Trainees have been responding in their hundreds to the RollOnFriday Firm of the Year 2014 survey, with all sorts of revelations emerging.

A Hogan Lovells trainee has begun to appreciate the importance of seat choice, complaining that peers in pensions "leave at 6" while they endure "all nighters in the finance stream". No surprise there, though evening meals in the canteen sound sad. After 8pm it  "resembles a refugee camp, as hungry associates squabble over the last remaining piece of overcooked chicken".

However Eversheds trainees say it's not exactly peeled grapes and siestas in the regions, either. Although the staff are "amazing" and the partners are "approachable and down to earth", the hours are "just as brutal as London, but the rewards are far less". There's been a culture shock for trainees joining supposedly-trendy meedja firm Olswang, too. It's left to old hands to reminisce about "the 'good old days' when Olswang was still young and cool". Now everything has got "more corporate and boring".

Olswang, then and now

Daddy cool may have moved to stuffy old Macfarlanes. Apparently its "classic retro charm" is "bang on trend with hipsters". But it's not without problems. One trainee grumbles that salaries "could do with a bit of a bump given all the noise about the impressive PEP". And, more importantly, "there has recently been a switch to a cheaper brand of pen, which make an annoying scratchy sound".

Meanwhile, there are angels at Kirkland Ellis. One trainee tells how, when it turned out that the firm's budget for the trainee Christmas meal was too small, "the associates coughed up some of their own money  - to the extent we had so much we couldn't get anywhere near spending it".

Whether you've experienced colleagues giving you free cash, or just the same old crap, let RollOnFriday know in the Firm of the Year 2014 survey - open one extra week to suck up any stragglers.