This year’s Legal Business 100 coincides with the most inauspicious of anniversaries after a year with the most inauspicious of beginnings. A decade since the start of the global financial crisis and just over a year since the result of the Brexit referendum, the perception is that political and economic uncertainty has ultimately had little impact on the performance of top 100 UK law firms. Particularly on those at the top.
The drama has been well documented. UK and European markets continued to show resilience, mainly aided by foreign investment, despite the last financial year starting off with six to eight weeks of post-referendum impact. By Christmas, transactional practices were upbeat and grew stronger into 2017. Then article 50 was triggered just before the end of the financial year and unease settled in again.