Stewarts Law has partly recovered from a 20% drop in turnover last year in what managing partner John Cahill described as a ‘very satisfactory’ year, although partner profits have continued to fall.
The UK’s largest litigation-only firm increased revenue by nearly 11% to £69m in the 2018/19 financial year, following a 20% drop in turnover from £77.9m to £62.4m last year. Profit per equity partner (PEP) decreased a further 16% to £1.2m from last year’s £1.4m: a figure that had dropped 28% the previous year.
On a five-year basis, however, revenue has increased by 49%, with PEP up 7% on average in that time. The firm is aiming for revenue of £100 million by 2022.
Cahill (pictured) commented: ‘We are pleased to post another very satisfactory set of financial results. During the year we have made significant investment in new practice areas including financial crime and media disputes.’
The firm appointed in June last year Richard Kovalevsky QC as a partner to head up the new financial crime department, joining after 13 years at 2 Bedford Row. David Savage also joined the team from SG Kleinwort Hambros Bank recently.
Cahill added: ‘I indicated last year that our revenue patterns would be ‘non-linear’ and that remains the case, although both revenue and PEP have increased over the last five years.’
Stewarts is acting for 58 institutional investors including the BAE Systems pension scheme, the Church Commissioners, Bank of America, the government pension fund of Thailand and the American Red Cross in an on-going case against Tesco. The firm is also representing 280 individuals in a case against Ingenious Media regarding investments in film and video game production partnerships.