Deloitte research shows revenues up across top 100 as a whole

The UK's top 100 law firms have seen a 4% year-on-year increase in fee income as trading conditions continue to recover, according to research from professional services firm Deloitte.

Figures compiled by the accounting giant for the last quarter of 2010-11 show that fee income across the group rose by an average of 4.5% on Q4 2009-10. The Q4 results mean that, for the year as a whole, revenues across the group grew by 3.9%.

By revenue, firms in the 26-50 bracket saw the largest increase during 2010-11, with fee income rising by 5.2%, while those ranked 11-25 saw an increase of 3%. Turnover for the top 10 UK firms rose 3.3% over the year, with the 51-100 bracket seeing a similar increase of 3.7%.

Deloitte professional practices partner Jeremy Black (pictured) commented: "Q4 was better than expected when considering factors like the number of bank holidays in April. However, the average figures do hide increasingly polarised performance levels. While some firms are achieving strong growth, others are suffering an absolute decline in their fee income."

The research shows that one third of firms saw Q4 fee income either rise by more than 15% or fall by more than 6%.

Black added: "The average prediction for the next year from firms is 7% growth, but I think that's optimistic. There is definitely another challenging year ahead."

Travers Smith senior partner Chris Carroll said: "It's not altogether surprising that overall fee income has nudged up a bit this year. The first quarter of the preceding year, in particular, wasn't too hard to beat.

"When fee income goes up and chargeable hours go down that can be either because rates have gone up and/or because more partner time is being deployed. I find it very hard to predict the next year. A Greek default seems both inevitable and inevitably bad news for everyone, but may not happen for a while yet."