JMW smashes £20m milestone
FEE income and profits have both seen double digit growth as Manchester-based law firm JMW Solicitors shows strength in breadth.
Income at the firm is up by 16% to £22.5m (2015: £19.4m) and the firm has seen an overall increase in revenue of 118% over the last five years.
Provisional profit is up 13.3% to £4.3m (2015:£3.8m), with profits per equity partner standing at £430,000.
Senior partner Joy Kinglsey told TheBusinessDesk: “We never take for granted that a year will be good. Each year the numbers have gone up and you start to expect that it will continue to go in that direction. Throughout the year we seemed to be doing well month-on-month but March and April were very strong for us so we have ended on a real high.”
The firm’s commercial litigation team led the way with an increase of 55%, closely followed by the private client team with a 47% increase.
Fees also substantially grew in business crime & regulation (43%), commercial property (42%), clinical negligence (23%) and family (13%).
Kinglsey said: “When I arrived 70% of our work was personal injury and now it is the other way around and we have had to find other types of work to fill the gaps.
“We have a good variety of different sectors and working across a range does mean you do well.”
JMW has again seen many more website instructions, with website revenue up by 17% to £1.5m.
The firm is continuing to win commercial clients – 70% of the work taken on in the past year came from new clients including Natwest, Compass Minerals, Parking Eye, TJ Morris, GreenThumb Ltd, Lowry Capital, LWC Drinks Ltd and the British Parking Association.
Fees from the solicitor’s referral network Lawshare also increased by 50% to £1m. The network now comprises of 270 firms, an increase of 70 in the past year.
Staff numbers at the firm have also grown from 280 to 320 in the past year including eight new partners. New arrivals included Mike Blood (corporate), Mike Rainford and Derek Millard-Smith (business crime & regulation), Liz Cotton (employment), Tom Cressey and Majid Mahmood (commercial property) and Chris Love (corporate recovery & insolvency).
The addition of Michael Kennedy, who recently joined from Slater and Gordon, will help to drive the commercial litigation department’s growth over the next year. Kingsley said the department had a target of £2.7m, up from £2.1m, for the next year.
Kenndy brough with him clients including Pro Vision, Smart Parking, MMC Developments, Ellesmere Engineering and First Technical Recruitment and Matrix Limited.
Further new hires are planned, including three new Family partners in the summer.
Kingsley said: “The recruitment of lawyers and those with business development skills and good client relationships, has been instrumental in the profitable growth of JMW.”
Managing partner Paul Walker said: “Our performance reflects a continual upward trend, with more then 13% being added to Revenue in each of the last five years and profit rising substantially too.”
