New research from The Legal 500 has identified the leading London tax practices when it comes to client satisfaction, with Slaughter and May and Joseph Hage Aaronson among the firms coming out on top.
The findings come as a separate Legal 500 survey of the City’s leading tax partners has found partners are gearing up for an increase in work over the next 12 months, despite a challenging few years economically and plummeting deal activity.
The first survey, which canvassed the opinions of hundreds of tax clients as part of this year’s UK Legal 500 research, has identified the best performing firms across various aspects of client satisfaction.
Slaughters, BCL Solicitors, Macfarlanes and McDermott Will & Emery emerge among the strongest performers by overall client satisfaction across corporate tax, tax litigation and investigations and VAT and indirect tax in London.
Their positions here reflect high scores in particular areas of client satisfaction. Slaughters for example comes top for team quality, industry knowledge and value for corporate tax and comes first for team quality for tax litigation and investigations.
Joseph Hage Aaronson, meanwhile, comes first for industry knowledge for tax litigation and investigations, with Macfarlanes also scoring well with clients for this work, as well as criminal firms BCL Solicitors and Kingsley Napley, which are leading names for disputes at the intersection of civil and criminal tax.
Other standout performers across some of the metrics include Dechert, McDermott Will & Emery, Travers Smith, BCLP and Pinsent Masons.
‘I am delighted that the Slaughter and May tax team has been scored so highly, in particular, for overall client service,’ says Slaughters’ co-head of tax disputes, Dominic Robertson. ‘We pride ourselves on putting the client at the centre of everything we do, and excellence is deeply engrained in our culture. Versatility of our senior tax lawyers enables us to build “trusted adviser” relationships with our clients’ heads of tax, who feel they can ask us to advise on any tax question which arises.’
While the firms named above achieved the highest satisfaction scores, there were differences in overall satisfaction levels across the sub practices. For example, while tax litigation and VAT achieved consistently above average satisfaction rates compared with other practices in the UK guide, with VAT coming out particularly well, corporate tax lags slightly behind the average across all practice areas, suggesting many firms could do more to keep clients happy.
The client satisfaction findings come as The Legal 500’s first ever survey of ranked tax partners in London found that firms are gearing up to expand their teams to meet a predicted increase in demand prompted by uncertain market conditions.
The overwhelming majority of respondents (80%) are predicting increased demand for tax advice, with partners identifying a range of challenges facing corporates in the UK, where Brexit has ushered in uncertainty that makes tax planning difficult, at a time when HMRC is regarded as being increasingly aggressive.
Partners responding to the survey are also anticipating a rise in compliance work as tax systems become more complex across the globe. The OECD’s Pillar Two framework is one change adding to the compliance burden for large corporates.
The anonymous survey also questioned partners about internal developments at their firms, with many interested in the potential applications of AI in areas such as research and legislation tracking, as well as broader topical issues such as diversity and ESG. Notably, partners felt clients should be able to impose diversity and ESG standards on the law firms they use.
Overall, The Legal 500 ranks nearly 100 firms for tax advice across the UK, with 70 of these firms ranked in London. DWF, Pinsent Masons, Slaughters, Baker McKenzie, DLA Piper and Squire Patton Boggs have more tier one rankings than any other firms, with two apiece.
DLA, Slaughters, Bakers and Pinsents, as well as Herbert Smith Freehills and Macfarlanes, are the top performers by number of ranked individuals in the current UK Legal 500 research.