Partners fail to reach Addleshaws' top PEP

Addleshaw Goddard has no partners at the top of the partnership's equity ladder, The Lawyer can reveal.

The 171-partner firm, of which 110 partners are in the equity, paid its highest-earning partners £679,250 for the last financial year.

The maximum payable under the firm's modified lockstep system would have been £783,750. The difference is £104,500 more than the firm's current highest-paid partners received.

Addleshaws managing partner Mark Jones said: "There's always room for improvement. There's no entitlement for partners to move up the equity scale at that range. It's entirely performance-related [and] they have to earn it."

The firm's partner remuneration system is based on a modified lockstep with a point range of 50-150 for equity partners. For the 2004-05 financial year each point was valued at £5,225.

Addleshaws paid out some £61.5m to all partners in remuneration in the financial year out of its turnover of £161.2m. It achieved a net profit of £51.8m and a profit per equity partner of £472,000.

The tightly held equity has helped Addleshaws build up a war chest, understood to be worth some £20m. The firm is budgeting for a major London relocation, with Jones aiming to have all his partners under the one roof in London by 2009.

Addleshaws recently exited its small Cannon Street offices and took a representative space in Noble Street, while the bulk of its London staff remain at Aldersgate.