Clifford Chance revenues climb to £2.3 billion amid US expansion

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By Legal Cheek on

13

PEP comes in at £2.04 million


Clifford Chance has gone public with its latest set of financial results, recording upticks in both global revenues and profits.

The Magic Circle firm saw a 9% increase in revenues to £2.3 billion, while partnership profits rose 10% to £856 million for the financial year ended April 30.

Profit per equity partner (PEP) remained relatively flat, moving from £2 million to £2.04 million.

The firm highlighted its global litigation, dispute resolution and regulatory investigations teams as key drivers of growth, with revenue in these areas increasing by 20% and now accounting for over 20% of the firm’s total income.

The firm also highlighted its success in the US where “ongoing investment” led to a 28% increase in revenues across the pond. In the last financial year, Clifford Chance has recruited 19 partners from various US firms to strengthen its New York, Houston, and Washington DC offices. The firm now has 115 partners in the US.

Charles Adams, global managing partner at Clifford Chance, said:

“In another year of very strong performance, our record profits have enabled us to make substantial investments in our global team and operations. These strategic investments are already yielding benefits for our clients and our firm and position us for long-term success.”

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Adams continued: “All practice areas delivered strong growth, particularly our litigation teams, which had another exceptional year. Energy transition and infrastructure investment, technology including AI, and private capital all continued to drive strong client demand for our breadth of transactional and advisory capabilities and sector expertise on a global scale.”

Earlier this summer, Clifford Chance joined its Magic Circle rivals, except for Slaughter and May, in increasing the salaries of its newly qualified lawyers by 20% to £150,000.

CC also recently recorded a trainee retentions core of 75% with 42 of its 56 final-seat trainees staying on.

13 Comments

N/A

Again with PEP. Just to be clear, most people reading this are students or trainees etc. and take PEP to mean the average or median earnings of each partner, perhaps some will think that distribution is relatively flat. Honestly this was one of the metrics which drew me into the profession over 15 years ago at university. It is unadulterated bollocks though. You have a legion of salaried partners on effectively senior associate wage, then you have generally tightly held equity. And it’s a complete black box to outsiders, and indeed to the partners themselves. At many or even most firms, the partners don’t know what anyone else makes. You have an intricate system at most firms designed to keep most partners earnings down, you get points by years of experience, work brought in and billed and realized, track record etc, so most partners earn well, well below the PEP. You have a coterie of partners earning actually well above, a handful earning above, but most are still earning not far away from senior associate. And by the way, even if you’re a rainmaker. Even if you’ve had a couple of bumper years and had very significant realised financials, other factors will keep you down like time spent at the firm as partner, while some sleeping partner who brought in nothing earns double. So don’t think it’s all about becoming partner and then you’re earning anything like this. There are a small number of exceptions like Slaughters. And if you do get equity at a very small number of firms, you will make dollar, like the equity at Kirkland is incredibly tightly held, and almost all partners are salaried senior associates, more than anywhere in the city, but junior equity is close to 2 mill USD.

Anon

Another exception is Macs – where PEP has just soared to £2.6m on an 11 months basis

law law

Perfectly put

A failure at top 0.1% ?!

This post feels a bit disingenuous. You’re moaning because you may only reach a salary akin to the top 0.1% of the country?!

In any case, you’ve presented this as more extreme than the reality, with the split between salaried and equity Partners weighted in equity rather than the other way around. Salaried Partners are in their first years of Partnership – seems fair enough to me while they’re building their business/client base further. The salary for the ‘beginner’ years is obviously higher than the senior associates too, so again, all feels a bit ‘waa waa’, woe is me etc.

Get some perspective I beg you.

Do you reckon he wears nappies IRL?

The problem with keyboards and the Internet is that anyone can have a go and make a post. Even young non lawyers who are completely wrong and don’t know much, but boy don’t they have some confidence when they can anonymously post.

Needless to say, lawyers used to get made up to partner shortly after qualifying, and within a few years. Over the course of the 80s and 90s, the ladder got pulled up and the course became increasingly longer. Salaried partners were brought in to give people a title for their career development, and to stop people leaving. Salaried partners are employees, and do not have the same legal rights as equity partners. Equity partners have a stake in the business. But having the title is useful to people which is why some are happy to go to Kirkland to bill 3000 hours for a few years to get the title, and then perhaps lateral onwards and upwards. It isn’t real partnership. It is simply a title. They make get some more say and input into the business but it is subject to what the equity partners simply permit.

Everything noted in that post is wrong including the notion there is usually a significant jump between senior associate and salaried partner. There usually isn’t at all. Indeed not much between senior associate and junior equity.

Then there’s the whole duck and weave about alleging complaining about money. I see no complaints. I see a non lawyer who doesn’t understand what he (and it likely is a he) is moralising over. The fact that you can get scoffed at for noting that a business doesn’t pay fair so a very small number siphon the profits of the many is predictable.

Colin

Congratulations to all the partners at Clifford Chance. A fine firm, which appears to be going from strength to strength!

Clifford Chance

thanks colin

Drehgg

So what would a salaried partner be at Clifford Chance or Kirk and Ellis ?

Bob

They would be a salaried partner.

Salaried Senior Associate

The K&E salaried partner would probably be a senior associate elsewhere.

H

Genius I meant what would they earn?

I

Should have said that then, shouldn’t you

Cccc

In other news, which law firm is rising next or has confirmed internally they are rising when it comes to NQ salaries?

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