Legal Business

Scottish round up: Brodies and Morton Fraser achieve record breaking revenues, Freeths expands into Scotland

Brodies has become the first independent Scottish firm to pass the £100m revenue mark.

The LB100 firm posted a turnover of £106.25m, marking an 8% growth compared to last year’s figure of £98.5m.

This is the firm’s thirteenth consecutive year of growth, while operating profit also increased by 6% from £46.1m to £48.6m

Managing partner Nick Scott (pictured) told Legal Business: ‘This year’s figures are the result of all our practices making progress, but the fastest growing practice area here was our personal and family practice.’

He added that reaching this milestone came at a time of a ‘constantly changing backdrop’ citing events such as the war in Ukraine, high inflation, and uncertain financial markets.

‘But it’s our job, of course as a firm to set ourselves a plan of making sure we’re making progress, whatever the backdrop,’ he continued.

The firm’s headcount has also grown by 3% from 771 to 794 and all eligible colleagues received a bonus of 6% in June, adding to bonuses paid throughout last year.

Earlier this year the firm launched its first Middle East office in Abu Dhabi, which coincides with further plans to upgrade its Scottish offices later this year.

Speaking about the Scottish legal market more broadly, Scott continued: ‘We are anticipating that transactional markets will pick up as the year goes through. We’re anticipating there being more activity on that side of the business, but disputes services generally are also in strong demand.’

Later this year the firm will reveal its strategic plans for 2024 to 2027.

Elsewhere in Scotland, Morton Fraser has also reported its highest-ever annual revenue of £25.7m.

The firm said this is an increase of 8% year on year and an increase of 25% over the last two years.

Chief executive Chris Harte told Legal Business: ‘We’ve had a growth rate across the business which has been consistent, with particular spikes in corporate, employment and private client practice areas. It’s encouraging that we’re having broad growth, which is not overly dependent on one area.

‘We compete with a range of firms, including large international firms and local firms, and our focus is making sure we are focusing on those service lines. This has helped drive our success.’

All staff will receive a bonus of 6%, which is not limited to just fee earners.

Finally, national UK firm Freeths has announced the opening of a new office in Glasgow, marking the firm’s first expansion outside of England.

Addleshaw Goddard real estate partners Paul Ockrim and Nick Taylor have joined Freeths as part of the expansion, which will be the firm’s 13th office in the UK.

Freeths has also revealed a 15% growth rate in revenue, taking its turnover to £129m, up 220% from £40.2m in 2014.

National managing partner Karl Jansen told Legal Business: ‘The move into Scotland came at the right point and right opportunity. We are seeing increasing demand from our clients for Scottish work, allied with more energy work up in Scotland which is a key area of growth.

‘We are starting out in Glasgow with a real estate practice, but we plan on expanding into other areas such as construction and planning, and obvious areas like corporate, litigation and employment. We fully plan to build a full service offering in the country.’

Elisha.Juttla@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

The Horizon scandal: Legal Business in conversation with Post Office litigator James Hartley

Earlier this year, Legal Business sat down with Freeths’ disputes partner James Hartley to relive the headline-grabbing Post Office litigation. 

The litigation was born out of a high-profile scandal, in which more than 700 postmasters and sub-postmasters were handed convictions after a computer software system, called Horizon, incorrectly reported missing money in various Post Office branches between 2000 and 2014.  

After protracted legal battles, in 2019 the Post Office settled with 555 claimants, agreeing to pay £58m in damages. As of March 2022, 72 former postmasters had their convictions overturned, with convictions being quashed regularly since. It is officially the UK’s worst ever miscarriage of justice in terms of scale.  

Hartley (pictured), who led the successful case, witnessed first-hand the ups and downs of the saga, and he shared as much in the podcast. On the agenda: slippery litigation tactics, the ins and outs of disputes funding, and the harrowing personal toll the scandal inflicted upon postmasters up and down the country. 

You can listen to the podcast below:

 

Legal Business

Who Represents Who: The data behind the story

LB100: The rise of Freeths

Freeths has seen revenue almost double over the past five years (see Legal Business 100 table), and are often mentioned to our researchers by partners and general counsel alike as a firm that has significantly impressed. We take a look at the firm’s The Legal 500 rankings and some of the FTSE clients that it represents.

Legal Business

Record revenues: Freeths and Birketts enjoy bumper growth in 2015/16

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National law firm Freeths and Ipswich outfit Birketts are the latest LB 100 firms to report their financials, both enjoying record revenues for the year 2015/16.

It is the second year of double-digit revenue growth for Freeths, which posted turnover of £63.8m, up by 14.4%, from £55.8m in 2014-15, when the LB 100 firm also recorded 12% growth.

A statement from the Freeths’ management said all staff would receive a 6.65% pay bonus for May as a result of the strong growth.

The firm has 11 offices across England, employing 145 partners. Oxfordshire-based Freeths rebranded itself from Henmans Freeth at the start of June, three years after the merger between Freeth Cartwright and Henmans.

The last financial year was also strong for Birketts. The East of England law firm posted record turnover of £38.7m, up from £34.9m in 2014-15, which is a 9.8% rise.

Full service firm Birketts also announced the appointment of James Austin as senior partner, with Nigel Farthing stepping down from the role after 10 years.

Incoming senior partner Austin said: ‘It is a privilege to take over the reins from Nigel and to have the opportunity to build upon what has been a successful period in Birketts’ history.’

Birketts has expanded in recent years to include offices in Cambridge and Chelmsford as well as Ipswich and Norwich.

Austin added: ‘We have a clear strategy in place to build upon the momentum of recent years. In Ipswich this includes plans for the move to a new office in Princes Street in 2017 which will enable us all to be under one roof for the first time in many years.’

matthew.field@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Double-digit growth sees Freeths pass £50m in revenues as firm targets £100m by 2020

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LB100 firm Freeths has continued the trend of strong financial performances for law firms at the national level, posting double-digit revenue growth for the 2014/15 financial year and surpassing £50m in turnover.

The law firm’s turnover was up 12% on last year to £55.8m, helped by the continued integration of Oxford-based Henmans which the firm merged with in 2013 and provided over 15% of total revenues. The firm, which rebranded in 2014 from Freeth Cartwright, said it was looking at more mergers as it wanted to grow its current 11-strong national office network and generate £100m in turnover by 2020.

The current growth rate has seen the firm boost headcount by nearly 10% with 50 new staff added over the past year bringing the total Freeths workforce to 679 with Leeds, Sheffield and London growing particularly strongly. Given the strong growth results, staff at the firm have been rewarded for their performance with a 5% of salary bonus payment.

Chief executive Peter Smith said: ‘It’s an excellent result, ahead of our target, and the fruit of a lot of hard work to identify strategic opportunities, focus on business efficiency and deliver great customer service. Our office network around the country means we know our local markets, while our size and the expertise of our teams in various sectors means we can pull together big national deals.’

Standout work includes an £84m property deal involving the acquisition of more than 50 business centres across the UK by Bridges Ventures. The firm advised on all commercial and property aspects of the deal, involving more than 2000 business tenants, with a team from Nottingham, London, Manchester, Oxford and Leicester.

michael.west@legalease.co.uk