The lower half of this year’s UK 200 generated a total revenue of £1.407bn in 2015/16, a rise of 7.5 per cent on the previous year’s £1.308bn, research by The Lawyer has found.
The results are included in this year’s The Lawyer UK 200: The Independents report, published on Monday (10 October). The increased total revenue confirms the trend for consolidation in the lower reaches of the UK market but also underlines the extent to which several firms are outperforming their rivals.
This year the threshold to enter the Independents rose by 13 per cent from £7.5m to £8.5m, the highest entry point ever into the UK 200 ranking. At the top end of the Independents the increase was 5.7 per cent.
The average turnover of a firm in The Lawyer’s second 100 ranking stood at £14.07m, compared with £13.1m in 2014/15.
The total number of fee-earners, qualified lawyers and partners generating this extra income also grew. Fee-earner numbers rose by nearly 6 per cent, breaking through the 10,000-person milestone from 9,563 to 10,122. Total lawyer numbers rose by a slightly lower level, 4 per cent, from 6,415 to 6,671 while the total number of partners inched up by 2 per cent, from 2,627 to 2,689.
The full report, which includes individual profiles on all 100 of the firms in the ranking along with a wide range of benchmarking statistics, highlights several of the mergers, bolt-ons and acquisitions that have characterised the UK market recently.
The most recent came this Monday (3 October) when West End firm Seddons, which appears in this year’s Independents ranking at number 79, merged with BD Laddie, a four-partner property and family-focused, 70-year-old London firm.
The deal is likely to propel Seddons’ turnover higher again in 2016/17, a trajectory it has been on for the past three years.
Last year revenue continued to rise rapidly at Seddons, with an 8.7 per cent hike to £10.6m following the 11.5 per cent turnover increase it managed between 2013/14 and 2014/15. Revenue has now increased by 21.5 per cent increase over the past three years.
Elsewhere in the Independents there were some spectacular turnover increases during 2015/16. Merseyside personal injury firm Fletchers, which launched in 1987 and made its debut in The Lawyer UK 200 last year with a turnover of £12m, saw its total revenue mushroom by 37 per cent to £16.4m, the highest revenue rise in the entire Independents ranking.
To buy the full UK 200: The Independents report, please contact Richard Edwards on richard.edwards@centaurmedia.com or 0207 970 4667
The post UK 200 rankings revealed: Independent law firms set bar higher than ever appeared first on The Lawyer | Legal News and Jobs | Advancing the business of law.