Linklaters’ top-earning partner in the 2010-11 financial year took home £2.2m, the firm’s latest LLP accounts show.
The figure is some £641,000 above the £1.559m top-of-equity figure the firm posted for the financial year.
The LLP accounts, filed this week at Companies House, state that the sum paid to a member “can be substantially above that of a member of full profit entitlement because of compensation for such costs as tax and accommodation payable to members on secondment to other jurisdictions, or because of payments associated with joining or retiring from Linklaters LLP”.
The £2.2m figure is the same as last year’s, the accounts say. The 2009-10 amount was in itself down on the £2.5m earned by the highest-paid partner in 2008-09. The top-earning partner took home £3.4m in 2007-08 (11 December 2008), when the magic circle firm first filed LLP accounts after converting to the legal structure.
The firm turned over £1.197m in 2010-11. Operating profit was £372.4m, profit before members’ remuneration and profit shares was £348.2m, and profit for division among members was £343.8m.
This last figure is much lower than the £514m the firm initially posted as its net profit for the 2010-11 year because the earnings of partners not classified as members of the LLP are treated as an expense and subtracted for the profit figure.
The firm says there are a number of reasons for partners not to be classed as LLP members, including rules in foreign jurisdictions that prevent partners on the ground from being members of the entity.
Staff costs rose 2.5 per cent from £542.7m to £556.8m, while average staff numbers dropped marginally from 4,412 to 4,349. Fee-earner numbers dropped 1.8 per cent from 2,283 to 2,242, with support staff numbers falling marginally from 2,129 to 2,107.
Salary costs increased by 2.2 per cent on 2009-10, while social security costs dropped by just under 4 per cent. The firm spent nearly 35 per cent more on staff pensions, with the total figure rising from £9.26m in 2009-10 to £12.49m in the 2010-11 year.
Linklaters declined to comment.
Readers' comments (25)
Anonymous | 30-Nov-2011 11:27 am
meanwhile, there's public sector strike, over a million people are unemployed and everyone else in the legal industry is suffering... All i can say is it's a crazy world!
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Bobby Moore | 30-Nov-2011 12:28 pm
Do these figures represent the total earnings of this partner? Am I correct to assume that the chap would have been paid bonuses and other benefits on top? If I am correct, how much is he actually taking home in total? Thanks
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Anonymous | 30-Nov-2011 2:44 pm
Bonus on equity profits? Not sure that's how it usually works Bobby!
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Anonymous | 30-Nov-2011 3:34 pm
Thouroughly well deserved. There should be even bigger cuts in public spending so that people like this can pay lower taxes and take an even bigger share of national wealth, they deserve everything they get unlike the feckless scum working in schools and hospitals.
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Patrick | 30-Nov-2011 3:45 pm
Not only are there no bonuses on equity profits, the need to keep capital in the business, usually means that partners can't take out all the profit. If banks put the squeeze on, then drawings are often massively reduced to reduce borrowings.
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TheLawMap | 30-Nov-2011 3:46 pm
We often tend to forget that wealth creation is done by those at the top and not at the bottom of the social ladder. After paying the highest rate of tax to the exchequer and spending a lot of the money in British businesses, I should imagine that society had benefitted rather well. Why is there such a perception that those earning more is not contributing to society?
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Bobby Moore | 30-Nov-2011 3:58 pm
Thanks for the answers. Just trying to understand how it all works. Would he not get client introduction bonus or something like that? I have only just started and am trying to understand what the max earning potential is.... merci
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Anon | 30-Nov-2011 4:13 pm
We often tend to forget that wealth creation is done by those at the top and not at the bottom of the social ladder.
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Yes you are so right, salaries and wealth in our society reflect the amount of wealth 'created' by someone.
A TV newsreader earning £500k creates far more wealth than someone working in R&D at Rolls Royce on £50k. A partner in a law firm helping private equity companies to acquire and asset strip businesses, or helping hedge funds to speculate, creates far more wealth than a worker in a car factory.
Only the truly stupid or truly self-interested could believe such garbage. Go to the countries of the future, such as South Korea, China and Japan, and you will see that the attitude there is totally different. Real wealth is created through industry and technology and the development of national infrastructure, not by lawyers.
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Anonymous | 30-Nov-2011 8:04 pm
'took home' is a little misleading given the hefty tax burden in the UK. Let's up and move to HK where your money goes further and taxes re less.
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Anonymous | 30-Nov-2011 8:13 pm
Partners in big law take home millions, less than one is rare, a couple of millions is common and there are a bunch of them on 3 or more. Yet, they earn a fraction of what people of similar seniority earn in the banking and corporate world, actually, lawyers are the poor cousins in the City. If you are after money, you'd better change career. It is easy to judge from the outside, being a lawyer is a tough life, almost like being a doctor, your family life goes down the drain, you don't do this job for the money.
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