IMPROVED fee income has been reported in the legal profession, however this has not led to an increase in profits.
The findings have emerged in in the annual legal benchmarking review from Henderson Loggie, in conjunction with the firm’s UK accountancy association MHA.
The report says profits remain flat as firms invest in salaries and increased headcount to cope with their workloads. They are also facing the costs of auto enrolment pension schemes and increasing premises costs.
David Smith, head of the professional practices sector at Henderson Loggie said bigger was not always better.
“As well as staffing and property overheads, inefficiencies in productivity and time management can have a significant downward pressure on net profits and improvements can be made through the use of technology,” he added.
He said that it is clear from the review that larger firms have not made substantial changes to their working procedures. Over the last three years, there has been no increase in information technology (IT) spend as a percentage of fee income.
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