It has been an unlikely and unheralded turnaround. It is not all that long ago that Stephenson Harwood was being written off as a basket case after a sustained period of poor financial and senior departures left this once-prestigious City brand teetering on the edge of if not collapse then something worse: irrelevance.

And yet this month the firm has unveiled its fourth consecutive year of substantial turnover growth, with the top of the equity now sitting at £900,000. Headline figures put turnover 19% up on last year to just over £85m, while profits per equity partner have grown 17% to sit at an average of £620,000.

This represents some 165% growth for a firm whose partner profits were loitering around the £200,000 mark just five years ago. And without any gross deviation from the roughly 50:50 split between equity and salaried partners. By any estimation, not bad going.

Much of the turnaround has been attributed to current chief executive Sunil Gadhia (pictured), who, as one observer comments, has got all the partners "rowing together and, what's more, rowing faster" since he took the helm in 2004 – quite a feat given the firm's once notoriously hard-to-manage partnership.

Under Gadhia, the firm has lost a lot of its flab, shedding around 20 partners and launching what was one of the toughest performance cuts made by a UK law firm to date. Although it undoubtedly bruised a few egos, the review represented the turning point.

The problematic 2002 merger with Sinclair Roche & Temperley was one of the driving forces that led the firm to take a serious look at its key sectors – at the time financial services, shipping, real estate and technology. Looking back on those years, critics see it as too narrowly-based, backing itself into a corner. The firm was linked to several potential mergers that would have engulfed it, while vulturine recruiters circled looking to pick off key teams. As one consultant summarises: "They didn't focus on much and what they chose to focus on just wasn't good enough. It was the poor relation to its pukka shipping and finance rivals."

The firm now has a markedly different outlook. A number of well-thought out hires have given it a wider base and a more synchronised feel. It has attracted talent it couldn't have dreamed of a few years ago, like aviation finance partner Paul Richardson from CMS Cameron McKenna, Nabarro transport head Mary Bonar and Addleshaw Goddard real estate partner Robert McNally among others.

The firm's finance practice is now one of the main drivers of the business, incorporating a successful aviation practice headed by former Lovells partner Guy Liddle, a robust litigation practice and a successful corporate group. Behind the figures this year is growth of over a third for the finance practice in addition to a 40% hike in revenue for the litigation practice and similar increases in corporate.

Much of Gadhia's focus for the coming year will be on continuing to build the Asia practice, which has been one of his biggest successes, with 34% revenue growth in Singapore alone this year. He is also set to put renewed emphasis on the firm's asset finance group, expanding beyond aviation and shipping to encompass a wider transportation practice. That said, one hallmark of the firm in recent years is a very tight focus, a focus Gadhia promises to maintain despite its recent successes.

Managing to sustain such striking growth for a sixth successive year in the current markets that would be impressive; nonetheless, in its new incarnation the firm is well placed to ride the rough and as the consultant comments: "They have delivered a big '**** you' [to critics] and, with partner profits like that, they have every right to be smug."

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