There’s no such thing as a free lunch – but breakfast, brunch, afternoon tea and dinner are on the house. In a bid to lure staff off the sofa and back into the office, City firms are laying on increasingly lavish catering arrangements for solicitors to enjoy, with one firm providing free breakfasts every morning and another offering an open bar once a week.

At Fieldfisher, it’s muffins on Monday, fruit on Tuesday, chocolate on Wednesday and smoothies on Friday, along with Costa vouchers to help lawyers ‘reconnect over a coffee with a colleague’. For the less gastronomically minded, Linklaters is offering staff a £300 wellbeing allowance to spend on the likes of watercolour kits, hypnotherapy, knitting kits and yoga classes.

The City’s charm offensive strives to soften the blow of new office policies, many of which demand that staff work in-person three days a week, with trainees often allowed just one day at home. Research by Thomson Reuters suggests, however, that employers might have a struggle on their hands, with fewer than one in 10 lawyers wanting to return to regular hours in the office.

For now though, the carrot is conquering the stick.

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