Deloitte survey highlights strong start to financial year as top 100 firms remain bullish
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The research found growth was even more marked for larger law firms with turnover across the top 50 increasing by around 20%, while firms across the top 25 reported annual growth of more than 23% against the same three-month period in 2007.
The turnover increases came alongside strong growth in fees per partner. Top 50 firms reported an average increase of 15% in fees per partner to £275,000 over the quarter, while that figure increased by almost 20% to £386,000 across the top 10.
In contrast, partner fee income across the bottom half of the 100 firms increased by just 5%, bringing average fees per partner across the 100 firms to £205,000 — 10.5% more than the same quarter last year.
Despite current jitters following August’s turbulence in the debt markets (see page 3 lead), law firms are also optimistic about their performance across the entire financial year, with the top 50 predicting a turnover increase of around 15% and the top 100 expecting to achieve growth of 13%.
The survey — the first quarterly research Deloitte has carried out for the legal sector — comes on the back of a record year for
Legal Week’s top 50, published in July, revealed turnover across the group increased by 14% in 2006-07 while profits per equity partner grew an average of 13.5%.
Jeremy Black, an associate partner in Deloitte’s professional practice group, said: “Everyone talked about what a good year they had last year, so to have such a strong first quarter is excellent. It will be interesting to see what the half-year figures look like.”
Linklaters’ incoming managing partner, Simon Davies, told Legal Week: “We have had a very encouraging start to the year across the firm. The markets have been quite choppy in the last few weeks but we are seeing signs of improvement.
“What we are going through is a correction and I think it will be in the interests of the market in the longer term. If the bubble had continued at the rate it was growing, it would have burst more severely at some point.”
