Volume firm Minster Law breaks £100m turnover barrier
Minster Law has boosted its turnover by 27 per cent to break the £100m barrier for the first time, posting an overall turnover of £104.1m for the 2011-2012 financial year.
York
Several factors contributed to the hike in turnover, according to Minster’s director of legal services Craig Underwood.
Firstly, the firm restructured its business last year by implementing a technology-led, skills-based approach within its three main operational centres, which allowed the firm to “maximise the profit costs in each part of the business,” commented Underwood.
The York-headquartered firm operates a corporate structure and has made a name for itself as the largest road traffic accident (RTA) personal injury practice in the UK. Due to the high-volume nature of its work - the firm handled 60,000 personal injury claims in the last financial year - the firm has an extremely low profit margin (15 August 2011). In 2011-12 the firm’s net profit was £2.2m, giving it a margin of 2 per cent.
The firm’s headcount grew slightly, with 31 qualified lawyers and 198 fee-earners generating last year’s revenue. The firm’s number of staff also increased, from 667 to 732. The firm’s catastrophic injury practice experienced significant growth, now comprising around 100 people, most of whom are fee-earners specialising in serious and catastrophic injury claims.
In spite of these increases, Minster helped keep overheads down last year partly as a result of completing its project to free up around 20,000 sq ft of office space by going paperless. This project formed part of the firm’s internal change programme, dubbed ‘Horizon’, which delivers Minster’s strategic plans for the year ahead.
Readers' comments (9)
Anonymous | 10-Aug-2012 1:17 pm
what business model is that! Only 2.5 % Profit
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John Smith | 10-Aug-2012 2:16 pm
Split between a handful of partners, it's not a bad living! (especially as these are Small Track personal injury lawyers!)
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Anonymous | 10-Aug-2012 3:42 pm
If there are only two partners that's £1m each, which is enough to rub along on.
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Curtis Mayfield | 10-Aug-2012 3:49 pm
I can't believe on 2% profit margins. If nothing else, it just kills it for the little guy.
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Anon | 10-Aug-2012 4:00 pm
This is the future of legal services, huge volumes being pushed through at low margins. Commoditisation, outsourcing, off shoring, and ever greater use of IT.
I like.
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Big Kahuna | 13-Aug-2012 12:23 pm
Minster's not a partnership so no split as the above suggests. There's 2 business centres, not 3 and there ain't 100 people in the catastrophic area!
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Carlyle | 17-Aug-2012 1:15 pm
oh dear, sounds like the last poster of comments didnt form part of this firms growth plans.
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Ash | 19-Sep-2012 10:47 am
Minster is owned by 1 person and has partnership with ACM (Compare and BGL owner) which is the part which makes money for them. However, 2 million profit from 100 million turn over is really crap! They dont work as smartly as they can. Anyway, over all the owner is a great person :-)
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Matthew Porkinson [Cumbria Council] | 19-Oct-2012 10:14 pm
The small guy is well and truly FINISHED, and the bandwagon has already left.
I left my last employer as it was a small and backward firm, and I am like so many solicitors now in thinking; get a job with a large in-house.
This firm is simply a 'cattle-market', you go in at one door and if your face doesn't fit your out, you don't [due to poor files] get above 30% acceptances or 60% litigation ....your out.
This firm, and i'm not knocking them, are simply bulk merchants, who will come unstuck if they don't get enough insurance companies to feed them files.
But I am making an educated guess, they will not be with us in ten years [2022] time; but Mr Christmas will have screwed as much dollar out of it as he possibly can do.
Sorry guys at Minster, but the truth is firms like this don't need solicitors, fee earners etc. They are a call centres, and only need a handful of legally qualified individuals.
The SRA at this moment are like Thatcher [1980's] when she gave dentists the go ahead to take only private patients. Now they are cherry picking, and the small guy with little or no income is left with DIY [pair of pliers].
The selected few solicitors in future will be serving only the rich and upper middle-classes, and making a great living. The small two and three partner firms will go to the wall; unless they are in a niche market.
Sorry guys, but that's how I see it.
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