Harper Macleod advances after "memorable" 2014-15

Legal firm Harper Macleod, legal advisers to the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and one of the event's sponsors, has announced best-ever financial results for its latest financial year.

Fee income for the latest financial year rose by 5% to £22m, while profits were up by 7.5% to almost £8m. Growth took place across all of its key sectors over the year, particularly in banking & finance; private client; food, leisure & hospitality; and technology. The firm has seen a successfully iinvolvement with startup businesses, being a partner of Entrepreneurial Spark, and with crowdfunding ventures.

In September Harper Macleod also acquired the business of private client practice Bird Semple, which helped to bring its headcount to 313 by the year end. The imminent arrival of two new Edinburgh partners, in banking & finance and dispute resolution will bring its partner strength to 63.

The firm also announced today that its Edinburgh operation will move to new offices at Citypoint, 65 Haymarket Terrace in June, tripling its office space in the city. In the past year it doubled its office space in Inverness and undertook a major refurbishment of its Glasgow main oiffice.

Chief executive Martin Darroch said: “We’ve doubled the number of partners on the ground in Edinburgh over the past two years and around a quarter of our partners advise clients and operate out of our offices there already. The new office assists our growth aspirations as we continue to identify talented individuals and teams to join the firm.”

Commenting on the past year he added: “It’s been a memorable year in many respects. We are already one of the leading firms headquartered in Scotland – the fourth largest law firm by number of partners, and the fifth largest professional partnership overall. We’ve created sustained growth by thinking and operating as a business first and foremost, one that just happens to be in the business of law. Now we’re looking to accelerate that growth to take advantage of the major opportunities we see in the Scottish legal market."

Mr Darroch said that with no one firm having more than 5% of the overall market, there was a real opportunity to increase market share as the legal scene continued to evolve.

“We are extremely confident in our strategy of organic, sustainable growth and remaining an independent, Scottish-based business – one that carries out specialist, high-value work for clients across all sectors. Whatever the client or sector, from our perspective it’s all about delivering a best value service.”