International law firm Pinsent Masons has today announced preliminary details of its unaudited financial results for the financial year 2014/15.
The firm achieved global turnover of £362.2m, up 12% on FY13/14. Profit per equity partner increased to £538,000.
The results follow a year of significant expansion at the firm. In March it announced plans to open offices in Sydney and Melbourne, before making up a record 29 partners – including five in Scotland – to take the firm's partnership to over 400.
The firm also announced the hire of Bruce Craig, former Managing Partner of Aberdeen-based Mackinnons, to head up its litigation practice in the Granite City.
The firm acted on deals worth over £5bn in Scotland during FY14/15 and currently has some 345 fee-earning lawyers across offices in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh - more than any other firm in the country according to a recent survey by Scottish Business Insider.
Pinsent Masons was also recently voted the most popular legal brand in Scotland in an independent survey of over 350 of the UK's most senior lawyers, conducted by research agency Acritas.
The firm also bolstered its record for innovation, winning the 'Future of Legal Services' category of the Legal Innovation Awards run by industry publication Legal Week.
John Cleland, Managing Partner at Pinsent Masons, said: "It has been a positive year in which we have reaped the rewards of several significant investments we have made over a number of years. The McGrigors merger, new offices in Paris, Munich and Istanbul, and significant lateral hires into Asia and the Middle East have all played their part. This has been an 'investment-lite' year by our own recent standards, and I would anticipate that over the next year we will make more investments than we did in the last. We've made great progress towards our vision of becoming an international leader in the global sectors in which we operate, and these results position us well to move further and faster in that direction.
"Roger Connon, Head of Pinsent Masons Aberdeen office, said: “Our growth in Scotland has been driven by some fairly chunky deals for investment in and around the North Sea, a number of major commercial property transactions, and continued roles on some of the country's largest infrastructure projects – not least among which is the Aberdeen West Peripheral Bypass.
“It has been a positive year but we are not complacent about the year ahead. Like industry, we have adopted the mantra of innovation and efficiency to deliver greater cost certainty. Pinsent Masons is a firm that has never been afraid to do things differently. Our contract lawyer business, Vario, is a good example of that - as is our cloud-based compliance product, Cerico. We have developed a number of solutions, which we are proprietary to the firm, that allow us to deliver services differently without compromising on quality. Put simply, we’ve learned the art of innovating in partnership with our clients.”
“We’re also continuing to build our capability across the oil and gas sector globally. We recently appointed one of the market’s stand-out offshore specialists in the shape of Bruce Craig, and have added sector experts to our team in London and Dubai. Through our offices in Asia, Europe and the Middle East we’re actively helping our clients pursue cross-border growth strategies across the world’s major energy hubs.”