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LB100 case study: Travers Smith

David Patient

You can always rely on Travers Smith for revenue growth; the City independent has posted its ninth consecutive year of financial expansion. Although, in many ways, the 18% uptick in turnover to £146.9m was a triumphant bounce back from 2016/17’s results, when revenue inched up just 4% against a backdrop of Brexit uncertainty.

The revenue increase is more impressive when considering that only £900,000 of the £146.9m figure was generated overseas – in Travers’ small Paris branch – emphasising the firm’s strength in its domestic market. Continue reading “LB100 case study: Travers Smith”

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LB100 case study: Hill Dickinson

Peter Jackson

Things have gone from bad to worse at insurance and shipping specialist Hill Dickinson, as the firm recorded a second consecutive drop in turnover.

Hill Dickinson would have hoped to improve on 2016/17’s less-than-stellar 1% fall in revenue, but this was off the cards when a 5% drop to £96.8m was announced. The impact was softened by a more robust showing in profitability with profit per equity partner rising 22% from £274,000 to £334,000. However, this is largely attributable to the firm cutting its equity partner count from 57 to 47. Continue reading “LB100 case study: Hill Dickinson”

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Methodology and notes

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LB100 law firms

The firms that appear in the Legal Business 100 (LB100) are the top 100 law firms in the UK (usually LLP partnerships but also some alternative business structures – see footnotes), ranked by gross fee income generated over the financial year 2017/18 – usually 1 May 2017 to 30 April 2018. We call these the 2018 results. Where firms have identical fee incomes, the firms are ranked according to highest profit per equity partner (PEP).

Sources

An overwhelming majority of firms that appear in the LB100 co-operate fully with its compilation (see ‘Transparency’, below) by providing our reporters with the required information. A limited number of firms choose not to co-operate officially with our data collection process and in these circumstances we rely on figures given to us by trusted but anonymous sources. Continue reading “Methodology and notes”

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Ireland: A case to make

Businessman running to Dublin

Centuries of imperiousness towards the Irish could be one of England’s greatest historical mistakes, and when Legal Business set about asking Irish independents whether Dublin is a viable alternative to London for disputes work following Brexit, it felt as though this underestimation was very much alive today. However, the Irish legal elite remains defiant in the face of any English condescension.

‘Absolutely it’s viable,’ says Dillon Eustace’s managing partner Mark Thorne when asked if the Irish Bar’s initiative to promote Dublin as a global disputes centre was realistic. ‘You’re asking if the big independent firms have the talent to achieve that, and the answer is yes, absolutely.’ Continue reading “Ireland: A case to make”

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Legal Business 100 2018: Main table

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The Last Word: One way or another

From retaining talent to going public, LB100 leaders give their take on how to survive in an age of disruption

Go big

‘The markets are pretty buoyant in terms of legal services despite all the economic and political disruption out there. It was a particularly good year if you are global and full service. Anecdotally, I talk to lots of managing partners and the firms that have had a harder time I tend to think of as being quite niche or quite local to a particular country or market. The broader you can be geographically and from a service point of view, the better you’ve done.’
Simon Levine, global co-chief executive and managing partner, DLA Piper Continue reading “The Last Word: One way or another”

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Behind the numbers – Profitability revealed

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In this table we blend together the three key profitability metrics – profit per equity partner (PEP), profit per lawyer and profit margin – to discover which of the top 100 firms are the most profitable. The firms have been ranked according to their aggregate score across all three measurements. Firms marked * are either listed firms or alternative business structures and do not have equity partnerships, meaning their ranking for PEP bears no relation to profit distribution. See methodology for further explanation. Continue reading “Behind the numbers – Profitability revealed”

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LB100 Second 50: London stalling?

Political montage

With initial post-referendum Brexit shock giving way to pre-breakaway uncertainty, the boutique and mid-market London firms in the second half of the Legal Business 100 are maintaining a brave front in the face of political and economic uncertainty.

Overall the story is encouraging for London firms in the second 50, with total revenue up 6% to £774m, with an average revenue of £40.7m across the 19 City firms in the second – the same number as last year. Average profit per equity partner (PEP) spiked by 12% to £409,000. Continue reading “LB100 Second 50: London stalling?”

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LB100 Second 50: Regional view – Comfortably numb

Consolidation, planning, investment and ‘cautious optimism’ proved dominant themes for the smaller regional and national firms in this year’s Legal Business 100 (LB100). The 31 non-City firms in the 51-100 bracket grew steadily amid a slow summer and dip in confidence during the 2016/17 financial year. Last year, however, the group’s collective revenue only managed a weak 1% rise to £1.27bn, with an average revenue of £41m. While real estate and construction continue to boom, deal flows are noticeably beginning to slow for many.

While regional firms are typically less productive per capita than London counterparts, that gap has widened. Revenue per lawyer was £181,000, down 8% and much lower than the £264,000 in London. Profits tell a similar story: profit per lawyer down 10% at £38,000, against £80,000 in the City. Continue reading “LB100 Second 50: Regional view – Comfortably numb”

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LB100 case study: Harbottle & Lewis

Glen Atchison picking up his Management Partner of the Year award at the Legal Business Awards 2018

Harbottle & Lewis maintained its status as one of London’s fastest growing law firms last year, with the West End firm continuing its recent trend of double-digit growth and proving itself as a Legal Business 100 (LB100) standout. Overall revenue increased by 26% to £35.5m, up from £28.1m last year, while profit per equity partner (PEP) increased by 32% to £670,000 from £509,000 last year when the PEP figure suffered 2% decrease. Over the last five years, the firm has seen revenues grow 48% and profit by 86%. The favourable figures also saw Harbottles hustle its way into the top ten fastest-growing LB100 firms in both PEP and overall turnover, no mean feat considering the sharp-elbowed nature of London’s legal market.

The tip of Harbottles’ spear remains its private client and media and entertainment practices, recently strengthening the latter with the hire of ex-Barclays managing director Jonathan Burt from Harcus Sinclair, as the two practices saw a significant pick-up over the last 12 months contributing to strong growth at the firm. Continue reading “LB100 case study: Harbottle & Lewis”

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LB100 case study: Shepherd and Wedderburn

Stephen Gibb, Shepherd and Wedderburn

Scotland’s third-largest firm by revenue, Shepherd and Wedderburn, had largely been thought to have fallen behind Brodies and Burness Paull recently. However, Shepherd has matched the revenue growth of its larger peers over the last five years, up 49%. And after a dip in 2016/17, revenue and profit both returned to growth this year, up 6% and 10% respectively. Revenue now sits at £53.5m and profit £22m, while profit per equity partner (PEP) increased more than 15% to £403,000.

Highlights from the year included advising FanDuel on its proposed merger with Paddy Power Betfair, as well as becoming the first top-100 UK law firm to offer funded litigation in partnership with Burford Capital. Chief executive Stephen Gibb (pictured) says real estate and corporate have been particularly busy, with deal activity flowing through into the start of this financial year: the firm advised fintech company Nucleus Financial Group on its £140m AIM listing in July, for instance. Continue reading “LB100 case study: Shepherd and Wedderburn”

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LB100 shrugs off Brexit fears as fees hit £24bn but leaders wary of chaotic winter ahead

Framed by mounting unease in the face of bitter Brexit negotiations, an uncertain business outlook and an inconclusive 2017 general election, the Legal Business 100 (LB100) has defied expectations to post one of its strongest performances of the last decade.

Despite a wider environment harking back to the turmoil and divisions of 1970s Britain, the LB100 shows the UK’s leading law firms driving group turnover up 10% to £24.2bn. The group generated total profits of £7.6bn, for comparison roughly ten times that of FTSE 100 retailer Sainsbury’s, or twice that of banking giant Barclays. Continue reading “LB100 shrugs off Brexit fears as fees hit £24bn but leaders wary of chaotic winter ahead”

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Summer news in context

Barclays

New Law buyout sees EY acquire Riverview Law

A sign of things to come?

After Lawyers On Demand (LOD) earlier this year secured private equity backers, fellow New Law pioneer Riverview Law in August announced a sale to Big Four group EY. The deal, which saw original backer DLA Piper offload its remaining 14% stake, has been cited as evidence of the Big Four’s renewed push into legal services. EY’s global head of alliances for tax, Chris Price, has become the chief executive of the rebranded EY Riverview Law. Continue reading “Summer news in context”

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Disputes Eye: Hunting krakens – As finance and Russian work slows veteran litigators look to key trends and opportunities

Clive Zietman

As the torrent of post-financial crisis litigation continues to slow, litigators are increasingly wondering: ‘What next?’ Certainly, 2018 has so far been quieter than 2017 from a disputes perspective, across big-ticket and mid-level matters.

Canvassing industry veterans on the trends to watch, however, shows plenty of areas of opportunity litigators spy on the horizon. Perhaps the most talked-up area right now is the prospect of litigation linked to this year’s implementation of GDPR, the EU-wide regime updating data protection and privacy law. The complexity of the legislation, and potential fines of up to 4% of global turnover for companies that breach the new rules, unsurprisingly means many lawyers forecast plenty of compliance and enforcement-related work. Continue reading “Disputes Eye: Hunting krakens – As finance and Russian work slows veteran litigators look to key trends and opportunities”

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High (street) stakes as Gaucho collapses into administration and House of Fraser saga takes yet another twist

‘There’s going to be a lot of distress on the high street,’ Weil, Gotshal & Manges partner Adam Plainer told Legal Business last autumn in an extended assessment of the City restructuring outlook. Given that insolvency lawyers have been confidently – and wrongly – predicting a flood of work since the banking crisis, such claims generally attract some scepticism. Yet the forces battering the high street did indeed in 2018 send a string of familiar names to the corporate vultures.

This summer’s collapse of Gaucho Group, the owner of premium Argentinian steak purveyors Gaucho and Cau, became only the latest casualty, amid a malaise that has seen dining and retail stalwarts struggle with shifting consumer behaviour and rising overheads. Continue reading “High (street) stakes as Gaucho collapses into administration and House of Fraser saga takes yet another twist”

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The one true law – in conversation with Lord Neuberger

Richard Lissack QC: David, why a career in the law?

Lord Neuberger: It was after cancelling out other possibilities. I was a scientist at university – a chemist. I was influenced by my father, a successful scientist. I quickly proved to be an unsuccessful scientist. I went to career advisers. They said do law or go into the City. In those days the City involved no exams and law did, so I went into the City. Continue reading “The one true law – in conversation with Lord Neuberger”