When taking on the managing partner role at Leeds firm Walker Morris in May 2024, Jeanette Burgess felt she was ‘inheriting a very stable ship.’
She took over a £74m firm which had just recorded its third consecutive year of double-digit growth, and had set out its ‘Ambition 27’ target of hitting £100m by 2027.
Under her leadership, that progress has continued, with the firm recently making it five in a row with an 11% hike to £90.2m for 2025-26.
With the Ambition 27 target now only a year away, Burgess is confident the firm will succeed, with one more year of double-digit growth set to push it over the line.
‘It’s been a process of evolution, not revolution,’ Burgess says. ‘The focus has always been on building the platform we’ve already delivered. Our key priorities, as per the Ambition 27 strategy, are investment in talent and innovation, and driving international growth as well.’
While the firm operates from one office in Leeds – and is the largest single-site law firm outside of London – its global client base has been a key driver behind the growth, according to Burgess, with 25% of its 2025-26 revenue generated from international clients.
As part of its Ambition 27 strategy, the firm has been focusing on specific ‘strategically important’ sectors, including corporate, infrastructure and energy, and real estate, with defence formally added to this list earlier in the year following a review.
On the firm’s strategy, Burgess says: ‘It’s about delivering sustained growth by evolution. It’s a focus on scaling a long-established national and international practice by maintaining momentum and delivering sustainable, profitable growth to support our revenue goal.’
Throughout her first term as managing partner, Burgess has also sought to build on the firm’s momentum by investing in AI training, as well as continuing to promote internal talent, with three new partners, eight directors and 15 senior associates made up this May.
Transitioning to a managing partner role has been ‘a fairly steep learning curve’, according to Burgess, a regulatory lawyer by trade.
‘I’d been practising as a regulatory lawyer for 26 years, and there is a certain comfort that comes with doing something that you’ve done for many years and that you know well. But I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being managing partner.’
For Burgess, the role appealed to her for a variety of reasons, including ‘the prospect of getting under the skin of the business, looking at things from a broader perspective than just your own team, getting to know the people really well and using that as a sounding board to inform strategic decision-making going forward.’
Her success in the role was recognised earlier this year at the Legal 500 Northern Powerhouse Awards, where she was named Management Partner of the Year.
‘We’re delivering something that’s different’
Even in the short span of two years, a lot has changed in the industry, with private equity investment rising up the agenda as an option for firms looking to finance growth.
However, Burgess says this is not something the firm is ‘actively looking at’.
‘We don’t think it aligns with our strategic direction of travel. It’s really important that we retain the ability to incentivise and reward talent that comes through in the same way that my generation was incentivised, and the private equity model doesn’t necessarily lend itself to optimising that.’
The same rule also applies with regard to a potential merger, she says. ‘As we move into the final year of our Ambition 27 strategy, we’re on track to deliver that sustainable growth. Looking at what lies ahead for us, I don’t anticipate that will involve merging, taking PE investment, or making any decisions that don’t support that evolutionary growth that has paid off for us.’
For the final year of her first term, Burgess intends to steer the ship in the same, forward-looking direction: ‘We’re delivering something that’s different and our clients tell us they value that,’ she says.
‘We’ve always had a really distinctive approach in terms of being fiercely independent, and we’re really proud that we are one of the UK’s largest independent single-site law firms.’
Burgess concludes: ‘The market will continue to change and evolve, but increasingly there is a place for us because we offer a different proposition.’
