Hundreds of City lawyers were stranded across the globe by flight disruption caused by Iceland’s volcanic eruption this month.

However, firms played down disruption to clients, noting that solicitors were able to make use of remote working or overseas offices.

Linklaters had 196 people stuck around the globe, 70 from its London office. The firm’s UK chief operations officer Alastair Mitchell said: ‘Our clients weren’t really impacted because technology allows people to keep in touch and work remotely.

‘People stuck abroad have been able to work from our overseas offices, which provided an opportunity to network with international colleagues.’

DLA Piper had 35 people affected. US-based joint chief executive Lee Miller was stuck in London, while senior partner Janet Legrand was stranded in Russia.

Eversheds’ head of international Stephen Hopkins said: ‘We had people stranded all over the world, from Shanghai to the US, Libya and mainland Europe. Fortunately, with our coverage of 47 offices around the globe, people could make their way to one of those or work through our remote operating systems to ensure client service was maintained.’

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer said it made good use of its recently upgraded video conferencing system.