Norton Rose set itself apart from most of its top 10 City rivals over the last financial year after launching a bold initiative to avoid redundancies and hiking turnover by more than 5%.

The firm posted a 5.7% increase in revenue to £314m against a 17.3% drop in profits per equity partner (PEP) to £517,000. The climb in turnover means the firm beat the average by revenue growth across the top 10 City firms, which was enough to take Norton Rose into the overall UK top 10 – knocking Ashurst into 11th place.

The 17% drop in PEP, though significant, needs to be seen against the fact that Norton Rose remains one of only a handful of top 50 firms not to make any redundancies to date.

Norton Rose avoided cuts after receiving overwhelming staff support for its innovative flexible working scheme in April, allowing management to put staff onto a four-day work week at 85% of base salary or a sabbatical of between four to 12 weeks at 30% of base salary.

Its profits are also being spread more thinly as the firm increased equity partner numbers by 8% over the year, going from 158 at the end of April 2008 to 172 on the same date in 2009.

As well as having a strong dispute resolution practice, the corporate team advised on a number of key transactions – acting for HSBC on its £12.5bn rights issue as well as advising beer giant Carlsberg on a £3.2bn rights issue.

Norton Rose's desire to distinguish itself from rivals has also seen the firm secure the first tie-up between a major UK and Australian firm. It will merge with Deacons in January, though will retain a separate profit pool.

Commenting on the year, chief executive Peter Martyr said: "We had a strong first half but a difficult second half. We have managed to keep our promise of continuing with our strategy so overall we've had a relatively strong year. In what has been a difficult environment, the work we have put in has paid off."

Norton Rose on the Legal Week Wiki