"It sometimes feels like you are handed a priceless vase and have been asked to take it on a journey. The vase is the baton in a relay race and I'm now passing it to David."

After five years at the top of Travers Smith, Andrew Lilley is reflecting on his time as managing partner before he makes way for ex-Paris office head David Patient (pictured) on 1 January.

Over his two terms – the second of which he has deliberately shortened from three to two years so he could return to fee earning – the former employment chief has overseen a 35% rise in revenue, with the firm now hovering around the £100m mark.

It has taken a lot of hard work and late nights.

"I think it's opened my eyes to how complex a task it is to run any business," he says. "You have an idea of the complexity but until you start doing it the scope of the role doesn't dawn on you."

"It's sometimes easy to forget how much work goes into just holding your position…The lights are still on, the phone is still ringing with the sort of work we want to do. The icing on the cake has been our increases in market share and profitability across our practice areas."

Patient, who ran against Lilley in the election that secured his first term, will face headwinds in his first year in charge; clients may take their foot off the gas come election time, and the prospect of a disruptive EU referendum still lingers on the horizon.

But the M&A lawyer is up for the challenge. Having launched Travers' Paris office, which only practices English law, 15 years ago he will also juggle client work with management when he takes over.

"I recognise that, particularly initially, I will have a limited amount of time [to do the client work]," Patient admits. "[But] Andrew has been a great help. We deliberately have this period of transition; you can't arrive on the day completely unprepared."

Though the firm does not publicise the details of its strategy plans – (Lilley says that without a crystal ball you can spend too much time planning around hypotheticals) – there are some hints as to what future direction it will take.

The firm's financial services regulation team, which grew under Lilley in response to an ever-more active regulatory environment, is set for further expansion. The outgoing chief is also keen to see more collaboration between the firm's pensions, restructuring and dispute resolution teams on projects like longevity swaps.

The firm expects the Paris office to develop under the new leadership of corporate finance and private equity partner Will Howard, with Patient noting that despite the firm's small international footprint around 50% of instructions have an international aspect, with the firm acting across 100 jurisdictions in the last year.

Patient is also keeping his eye on trends in workplace flexibility and agile working, as well as the rise of the accountants in the legal profession. He insists that the likes of EY, which recently gained an alternative business licence to operate in England and Wales, don't pose a threat to Travers, though they may well take chunks of work from other mid-market firms.

The most imminent change he will oversee may not sound terribly dramatic: the refurbishment of Travers' London office, starting in early 2015 and lasting some 12 to 18 months.

But then Patient hasn't come in for an all guns blazing strategic shift, and that's not surprising for a firm whose reputation for tradition and stability precedes it. The same goes for lateral hiring plans, given Travers' preference has always been to promote from the inside, and that around half of the firm's 66 partners started out at the firm.

Stephanie Biggs, who joined Travers' private equity team from Kirkland in November, was the first lateral hire in three years, and the third since 2004.

"The strategy that we have has served us well; we are an independent law firm, and that's something we will continue to focus on" says Patient, though he adds that the firm would be prepared take on more lateral hires under his watch if there were suitable opportunities to do so.

As the firm's financial year runs from July to June, the firm won't know if any new initiatives have paid off until well into 2015, when Patient's debut set of half year set of results as managing partner are confirmed.

If they match the performance of other similarly sized firms like Taylor Wessing – up 7.3% in the UK for the first half of 2014-15 – the general feeling is that Travers will have done okay.

And in three years' time, when Patient's first term comes to an end, what does he want the firm to look like? Simple, he says: "I hope the firm still looks like that beautiful vase."