Disputes work brought in more than a quarter of combined revenue across the UK's largest law firms last year.

Legal Week's annual UK top 50 ranking found that, of the 35 firms providing a breakdown of turnover by practice area, litigation brought in the largest share of total revenue in 2014-15, at 27.9%.

This is marginally higher than corporate, which accounted for 26.5% of total revenue, and almost double the finance percentage of 14%. 

Including data from the traditionally disputes-strong insurance firms – Clyde & Co, Kennedys, DAC Beachcroft, Holman Fenwick Willan and Weightmans – the percentage of revenue generated by litigation rose to 33.2%. Across these firms Kennedys received the largest percentage of its fee income at 86%.

Outside this group Browne Jacobson and Stephenson Harwood has the largest disputes practices as a proportion of total revenue at 55% and 47.6% respectively.

By value, DLA Piper took the most in disputes turnover at £571.1m in 2014-15. This constituted 38% of its total revenue, which stood at £1.5028bn. There was a 12 percentage point difference between corporate and litigation turnover, with corporate fee income of £390.7m making up 26% of total revenue.

Commenting on the results, Simon Levine, DLA Piper's co-chief executive officer, said: "Corporate has done particularly well; we had our fair share of deal volume and quantum. The market has become much more sophisticated than it was 10 years ago."

Hogan Lovells recorded the second highest disputes turnover of any firm with £323.4m. Disputes work made up 30% of its total revenue, which stood at £1.08bn. The firm recorded only a one percentage point difference between disputes and corporate; its corporate turnover stood at £334.2m, making up 31% of its total revenue.

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Andrea Monks, litigation partner at Hogan Lovells in London, said: "English courts continue to be an attractive place for litigants to bring their disputes. And on top of litigation in the courts, there's also been significant enforcement activity by financial regulators recently, which has driven activity across contentious practices in the City, particularly those who act for financial services institutions."

Out of the main three practice areas firms were asked to provide revenue figures for (corporate, litigation and finance), finance made up the smallest share of firms' total revenue. It accounted for 12.8% of revenue across all of the firms surveyed.

Looking at finance revenue, CMS had the second highest turnover, taking £162.6m in the practice area in 2014-15. Finance work constituted 21.6% of its revenue for the financial year, which totalled £753.9m. However, it was the firm's corporate practice that was its biggest with £258m of revenue.

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CMS managing partner Duncan Weston (pictured) said: "Our corporate practice continues to have a strong pipeline of large deals which is a sign of a strong economy."

Twenty-five of the firms in the UK top 50 provided a breakdown of their fee income by region, with the numbers skewed by the fact many of the most international firms did not provide this data. Of those that did, combined turnover in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), including the UK, totalled £3.75bn, the largest of any region. UK turnover alone accounted for 55.3% of these firms' total revenue at £3.34bn.

Firms' total revenue in the Asia Pacific region was £264.9m, which accounted for just 4.4% of its overall revenue.

The Americas accounted for 20.7% of total global revenue for firms taking part in the survey. That figure was pushed up by DLA Piper's and Hogan Lovells' large presence in the region.

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