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Hi [USER=40554]@Jane101[/USER] and first of all huge congrats on your offers, this is an amazing achievement. Both Baker McKenzie and Ashurst are great firms and I do not think you can go wrong with either. Having been in a similar position to you last cycle, my advice would thus be to take it seriously but also try not to stress too much about the decision.

That said, I will give you my thoughts on some of the points of comparison you have mentioned:

• General reputation and type of work: I think you would be right to assume Ashurst is the more prestigious name in London and Baker McKenzie is the more well-known firm globally. Baker McKenzie is also more know for being a very generalist firm, whereas Ashurst, while still full service, has a few areas of focus, like finance, real estate, and energy/projects. For purposes of lateraling Ashurst probably has the slightly better reputation for quality of training, but the impact will not be major. What will likely matter more is the comparative reputation of the particular practice area you qualify in,
• International secondments: while the number of international offices matters, firm policy is sometimes more determinative of your chances of getting one. Based on Legal Cheek statistics your odds would be slightly better at Ashurst (30% vs 24% at Baker Mckenzie did a secondment).
• W/L balance: generally hours will probably be somewhat better than at MC/US firms, but beyond that it will likely depend more on practice area selection rather than firm selection.
• Renumeration: Salary brunching has indeed been quite common ever since the US firms have started the pay wars - I would assume both Baker and Ashurst to be affected by it. Since their starting point is higher, I expect the rest of Baker's salary scale to be above Ashurst's as well.