Pinsent Masons' contract lawyer service Vario growing at 25%-30% a year
Vario head says flexible lawyering service growing in revenue by 25%-30% a year
June 08, 2016 at 07:06 PM
3 minute read
The head of Pinsent Masons' flexible lawyer service Vario has revealed its revenue grew by nearly 30% last year, and is set to do the same this year.
Head of Vario Matthew Kay wouldn't disclose the exact revenue generated by Vario in 2014-15, but said: "We had a very good year financially; we achieved very strong growth and that is on a maturing business, not just startup growth, and we expect to see the same again this year."
Kay took over as head of Vario in January, joining from recruitment company TMP Worldwide and taking over from the previous directors, Pinsents partner Alison Bond and co-founder Katherine Thomas, both of who have left the firm and are now working as independent consultants.
According to Kay, the service has nearly 250 lawyers on its books and he said its stable of lawyers "grows all the time".
Goals for his leadership include expanding the service's footprint in the UK, signing up more junior lawyers and expanding internationally.
Kay described the UK contract lawyer market as "heavily weighted towards London", and said he hopes "to further develop Vario within areas outside London to meet that client demand".
He also wants to sign up more junior lawyers to the service, again to meet client demand. Kay said: "The contract lawyer legal market is maturing, but I guess making the decision to step from a permanent role into a contract role is easier for those further on in their careers."
However, he argued that becoming a contract lawyer can be attractive to junior lawyers, because of the opportunity to work in-house, have a more varied experience and have greater work-life balance.
"We have one person who owns a sailing company; it provides the opportunity to embrace some of the other passions in their lives that are more difficult when you are working the long hours that come with private practice," Kay said.
The appeal would seem to be spreading internationally – rivals have set up shop overseas. Eversheds' contract lawyer service Agile launched in Asia in 2015, while contract lawyer business LOD merged with Asian counterpart AdventBalance in February 2016, to give it access to the Asia-Pacific contract lawyer market. Allen & Overy's contract lawyer business Peerpoint expanded into Australia in February.
On Vario's international expansion, Kay would not confirm which jurisdictions were being looked at, but said it would be unlikely to be jurisdictions where Pinsents does not have offices.
In a maturing contract lawyer market, Kay is reluctant to plan ahead beyond one year.
"It's difficult to forecast beyond 12 months as the market is evolving rapidly and there are new entrants in the market regularly."
However, he was willing to set out his aims to make Vario one of the top contract lawyer offerings in the market.
"I am determined that Vario should be seen as one of the top one or two players in the UK market," he said.
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