TLT has seen its partner profits drop by 26% for 2008-09, while revenue has taken a 5% hit.

Profits per equity partner (PEP) at the Bristol-based firm fell to £198,000 from the previous year's mark of £268,000.

The firm also saw revenues decrease over the year, with fee income now standing at £39m, a 4.85% drop on last year when the firm pushed past the £40m mark to £41m.

The firm said that its banking litigation, recovery and employment practices had performed well, but that transaction levels had dropped as a result of the global recession.

Last year TLT carried out two redundancy rounds, with a total of 26 fee earners and support staff departing.

However, the firm has said that it is to retain all six of its trainees qualifying in September and honour its commitment to provide training contracts to all 15 new trainees joining the firm in September 2009 and March 2010.

Managing partner David Pester said: "We have rebalanced the business to align with the market, and despite a challenging environment we have seen strong growth in areas such as banking litigation, professional negligence, employment and corporate recovery, and we are now starting to see an increase in transactional work. We also took the opportunity last year to invest in the business, its infrastructure and people, and we are confident about the future."

TLT is taking a number of steps to prepare itself for the upturn, including overhauling its current data systems. The firm has also recently made a number of lateral hires, including tax and estates chief Patrick Wooddisse, who joined from Burges Salmon.