Russell-Cooke

The last financial year was steady as she goes for Russell-Cooke, one of the few remaining all-equity partnerships in the UK 200, with a 5.5 per cent rise in turnover from £23.3m to £24.6m. The London-based firm also posted a 7.5 per cent rise in average profit per equity partner to £190,000.

Russell-Cooke made a number of key hires in the 2011–12 financial year, including Jeremy Sivyer, head of the commercial group at Simmons & Simmons, and hired senior planning solicitor Alex Ground from Herbert Smith.

Contentious work was among the strongest performers but private client did less well. This mirrored charities work the previous year, which in 2010-2011 suffered a revenue drop of around 20 per cent, although that has now been rectified. Commercial property did well as did the matrimonial practice.

About 7 per cent of turnover in 2011–12 was generated by loss-making publicly funded work, in particular childcare, criminal defence and some clinical negligence work.

Every year, the 45 members of Russell-Cooke’s all-equity partnership put forward a business plan to the board to help formulate individuals’ remuneration.

While overall headcount remained static in the 2011–12 financial year, the number of qualified lawyers rose by 14 to 127. That growth highlights a trend at the firm to reduce the number of support staff proportionate to fee-earners.