Shearman & Sterling's partner profits spiked by nearly 20% last year, as the firm posted revenue growth across several practices while also cutting back its equity partner ranks.

The firm saw revenue rise 6% to $912.5m (£731m), boosted by strong performances in M&A, international arbitration, asset management, real estate and project finance, said senior partner Creighton Condon (pictured).

Correspondingly, revenue per lawyer rose 5.9% to $1.085m (£870,000), as total headcount stayed steady at 840 lawyers last year, including 187 in London.

Condon said London revenues rose by 14% to $169.7m (£136m), citing a "strong year across multiple practices". He added that the firm continues to see London as a vibrant legal market, regardless of Brexit. UK law, together with US law, will continue to be the governing law of a very high percentage of matters, he said, adding: "We will see room for growth in London."

The London office revenue has grown 63% between 2010 to 2016.

London managing partner Nick Buckworth said: "London had a strong year. It is a great accolade to the partners in this office who remained nimble and flexible throughout what was a very difficult year. Our energy business was extremely profitable. Projects and M&A also did well. Capital markets was interesting: there was a slow start to the year approaching the Brexit vote but they went out after and really hit the markets hard."

Meanwhile, the stunning leap in profits per equity partner (PEP), up 18% to $2.165m (£1.74m), came as the firm's total equity partner ranks decreased by 22 to 140, its smallest number in recent years.

The firm confirmed last year that it de-equitised some partners. Condon, noting that some thinning of the equity ranks was tied to retirements, declined to say how many were de-equitised. He said the de-equitisation effort, which cut across a variety of practices and locations, related to only a small portion of the profit rise.

"The driver of the profitability," he said, was increased revenue, a focus on higher margin work and better management, including by reducing write-offs and improving realisation.

Last year's financial figures mark a turnaround from 2015, when average PEP fell nearly 4%, to $1.8m (£1.4m), while gross revenues grew just under 2%.

But Condon said the de-equitisation last year was "less about driving profits than being able to grow our business".

"We want to be able to have this structure to be able to facilitate growth," he said, adding that the firm has had non-equity partners, but now it's "a more formalised status".

While many Wall Street firms still maintain a one-tier partnership structure, Condon said: "Most firms that are global in the same way we are have a non-equity partner status, so we're effectively moving toward a model most firms are following."

"For us, it's a flexibility issue to be able to grow the partnership," he said.

Condon said he's not expecting any other significant changes in equity partner ranks this year, adding: "We think we're at the right configuration."

Despite the jump in partner profits, net income rose just 1.5% to $302m (£242m) last year. Condon confirmed that increasing associate compensation was a factor in keeping net income growth down. "Rising associate salaries were unbudgeted by all law firms," he noted.

While the firm saw improvement in several key practice areas, he said the practice areas "under pressure" were capital markets and leveraged finance, given market volatility.

And while Shearman has been frequently selected as litigation counsel for banking clients in recent years, he said, financial institutional litigation may begin to slow down. The firm is focusing on growing its docket of corporate client base litigation to counteract a decrease in litigation and investigations for financial institutions, he said.

Condon is optimistic about 2017, noting that the firm is on a "very strong trajectory", with overall revenue growth rising more than 20% in the past four years and PEP rising more than 30% in that timeframe.

Still, he acknowledges the outside challenges facing any large global firm: volatility from political events across the world and intensifying competition among high-end firms amid flat demand for legal services. In such an era, Shearman's growth comes from taking other firms' market share, he said.

"Your growth depends on an increase in your percentage of the market as opposed to a growing market, and the past four years we have been successful in doing that," he said.

Some of Shearman's most prominent work last year included advising General Electric (GE) on several transactions, including the combination of GE's oil and gas business and Baker Hughes to create a new publicly traded company; and advising B/E Aerospace in its $6.4bn (£5.1bn) sale to Rockwell Collins, a deal combining two large suppliers in the aerospace industry.

In capital markets, the firm advised the underwriters of Valvoline Inc.'s $759m (£609m) initial public offering.

Meanwhile, the firm is conducting an investigation on behalf of Wells Fargo's board into the bank's sales practices, after it was disclosed that millions of customer accounts may have been opened without authorisation.

Separately, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan's London office posted a 22% rise in revenue over 2016 to £44.8m.

Total turnover in the City increased from £36.8m to £44.8m. Profits rose 21% from £27.1m to £32.8m.

The firm has hired multiple London lateral partners during the past 12 months, including Macfarlanes head of financial services David Berman, Herbert Smith Freehills construction disputes partner James Bremen and Addleshaw Goddard civil fraud head Mark Hastings.