Pinsent Masons' global turnover rises 6%
Turnover at international law firm Pinsent Masons rose by 6% to £449.8m in the year to 30 April 2018, unaudited results released today have shown.
Fees billed rose by 10% on the previous year, and in the last five years turnover has increased by more than 40% while profit growth has risen by 60%. Profit per equity partner in the latest year increased by 4.4%.
In the previous year revenue grew by more than 10% while profit per equity opartner was up 2.3%, after a sharp rise in 2015-16.
Pinsent Masons said the results followed a period of sustained investment in the firm's platform and people, including a new technology and financial services focused practice in Dublin, the rapid expansion of an office in Madrid which opened in early 2017 and an energy and infrastructure practice in Perth to complement its Australian offering in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as the acquisition of the Brook Graham consultancy.
The firm employs 540 staff in its Scottish offices in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
It highlighted that approximately 90% of revenues are now generated from clients operating within the firm's core global sectors of Advanced Manufacturing & Technology, Financial Services, Infrastructure, Energy and Real Estate.
The firm has also announced that senior partner Richard Foley has been elected for a second term after an uncontested election. A champion of doing business responsibly, during his first term Pinsent Masons surpassed its target to achieve 25% female representation within its partnership, and promoted a more open approach to gender pay gap reporting by UK partnerships. In the past year the firm was named the top professional services firm for LGBT inclusivity by Stonewall, listed among the Top 50 UK employers for women by The Times and was one of the first law firms to be featured in the UK’s first Social Mobility Index.
Managing partner John Cleland commented: "Our vision is to be recognised as an international market leader in the global sectors in which we specialise, and what we are seeing in our financial results, year after year, is the benefit of investing in being an organisation that clients enjoy working with.
"We will continue to build out our platform, investing in new propositions and delivering on the promise of technology-enabled legal services – but it's also about being an organisation where our values are imperatives.
"We were pleased to be named the UK's leading legal brand this year because the research reflects the feedback we get from our clients, which is that our people are consistently living up to the promises we make to the market. We see the firm's sustained financial success over a number of years as a consequence of that commitment."
Richard Masters, the firm's chair for Scotland and Northern Ireland, added: "Our involvement in some of the largest corporate transactions, representation at the top levels of strategically important bodies such as Fintech Scotland and the TechX initiative, and the promotion of our next generation of talented lawyers show that our Scottish offices are in robust health."