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Meet the Boss: Howard Cohen

The managing partner of Salans' London office says firms that are flexible in meeting clients’ needs and efficient in delivering legal services can still enjoy healthy profits

Are you happy with the firm’s financial performance over the last year?

Revenue increased 28.5 per cent in the 2008 calendar year and I am pleased to say that a significant factor contributing to this growth was the ongoing “globalisation” of our practice areas and sector groups. 

Although currency fluctuations played some role in our performance, these results took us in to the UK top 20 for the first time, so on that score, I’m happy. 

Meet the Boss: Michael Greville

The managing partner of Watson Farley and Williams (WFW) says swapping partnership for an alternative shareholder structure would allow firms to spread their equity.

Are you happy with the firm’s financial performance over the last year?

Yes, we were pleased with the financial performance for the year ending 30 April 2009, during which revenue rose 23 per cent and overall profitability stayed the same in a period where our fee earner headcount grew by 17 per cent and the world economy went into free-fall.

Meet the Boss: Peter Crossley

The managing partner of Hammonds says there will be “no going back” to the days of easy profits as firms must develop added-value models of service if they are to be successful.

Are you happy with the firm's financial performance over the last year?

It has been a difficult year, but we have seen growth from our employment, pensions, asset based lending and business recovery teams, and a number of areas such as planning, litigation and competition have also performed strongly. We have also done well to grow strongly in both Belgium and Spain. We have taken positive action to adapt to the challenging economic conditions and as such we are satisfied with our performance. 

Meet the Boss: Kevin Gold

The managing partner of Mishcon de Reya says the general commercial climate remains tough but this provides an opportunity for the firm to hire talented lawyers from rivals

Are you happy with the firm’s financial performance over the last year? 

The last year has been difficult for all firms but we are fortunate to have been able to weather the storm better than most.  We saw a slight increase in turnover from £47.1m to £47.3m and a particular strong performance from our litigation team which continues to thrive.

Meet the Boss: Danny Gowan

The senior partner of Davies Arnold Cooper says that well managed firms with clear areas of strength and well defined strategies will see a return to profit growth

Are you happy with the firm's financial performance over the last year?

Yes, we have had significant revenue growth together with good profit growth in recent years despite the tough environment. This growth reflects a strong performance by our dispute resolution and international practices in particular. In 2008/09 we increased revenue to £45m from £37m in 2007/ 08, and £32m in 2006/07.

What is the outlook over the next year? Are you expecting to grow?

We are looking to consolidate on our recent growth and we expect our performance to be largely in line with last year. So far the signs are encouraging and we are slightly ahead of budget expectations after the first four months of this year.

Meet the Boss: Neil Kinsella

The managing partner of Russell Jones and Walker believes that while outside help is useful, law firms should have a lawyer at the helm.

Meet more law firm bosses

Are you happy with the firm’s financial performance over the last year?

Yes, we have been fortunate (with the benefit of hindsight) that we restructured all our business several years ago and already had tight control of our cost base

Meet the Boss: Neville Eisenberg

The managing partner of Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) is looking to emerging markets to drive growth and believes firms that emerge from the downturn in good shape can return to profits reasonably quickly


Read other Meet the Boss interviews

Are you happy with the firm’s financial performance over the last year?

Bearing in mind the collapse in transactional activity, I was pleased that we only had a small dip in revenues of 3 per cent. Our profits dropped more significantly though - a combination of pricing pressures and the investments we made in new offices in Moscow and Abu Dhabi. It is important not to take a short term view of financial performance and I am confident that we will perform competitively in the future.

Meet the Boss: Paul Murray

The managing partner of Beachcroft believes that while the days of ridiculous profits are gone, a series of targeted investments means his own firm will see a steady revenue and profit gains this year

Are you happy with the firm’s financial performance over the last year?

In the context of a difficult market for commercial services and against the substantial investment made in new ventures I felt our results were respectable.

Meet the Boss: Simon Beswick

The managing partner of Osborne Clarke is pleased with the firm's strategic progress but says it's too early to call a recovery 
(Read other Meet the Boss interviews.)

Hi Simon. Are you happy with the firm’s financial performance over the last year?

Since the majority of our business is transactional we have obviously been affected by the current economic situation. So just looking at revenues, the answer has to be no. However, we continue to make good strategic progress in growing the business with regards to the size and complexity of legal issues on which we are asked to advise. This included instructions on the Nomura/Lehman deal and the TadAz litigation, one of the largest disputes ever to go through the UK commercial courts.

Meet the Boss: Chris Carroll

Travers Smith’s managing partner believes M&A will boom again but law firms might never recapture the profit growth of the last five years (Read other Meet the Boss interviews.)

Are you happy with the firm's financial performance over the last year?

After our steepest ever fall in turnover and profits it would be stretching it to say that I am happy. But these are strange times and it is important to keep a sense of perspective. Travers has always been a cyclical practice with a heavy emphasis on transactional work.

With transactions trickling to a halt over the last year, our corporate practice's turnover fell by 35 per cent. But M&A has not gone away forever.

Meet the boss: Moira Gilmour

Field Fisher Waterhouse's managing partner tells us that lawyers will be working harder for less reward in the forseeable future. (Read other Meet the Boss interviews.)

Hi Moira, Are you happy with the firm’s financial performance over the last year?

Yes. Despite difficult economic conditions, we increased our turnover by 8 per cent and reported profits per equity partner of £515,000. Although our profits were significantly down from the previous year, this reflects, in part, the investment we made last year in lateral partners and in growing our European offices.

What is the outlook over the next year? Are you expecting to grow? Which areas are causing the greatest headaches? Is it too soon to talk about "green shoots"?

We have budgeted very prudently for next year and expect modest growth, if any.  As there is a time-lag between clients doing deals and then instructing solicitors, I anticipate that some of our transactional lawyers, particularly in real estate, will struggle to keep busy this year. 

Meet the boss: Alan Campbell

Dundas & Wilson's managing partner reflects on a difficult year for law firms.

Click here for other Q&As

Alan, it's been a tough year, with revenue down 12 per cent to £66 million and PEP down 20 per cent to £308,000. What's your take on the firm's performance? 

It's obviously disappointing to stop growing. This was our first revenue reduction for a number of years. But I think if you put it in context we can be relatively satisfied. You have to understand our performance against the market generally it could’ve been worse. If anything, we’ve put the year to bed and just want to move on.

Meet the boss: Simon Johnston

Nabarro's senior partner says he is cautiously optimistic for the year ahead but says there will be more competition among law firms for less work.

Read conversations with other managing and senior partners at the UK's top firms.

Hi Simon. Nabarro's revenue last year fell 9.7 per cent and profit per equity partner was down around 35 per cent. How happy are you with that performance?

Whilst a drop in revenue and profit is disappointing, it is not at all surprising in such challenging economic times. The firm's success over the last five years does mean that we have a very strong platform from which to maintain and continue to build our business. That allowed us to recruit 11 new partners last year, all with key client relationships and strategically significant practice areas.

We will also continue investing in the future of the firm by maintaining our intake of graduates for training contracts in 2009-10 and retaining some 80 per cent of our trainees from our September 2009 qualifiers, who have become associates within the firm. So we are in the best position to take advantage of the market when it picks up. We also specifically resolved not to defer new trainees who are due to start with us during this year.

Meet the boss: Tim Eyles

Taylor Wessing's new managing partner is optimistic that profits will bounce back next year after falling 29 per cent to £436,000 per partner in 2008-09, on revenue of £188 million. Click here to see how other managers of top law firms are expecting this year to shape up.

Tim, how happy are you with last year's performance?

All big law firms had a tough year. However, I am very pleased with our results given market conditions, our commitment to keeping our people and our investment in our fantastic new London offices. Our global turnover increased by 1.7 per cent and although profits fell we still managed to hire 16 new partners internationally.

We also have key differentiating areas of expertise with a strongly counter-cyclical element, for example our intellectual property and private wealth practices, which served us well in this period.

Meet the boss: Tim Jones

Tim Jones, head of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer's London office, talks about the year ahead. (Meet other bosses who have taken our Q&A.)

How happy are you with last year’s performance?

I am pleased with the way we responded to a completely new market environment. People got themselves busy by going after new leads, new areas of practice with real creativity and determination. We took some risks, individually and collectively, and they paid off.

Meet the boss: David Harris

Lovells' managing partner says his firm is performing respectably given the circumstances, but ducks the question about which competitor he'd hire if given the chance.

How happy are you with last year's performance?

We see our performance as pretty respectable given market conditions. We have a broader spread of practice areas than most of the other major international firms, with a strong counter-cyclical capability in business restructuring and dispute resolution, which goes some way to balancing out the fall off in the transactional areas. Our market-leading intellectual property capability is also less directly affected by changes in the economic cycle.

Meet the boss: Peter Martyr

Norton Rose's chief executive says that law firms can return to the levels of the boom years but will have to look to new markets. (See last week's "Meet the boss" with Herbies' David Willis, or before that, CMS Cameron McKenna's Duncan Weston.)

How happy are you with last year’s performance?

Given the general economic climate and our commitment to keeping our staff, I'm very satisfied with our results (which show a 6 per cent rise in turnover and 17 per cent drop in profit per equity partner). In the overall context of things, that's a very acceptable result and one that we're very comfortable with.

Meet the boss: David Willis

Herbert Smith's managing partner shares his views on the recession and how his firm is holding up. (Also read what CMS's Duncan Weston had to say on this.)

How happy are you with last year’s performance?

Our total revenue was up but profit down compared with the year before [revenue increased 5 per cent to £444 million, while profit fell as much as 22 per cent.] Activity levels in some of our transactional practices fell during the year, reflecting market conditions.

But it is a good time to have the pre-eminent disputes practice and most of our international offices had good years. So overall, given the external environment, I'm reasonably satisfied, although not complacent.