With just over 200 lawyers and only 48 partners, Foot Anstey has been among the ten fastest-growing firms in the Legal Business 100 over the last five years. Stretch that track back to six years, and the firm has nearly doubled its turnover to £47.2m. Profit per equity partner has also grown 52% since 2014, up a healthy 8% to £400,000 in 2018/19.
That growth, including a 9% revenue uptick this year, has come from a smaller base than many but is also organic. The firm’s corporate practice grew by about 30%, property litigation was up 23%, and the finance team boomed on the back of 75% growth in Islamic banking and private equity work lifting 85%. New client wins included motorway service operator Welcome Break, private equity firm Livingbridge, and a reappointment to FTSE 100 retailer Kingfisher’s legal panel. It also advised on the £1.6bn Pivot Power electric vehicle recharging network – the world’s biggest.
Managing partner John Westwell, in charge for just over a decade, attributes the success to a focus on fewer areas and specific sectors. The firm conducted a strategic review of its core sectors this year, ensuring it was putting its resources into productive areas, such as private equity. It made several lateral hires over the year, including Mark Millar, who was general counsel and company secretary at AA.
It has not all been good news, however. Enable Law, a separate £10m-plus medical negligence business the firm launched in 2017, only grew by about 2%. But despite ongoing economic and political uncertainty, Westwell sees the disruption as an opportunity to grow, rather than retrench. ‘A recession is no excuse – our number one objective is to grow market share. We’ll do that by understanding the opportunities that will come from a disrupted market and make sure the business has its own finances in order to hit the economy as it improves again, when others might have battened down the hatches.’
How has the firm nearly doubled in size over the last six years?
John Westwell: It’s mainly been a focus on fewer areas and specific sectors rather than being all things to all men. In particular, it’s been a focus on having the right kind of client in terms of alignment of the firm and it’s been ensuring we’ve got the right talent in the business at different levels of seniority. We’re focused on organic growth because we find it the most profitable way to grow and it preserves the culture that the partners value.
What significant developments have you made in the last year?
Westwell: We’ve looked at co-counselling and invested quite a lot of time into building relationships with Magic and Silver Circle firms to be able to work directly with them on client projects. Together, the firms can deliver projects where there is value in every element. General counsel are looking for their advisers to collaborate and work together and looking for value: put all that together, and the direction of travel is very much co-counselling.
Have you considered external investment for the Enable Law business?
Westwell: We haven’t been in anyway tempted by any sort of private equity involvement in the business. We’ve been able to substantively invest using traditional methods of funding. There have been approaches, but the partnership wants to be masters of their own destiny and doesn’t want to be subsumed in a larger firm through merger and neither does it want to fund the business by private equity involvement. It’s as straightforward as that.