| Turnover | £322m | | Profit per equity partner | £535,000 | | Equity spread | £240,000-£1,050,000 | | Net profit | £71.2m | | Profit margin | 22 per cent | | Revenue per lawyer | £181,000 | | Revenue per partner | £751,000 | | Revenue per equity partner | £2,421,000 | | Total no of fee-earners | 1,977 | | Total no of assistants | 1,347 | | No of partners | 429 | | No of equity partners | 133 | | Total no of female partners | 99 | | Total no of female equity partners | 20 | | Total no of staff | 3,741 | | Leverage ratio (equity partners/fee-earners) | 7.9 | | Representative clients | Barclays
HBOS
Royal Bank of Scotland
Virgin | |
This was the year when DLA Piper cracked it. The
firm enjoyed yet another year of record growth, both
in turnover and global reach. Turnover rose 17.6 per
cent to £318m, while PEP increased 12.6 per cent to
£535,000. However, the equity is held by just a few
select partners - indeed, it is among the tightest
equity partnerships in the City. When The Lawyer's
average PEP is applied, which includes both equity
and non-equity partners, the figure drops to £300,000.
The biggest story this year was the $1.4bn (£764m)
tripartite merger with US firms Piper Rudnick and
Gray Cary. It received unanimous support from the
partners and catapulted DLA into the global top 10.
But the expansion did not stop there. The firm
now boasts 50 offices worldwide thanks to managing
partner Nigel Knowles' tour of Europe. The firm
launched in Russia by scooping EY Law's Moscow
and St Petersburg offices; made its debut in Germany
after raiding former ally Görg; and snatched
former Coudert Brothers practices in Italy, Spain
and Belgium. It also completed the largest lateral
hire in UK legal history when 11 media and IP partners
from Denton Wilde Sapte joined in December.
The firm won a high-profile client, the owners
of the World Trade Centre site, the Port Authority
of New York. It was also one of the first to use the
Freedom of Information Act in a Pernod Ricard case.
However, the attack on capital markets that was
meant to follow the merger has yet to materialise.
Finance still accounts for just 8.4 per cent of global
turnover. Corporate is the biggest practice, generating
£74m, or 23.3 per cent, of global turnover.
Questions remain over whether the expansion
will pay off in the long term. The firm will not want
to suffer the same fate as those that merged too fast
in the 1990s and are now paying for their mistakes.
And volume business DLA Direct remains subject
to disposal rumours after the loss of around 60 jobs.
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