Back in 2018, Therese Pritchard and Lisa Mayhew – then freshly appointed co-chairs of the first significant financially integrated transatlantic merger in more than a decade – sat down with Legal Business to talk about Bryan Cave and Berwin Leighton Paisner’s ‘prize’ $900m, 1,600 lawyer union.
Continue reading “Marking a merger: how is BCLP’s transatlantic tie-up faring?”
While this year’s LB100 has found transatlantic law firms experiencing slower revenue growth than their more tightly focused peers, an analysis of five years of data highlights how large-scale UK-US mergers are driving up profitability at a much steeper rate.
Continue reading “Transatlantic firms outstrip peers on five-year PEP growth, LB100 data reveals”
The LB100 results for 2023-24 are in, and while the demise of the mid-market has been long forecast, the numbers suggest it’s a good time to be a medium-sized law firm.
With average revenue growth of 10%, this firms in the 51-100 bracket are well up on last year’s equivalent performance of 6% and keeping pace with the overall average, while they are also are outpacing the top 20, which this year saw average growth of 8%.
The UK’s 100 largest law firms increased profit per equity partner (PEP) by an average of 13% during the last financial year, with near across-the-board hikes coming despite the rising costs of associate salaries.
On the back of double-digit revenue growth for more than half of the LB100 during 2023-24, average PEP rose to £844,000 after profitability had remained effectively flat during 2022-23.
Profit per lawyer (PPL) was also up, from an average of £100,800 last year to £116,200 this year – an increase of over 15%.
Richard Medd’s tenure as Browne Jacobson managing partner began in the spring of 2020, amid the chaos of the early months of Covid. While many would view such timing as unfortunate, Medd sees it differently: ‘Looking back, there were advantages to starting at that time. The whole world was starting again, which gave me a chance to implement my ideas.’
Continue reading “Moving up the food chain: Browne Jacobson on rapid growth and remaining inclusive”
When it comes to rating and ranking the best law firms, there’s no shortage of metrics to choose from.
Whether it’s revenue, partner profits, headcount or law firm rankings (and there are well-worn arguments about the relative merits of all of these), the information is out there for market-watchers to make their assessments.
But what is less immediately available – and arguably more valuable – is quantitative data on how clients rate the service they get from law firms.
Over recent years, Legal 500 has collected data from hundreds of thousands of clients on this subject by asking them how strongly they would recommend the firms they use to others, with responses ranging from 0 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely).
We’ve used this data to calculate a Net Promoter Score (NPS) – a market research metric devised by Bain & Co – for every firm, which means we can re-order the firms in Legal Business’s Global 100 by a completely new metric.
While some law firms already collect their own NPS data for internal purposes, we are uniquely able to see how firms stack up against each other – and breaking down the data into more specific groups reveals some interesting insights on which firms are the most highly recommended.
For UK heritage firms, Slaughter and May has the highest score with 79.9%, followed closely by Freshfields (78.9%). Fellow magic circle firm Linklaters is fourth with 77.1%, and those three outscore Clifford Chance (75.4%) and Allen & Overy on 74.9% (our data predates the merger with Shearman & Sterling, which scores 75.6%).
The top five UK heritage firms also include Hogan Lovells in third with 77.6%, and CMS in fifth place with 76.3%.
However, all of those are outscored by the elite Wall Street firms, led by Paul Weiss on 89.6%, followed by Cravath, Sullivan & Cromwell, Davis Polk and Simpson Thacher.
How the scores are calculated
Respondents that score firms nine or 10 are categorised as ‘promoters’, with those scoring 7 or 8 defined as ‘passives’ and those scoring their firms with six or less categorised as ‘detractors’. The NPS score is then calculated by deducting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
For example, if 100 clients are surveyed and 80 provide a score of 9-10 (promoters), with a further 10 passively scoring the firm 7-8 and the final 10 detractors scoring it 0-6, then the firm ends up with an NPS score of 70%.
This reordering of the global hierarchy shines a light on some firms that, while less well-known, appear to be making the right impression with clients.
Philadelphia-headquartered firm Cozen O’Connor scores highest with 96%, just ahead of Canada’s McCarthy Tetrault (95.3%) and Washington DC’s Venable (91.7%). Paul Weiss is fourth overall, just ahead of Chicago’s Seyfarth Shaw (89.6%).
For more information about our NPS scores and to find out more about how your firm ranks, please contact ben.wheway@legal500.com
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“Net Promoter®, NPS®, NPS Prism®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter ScoreSM and Net Promoter SystemSM are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.”
https://www.netpromotersystem.com/resources/trademarks-and-licensing/
‘If anyone had all the right answers, they’d be getting all the work in the City,’ jokes Cleary London private equity partner Michael James, when asked for tips on how junior partners should start building up the books of business needed to guarantee their long-term success.
In an industry as competitive as the top-end London legal market, with no shortage of talented lawyers and firms ready to undercut prices, the reality is that getting that initial book of business off the ground – and keeping it – can be tough.
What do clients really think about the service they get from your firm? Every year, the Legal 500 asks hundreds of thousands of clients how they rate firms on a range of metrics, including lawyers and team quality, value, billing, and industry knowledge.
The scores we collect allow us to benchmark firms against each other – this article looks at how DLA compares to its peers for lawyers and team quality.
How DLA compares to the Global 100 for lawyer and team quality
The graph below shows all scores for the Global 100 firms – the green dots representing firms which score above average for lawyers and team quality, and the red dots below. DLA’s score of 79.52 sits below the Global 100 average of 81.97.
Lawyers and
Team Quality
Quality of partners 82.29
Quality of associates 74.80
Partner availability and engagement 81.87
The client scoring data also shows how DLA Piper rates in comparison to its competitor firms for quality of partners, quality of associates, and partner availability and engagement, among many other key metrics.
(The rest of this article is available to logged-in users only. If you are not logged in and unable to do so above, please click ‘Forgot your password?’ below to gain access to the full article). Continue reading “The Client’s View on DLA Piper – how do your lawyers score?”
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Limited version Continue reading “Access your pdf edition of LB magazine – issue 322”
How do your clients rate the service they receive from your firm? Every year, we ask hundreds of thousands of clients to score firms on metrics such as lawyer quality, billing, communication and expertise, as part of the Legal 500 research. As well as providing insight on each firm, this means we can also benchmark firms against each other.
Clifford Chance scores 80.94 for lawyers and team quality – as illustrated below, that score is 1.03% below the average for Global 100 firms; better than DLA’s score, but below Linklaters. Conversely, Herbert Smith Freehills scores 0.33% above the average.
(The rest of this article is available to logged-in users only. If you are unable to log in above right, please click ‘Forgot your password?’ below to gain access to the full article). Continue reading “Rating the lawyers – what the data tells us about Clifford Chance”
