Nobody would have guessed it, but the UK’s richest lawyer lives not in the leafy streets of North London, but in Warrington. In August The Lawyer revealed that Andrew Nulty, senior partner at Avalon Solicitors, took home a profit of £13m in 2006.
The revelation that Avalon was the most profitable firm in the UK 100 last year would have been one of the talking points of the summer of its own accord. The news that £14.4m of its £21.2m turnover came from the controversial coal health compensation scheme, and that Nulty is being hauled before a Law Society disciplinary tribunal for allegedly taking fees from miners’ compensation awards, just made the story even more fascinating.
Nulty is also awaiting a hearing into an alleged charge of actual bodily harm and will go before St Helens Magistrates Court on 12 October for a plea hearing.
Of course, Avalon is not the only firm to have profited from the miners’ scheme. However, it has made more money from the scheme than any other in the North West. Most of the other firms to benefit are based on the other side of the Pennines in south Yorkshire, or in the Midlands, giving Avalon a very particular claim to fame.
