HARPER Macleod expects to report a 14% uplift in fee income thanks to growth across all of its practice areas.
The law firm told The Herald it should post a rise in turnover from £16.8 million to £19.1m for the 12 months to March 31, 2012, when its accounts are audited. That would represent a 39% growth from the £13.7m declared in 2008.
It has also increased staff numbers by about 30% from 211 to 275 during the credit crunch and recession.
Chief executive Martin Darroch said: "I'm delighted with our performance in the past year, particularly as it is hard market conditions for everyone."
During the most recent year the average number of fee earners increased from 107 to 159.
The company has attracted lawyers from larger firms including Freshfields, DLA, Dundas and Wilson and McGrigors, and added partners such as Tony Cameron from MacRoberts and John Meehan from Semple Fraser.
The firm now has 170 fee earners, which pushes it towards the top of the rankings of mid-tier firms in Scotland but behind the traditional big five of Dundas and Wilson, Maclay Murray and Spens, Shepherd and Wedderburn, Brodies and McGrigors.
Mr Darroch said Harper Macleod had managed to grow market share even in tough areas such as construction and property. In retail and leisure the firm acted in the openings of Easyhotel and Indigo in Glasgow while also working for companies such as William Hill, Optical Express and Arcadia.
Its sport practice benefited from winning clients such as Glasgow 2014 and SportScotland, while the public sector arm secured work from the Accountant in Bankruptcy. Energy and natural resources, insurance, corporate and private clients were other strong performers.
Mr Darroch believes the legal market in Scotland is going through major changes.
He said: "The simple rule of economics is supply and demand and the legal sector needs to adjust. The very significant returns that equity partners thought they were entitled to will just not be there for firms which have not adapted. It is really about sticking to your objectives of what you want to be as a firm. Successfully run businesses are the ones which can still attract talent in and we've continued to do that.
"The long-term prognosis is pricing is not going to go up and the deals we saw between 2006 and 2008 are not coming back in the medium term. For the vast majority of our clients it is not just about the lowest price. It is about quality and service levels but some of the price-led discounting we have seen from competitors does not marry with the costs they have."
The firm advised on deals in 17 countries during the most recent trading period. Mr Darroch said: "That includes the US, India, China and Australia. In some instances our people are going out there to provide strategic business advice alongside legal advice."
Further growth is expected in the current year with expansion at its offices in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness.
Mr Darroch added: "For the year ahead we are looking to break the £20m barrier and we believe we have the capability to do that."
The firm's chairman, Professor Lorne Crerar recently agreed to fill the same role at Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Its Connect2Law referral service, which allows smaller firms to access Harper Macleod services, now has more than 170 members.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article