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During its 125th anniversary year, Slaughter and May still divides the industry unlike any other institution. For its admirers, it is the standard bearer, bucking the received wisdom of the modern legal market - for detractors, a dress-up costume on borrowed new meizitang time, looking to bet from the market (with an unhedged bet at that).

But 17 years since it first articulated what became irritatingly referred to as its best friends strategy, there remains no clear answer regarding which camp is appropriate.

Still, once we find in our look at the firm's celebrated corporate practice this month (see 'The new boy'), Slaughters has already established a pretty good crisis. Buoyed initially by bank bailout work, it has coped admirably in an environment by which its domestic corporate market has been in hibernation, as the economic shift eastwards further threatened its relevance.

In writing, Slaughters should be in danger. The truth is, the simplicity its structure, relatively low cost-base, flexibility of its generalist approach and consistency of its partnership have compensated within the medium term, though not with no little shedding pounds.

The firm retains undoubtedly the strongest corporate bench within the City, while also having picked up share of the market as City rivals shift focus abroad. It's striking and slightly unsettling the extent to which the firm still relies on Brand Boardman - there are other succession issues than Slaughters lets on - but even without Mr M&A, it is a fantastic line-up.

None of which is enough to place Slaughters' future beyond doubt. The international question looms as threateningly as it did in the late 1990s. Slaughters' main counter to global challengers - that they are plagued with quality control issues across their networks - is eroded year on year. Top global firms have their strategic issues, but they're generally making ground in this area and will make more in the future.

In reaction, new head of corporate Andy Ryde (pictured) is putting renewed emphasis on its international profile. What else can the firm do? It has been fortunate that Asia and also the US have proved so problematic for key rivals post-Lehman however the law game gets more international through the minute. Slaughters' sales hype here would be also more convincing whether it wasn't forced every five years approximately to give the same spiel about how its referral arrangements used to be just a little rough around the edges but their 'best friends' really have it now. What scope there's to enhance the firm's international showing without a shift in technique is debatable. Slaughters cannot match its global rivals for resource.

What's going to be interesting is if Slaughters were to more robustly articulate another facet of its approach which makes it as distinct: its classicist look at client service undiluted by CRM programmes or matter profit analysis. There is scope to experience that message up: its international strategy is damage limitation in mitigating the negative inherent in its chosen model. In contrast, its bat-for-your-client ethos will have a major upside within the era of more demanding GCs.

This also raises the key reason Slaughters has endured being an institution against the odds: it provides a world-class meizitang strong version plan to clients and it has the most consistent partnership in the City. Your investment grating attempts to shroud itself in mystique, which might still impress the tourists but no one else, Slaughters' selling point isn't style, it's substance. And it will be those qualities that will try it out of confounding expectations for years to come.