to entice leading private client lawyers and their attendant private client practices away from rival firms.This strategy has paid off with many top lawyers now seeing their future with London's premier private client practice.

Since 1992 Withers has gone from 25 to 37 partners.There is no doubt that the general trend of scaling down private client practice has made the task easier.

Withers' senior partner, David Mills, comments: 'I'm delighted that firms have taken this course but frankly I think they're barmy.'The reason Mr Mills says this is that a strong private client base is only half the Withers success story.

The firm's philosophy is grounded in the belief that looking after successful private clients will inevitably lead to growth in commercial practice.

So accompanying the new client intake of young entrepreneurs and industrialists there has been a parallel expansion in the firm's property, corporate, family and litigation departments.

Today the commercial practice is evenly balanced with the private practice.The idea of a mixed client complexion was a central plank in a five-year business strategy set out as long ago as 1992 but which will have achieved all its goals by April this year.

To bring it about Withers has had to gamble on a dynamic recruitment drive.Philip Hall, Withers' business development director, was with advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather before he joined Withers last year.

He says the firm's ability to attract high calibre lawyers was rooted in the long-term future it offered them in a successful private client practice.He e xplains that the new recruits were looking for 'someone who offered them commitment to private client work in the long term, not just a home for a few years'.Partly on the strength of this reputation, Withers acquired the Slaughter & May private client team of Michael Carpenter and Michael Mitchell in 1994.

And then at the end of last year they picked up the majority of Lovell White Durrant's private client practice when Charles Pike joined the firm.

Earlier this month Withers announced the imminent arrival of two noted family lawyers, Gill Doran and James Harcus from matrimonial specialists Gordon Dadds.But the firm's most significant acquisition so far has been the high profile merger with Mackenzie Mills with its much sought-after Italian practice last October.

Withers had beaten off stiff opposition from some of the top City firms.

David Mills, senior partner with the pre-merger Mackenzie Mills, says the Withers philosophy was a determining factor in choosing it in preference to other bigger firms.

He explains: 'There was a very good fit between Mackenzie Mills' banking, commercial and litigation, with a strong Italian focus, and Withers, which had decided to strengthen this side of its practice.'Mr Mills, who is the brother-in-law of Barbara Mills QC, the DPP, says the larger City firms Mackenzie had considered had fallen short of the firm's strict requirements.He adds: 'The essence of any deal was to keep the firm together.

And all the lawyers, bar one who really had his own practice, came with us to Withers.

Both Mr Mills and Mr Hall acknowledge that even after the expansion, Withers is still a medium-sized practice.

But this suits Mr Mills, who says: 'I've always had my anxieties about being part of a very large firm, especially about the depersonalisation.' In 1993 Withers moved from their Dickensian Essex Street premises into swanky new offices behind Fleet Street, the site of the old LBC building.

Somehow the old premises had reinforced the stereotype of a pedestrian firm of solicitors servicing the county set and landed gentry.But even before Withers took residence in its new corporate-style location, the firm was being bolstered by some heavyweight business activity.

Last year the firm worked on 12 management buy-outs and buy-ins and advised on eight alternative investment market quotations allowing the firm to claim 5% of the AIM market share.

Last year the ex-Mackenzie Mills team completed 18 syndicated loans.The idea that Withers was simply a firm with a select private client practice was becoming difficult to sustain.

So, although the Duke of Marlborough may typify what many see as a Withers client, banks and industry like the Benetton group are now just as characteristic.Nevertheless both Mr Mills and Mr Hall are keen to extol the synergetic relationship between a strong private client list and a thriving commercial practice.

Mr Mills says: 'The fact that it's old money doesn't mean it doesn't have sharp commercial interests.

Private client work very quickly shades into commercial activities.' He adds that it is wrong to think of the two as a ' dichotomy'.

Most of his clients would be described as commercial rather than private.

But, says Mr Mills: 'The way in which these clients expect to be treated is very much in a private client way.

When things are tough you need to know when to put an arm around them.'Mr Hall says the converse is also true: 'We have individual clients who we look after as private clients who may be involved in a buy-out or a quotation on the AIM market.' In this type of situ ation, says Mr Hall, the firm is 'very adept at servicing' their new needs and maintaining the 'individual contact'.And, as Withers continues to buck the trend by building up its private client practice in tandem with its commercial work, Mr Hall says: 'We have tremendous opportunities within our grasp which we are only just beginning to exploit.'Mr Mills predicts: 'We will choose today's winners who will be tomorrow's larger companies.

As they expand we will expand with them.'