The accountancy giant’s survey found fee income at the UK’s top 25 law firms grew by slightly more than 17% against the same three-month period the previous year, compared with a 23% rise in the first quarter of the financial year.
However, the largest firms are still growing faster than the rest of the top 100. Revenues for the entire top 100
Firms also saw fees per partner increase across the second quarter, with firms in the top 50 seeing average increases of around 10% to hit £294,000, compared with £275,000 for the first quarter.
The survey results support views that firms’ positive half-year results — when several firms including Ashurst, Herbert Smith and Norton Rose reported increases of more than 20% — were propped up by a strong first quarter.
Jeremy Black (pictured), an associate partner in Deloitte’s professional practices group, told Legal Week: “The results are stronger than we might have expected given the current uncertainty, and firms are predicting they will grow by just over 10% for the full year. Law firms are relatively robust in terms of how they perform in difficult market conditions.”
The research is the second quarterly survey that Deloitte has carried out on the legal sector. It compiled responses from 60 of the