David Pester, managing partner of TLT Solicitors, has the air of a man who's got it all figured out. Since 2000, the firm's revenues have grown nearly six-fold, rising from a humble £10m to finally break into Legal Week's top 50 rankings this year with £58m.

Pester, who was elected to a fifth term at the helm in April, has been in charge for all but the first two of those years. Unsurprisingly, he is in relaxed mood when he meets Legal Week for lunch, whipping his tie off before the bread arrives.

"It's good to achieve external recognition, but our prime driver is not about being in the top 50," he says. "It's about being relevant to clients in the areas where we specialise."

There certainly isn't much ad hoc about TLT's approach. Pester insists the focus is – and will continue to be – on a couple of well-defined sectors, including financial services, leisure and retail.

"We aren't trying to be all things to all people," says Pester, explaining how the choice of specialities has a compelling logic behind it.

"[Retail and leisure] are interesting industry groups where some of the skills needed can transfer across. Take estate management; both of those sectors have large property portfolios. Outsourcing, commercial contracts, branding and IP work; we've become really well placed to provide these services to both."

Pester isn't averse to working with the bigger fish in the top 50 pond either, given TLT can't help but run into them when advising major banks such as Barclays, with which it holds preferred supplier status. There are advantages in terms of costs and efficiencies to partner with a firm of TLT's size, reflected in 2010 when Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer lined up the firm as a referral partner to cheaply and quickly respond to upturns in work.

"Some people struggle with the concept of collaboration on panels," Pester adds. "Particularly in financial services there are opportunities to collaborate…In the banking space we work with a few magic circle firms. It's all about assembling the most appropriate team."

TLT looks set to continue its steady, considered approach to growth. Having opened in Manchester last year, the firm has now taken on 22,049 square feet of permanent office space in the town. TLT's 60 Manchester staff, including 12 partners, already generate around £6m in turnover, exceeding original expectations for the region.

The year before the Manchester opening, TLT had also launched in Northern Ireland, and whereas others have used Belfast as simply a low cost centre for outsourced work, TLT now has more than 50 lawyers in the city practicing Northern Irish Law.

That headcount number is likely to grow, as Pester plans to continue a programme of strategic hiring in all of TLT's locations.

But would a merger to speed things along be completely out of character? After all, TLT did execute a successful combination with Scottish litigation specialist Anderson Fyfe in 2012 to leverage its particular expertise in financial services recoveries work.

Pressed on the possibility of another merger, Pester is far from convinced, favouring the organic growth strategy that seems to have suited his firm up to this point.

"Mergers can take you to new places, but you have to always think, what's the competitive advantage? Size doesn't limit success, just the amount of areas you can be successful in. If the clients say there's a need for size or scale in an area, of course we would look at it. But there's a danger of just getting big for the sake of it."

Though the firm remains very much UK-centric, it does have an international presence through its best friends' network, collaborating on litigation, real estate and franchising work with counterparts in India, China and the USA.

"We do have the capability to deliver services with our best friends," Pester expands. "Just yesterday I was talking to a client who wanted an introduction to our partner in New York. There's no reason we can't keep that under review, but we are keeping UK-centric."

With its foot firmly in the door, TLT may look to build on its success and break into areas of the market traditionally reserved for larger firms. But asked what the future hold, Pester has a typically straightforward answer: "It's going to be more of the same really: tactical acquisition, winning market share, and deepening expertise by bringing in new skills and developing further the expertise we already have."