When K&L Gates published comprehensive financial results on its website back in February it marked a rare bid for transparency by a major US law firm. Without the disclosure requirements foisted on their UK counterparts by regulations governing limited liability partnerships, financial information about US firms to date has been fairly limited and available on their own terms. 

That is not to say that UK firms have been a beacon of transparency. While we aim to shed light on the performance of the leading firms in the form of our UK top 50, and most do co-operate – thank you – it seems each year there are new and varied excuses as to why certain figures are not available (although Allen & Overy deserves credit for its efforts at financial disclosure, being one of the few firms to produce detailed – and audited – figures at this stage).

Several others have been far more opaque, with much jiggery-pokery around exchange rates and the exact definition of an equity partner, while the way in which profits per equity partner are calculated varies wildly from firm to firm.

With the proliferation of Verein-type structures, it is undoubtedly harder to produce meaningful financials on a firm-wide basis. And following any merger, it is clearly more difficult to draw like-for-like comparisons from one year to the next. But not impossible.

The crux of the matter is that firms are keen to know how their competitors are faring, but without the obligation to disclose full financials themselves. The relentless downturn also means firms are much less keen to publicise underwhelming performance, as many – particularly in the squeezed middle-tier – continue to struggle.

However, while much of the key financial information will be available to partners at the firm, the majority of fee earners will remain in the dark. And for as much as there is constant pressure from partners to grow revenue and increase profits, one would hope that they also want to know how much money is being spent on those new office launches or that major IT investment, rather than just waiting for their payouts.

For any partner looking to join a firm, financial transparency should be vital. You can bet that the former partners of Halliwells and Dewey & LeBoeuf wish they had been kept in the loop. 

Law firms may never have the financial reporting obligations of the listed companies they so often advise, but as the remaining results from the top law firms come in over the next few weeks it is interesting to note which are acting like corporates and practising what they preach.