UK's 100 largest firms see fee income rise 10% in first quarter

The UK's top 100 law firms have experienced a sharp improvement in their fortunes in the first quarter of the financial year, with fee income up 10.1% year-on-year. 

The figure, contained within Deloitte's quarterly law firm survey, marks the first time that the top 100 firms have achieved double-digit growth in five years, and is up from 3.8% in Q1 last year and just 2.6% for the final quarter of 2012-13.

Growth was strongest among firms outside of the top 25, driven in part by a succession of merger deals, with fee income up 14.6% in the 26-50 bracket and 13.4% in the 50-100 group. The UK's top ten firms saw respectable growth of 5.2%, with 7.4% for the 11-25 category.

Kennedys senior partner Nick Thomas (pictured) said his firm's underlying growth was on par with the figures cited by Deloitte, with revenues set to be further boosted by recent mergers with aviation firm Gates and Partners and Scotland's Simpson & Marwick. "We're seeing business, and growth, as usual this quarter," he said. "I was saying six to nine months ago that we were probably out of the recession then, and it looks like these figures are now confirming that this was the case."

The research also shows law firms are confident about the outlook for the coming financial year, forecasting an average fee income increase of 5.1%, including an increase of 4.2% predicted for the next quarter.

"Things have been very flat for some time now, so to see such an uptick is surprising and encouraging," said Deloitte professional services partner Jeremy Black. "People used to think that law firms were immune from the economic cycle because some parts of their business were counter-cyclical, but, while they may be, they are only a small part of their business."