If your business competes on brainpower, it pays to think laterally about where to find the brightest minds. Even so, when Chris Parsons, a partner at City law firm Herbert Smith, flew to Australia to set up an internship scheme with the Universities of New South Wales and Sydney, his colleagues questioned the pay-back.

Until, that is, the interns arrived. "We were targeting the very best and these were, clearly, exceptionally bright individuals," says Mr Parsons of the seven aspirant lawyers, all of whom have been offered traineeships.