A disciplined industry focus and an international push have helped Holman take its chances. Suzanna Ring reports

"The worst thing you can do is believe your own hype," says Holman Fenwick Willan senior partner Richard Crump (pictured).

In Holman's case, that danger has been manageable, given that the firm's progress until recently has so often travelled under the radar. Yet the firm's recent run of form speaks for itself – in three years, it has risen 12 places up the top 50 rankings to currently sit as the UK's 26th largest law firm.

Over the last five years, revenue has almost doubled, from £61.6m in 2005-06 to £112.5m this year, while partner profits average a healthy £540,000 (slightly above the top 50 average, despite the firm running a low leverage of 1:4.3). It's certainly an impressive achievement given the sluggish economy, even for a firm with a heavy focus on litigation.

But for all its attempts to style itself as a low-key player, Holman's current momentum hasn't just happened – the firm has been increasingly willing to pursue aggressive expansion. The most visible evidence of that drive emerged in March this year when the firm sealed the deal to acquire Barlow Lyde & Gilbert's market-leading aerospace practice. The eight-partner group, which joined Holman last month, boasts highly-regarded performers such as new practice head Giles Kavanagh. It has also handed Holman more than 100 new client relationships including big name airlines such as Etihad Airways, Emirates and Cathay Pacific and defence group BAE Systems.

One partner from a rival firm comments: "[Holman] has been attracting some very surprising laterals recently, and I wouldn't have thought it would've been a prime candidate for some of them, but the very fact that it is attracting them is indicative of its standing in the market right now."

The aerospace acquisition has been generally viewed as an unqualified triumph – neatly fitting Holman's strategy of expanding its transport practice beyond its traditional shipping core and further reinforcing its international push. And the Barlows team was no one-off, with the firm having made no less than 17 other lateral hires over 2010-11, taking it to a total of 25 new partners across the year in addition to a nine-strong promotions round.

But if the fruits of the firm's expansionist style have only been recently apparent, they are the result of a strategic push in place for nearly a decade. In 2003 the firm overhauled its governance to bring in a managing partner role for the first time, handed to current managing partner Greg Gray, and replacing former senior partner Robert Wilson with energy and trade partner Roderic O'Sullivan (Crump took the senior partner role in 2007). It also replaced its management committee with a board made up of Holman's practice group heads and adopted a sector-focused approach.

While sector strategies now seem old hat, Holman's recent track record – and of course, that of its old shipping rival Clyde & Co – indicates that specialist transport and insurance firms are having far more success with this approach than commercial law firms. Presumably, a defined industry push from law firms already built on close connections to certain industries are more convincing to clients than those executed by full service generalists, who often like the sound of industry focus without having the discipline to pull it off.

Holman's goal was to style itself as the 'Rolls-Royce' choice for its core sectors: shipping, energy, insurance, commodities, aviation and logistics. Insurance and reinsurance head Paul Wordley comments: "Until the last few years or so, clients would look to use the likes of the magic circle to do all their work because they were there and considered the all-round best, but clients are now more open to looking at firms like ourselves who show specialist capability in our industry sectors. In effect, we are seen as 'magic circle' in our specialist sectors. This has been an important change in the market that has allowed us to take advantage of opportunities in terms of lateral hires and new clients."

Obviously, part of the firm's strong financial performance during tough commercial markets is due to its strong focus on litigation, with the firm deriving more than two thirds of its income from disputes work.

The other key component of its growth comes from a heavy investment programme that has focused on taking its core business international. The firm has doubled its number of offices from seven to 14 since 2003, with a further two alliance offices in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, mirroring the international drive of some of its closest competitors, such as Clydes. And with this growth – which explains its hunger for lateral hires – nearly half of the firm's revenues now come from outside the UK, which puts Holman in a very select club of London-based law firms.

Feedback from peers cites Australia as one of its strongest performers, where the firm has three offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth and has quadrupled its fee earner numbers in the region from nine to 36 since opening in 2006.

With a large market for natural resources and transportation, the set-up allows the firm to tap into work both locally and for the wider Asia-Pacific region, and supports the firm's plans to drive further into the oil and gas sector over the coming year outlined at its partner conference last month.

The US remains a blank spot for Holman, which has no public plans to expand into the continent at present. It has just set up its first office in Latin America with the acquisition of Barlows' Sao Paulo branch. And given how well Clydes has done in the US, it's hard to believe Holman will be waiting much longer to enter North America.

The firm has also not stopped refining its business in response to market conditions, announcing in September this year that it is set to reduce the length of its lockstep from six years to five from 2012 in an effort to simplify the firm's current partnership structure, as well as introducing a mandatory retirement age of 62.

Overall, it's a model that is similar but more concentrated than Clydes, whose own expansion has moved into a broad suite of insurance coverage and infrastructure-heavy disciplines like energy and international trade, but it has proved almost as successful in relative terms. The consensus view is that the combination of a very clearly defined market position and a briskly-run business that avoids strategic dithering has helped the firm attract an impressive array of talent.

Kavanagh comments on his reason for joining: "There were two things particularly that I noticed about the firm. First, it has managed to maintain a strong financial performance over a number of years, while also maintaining a culture that feels like a collegiate law firm culture. Second, management is progressive and ambitious."

The good news for Holman is that its current success strongly suggests there is substantial and still barely-met international demand for advisers focused on transport, energy and insurance – and a limited pool of global suppliers to compete against. But even if firms like Holman and Clydes seem to have opened up a field of opportunity – their key aim must be to fully stake their claim in this emerging cross-border market before the competition gets tougher because the field will not likely remain this open for long. Or, as Crump concludes: "The worst thing you can do is be complacent."