Race on to elect new Addleshaw Goddard managing partner as Joyce steps down a year early
An election process is now underway at law firm Addleshaw Goddard to elect a new managing partner after John Joyce decided to stand-down at the end of the current financial year (30 April, 2024), a year ahead of the end of his current term, ten years after he was first elected and at the end of his 25th anniversary as a Partner in the business.
He became Managing Partner in 2014, and was re-elected in 2017 and 2021, for his third term. His decision to step-down after a decade in office brings forward by one year the election to find his successor.
The election process is underway and will be conducted in accordance with the firm’s established protocols. His successor will be identified by early 2024.
Joyce has overseen a period of expansion at the firm, widely seen as one of the North’s premium corporate law firms, but under his leadership with an increasingly international focus.
Today, non-UK revenue represents half of what was the firm’s entire turnover in 2013.
Alongside partner numbers rising from 178 to 382, the financial health of the business has also grown significantly over the last nine years as the firm has attracted a greater share of higher value work from an increasingly global client portfolio.
Income has grown from £166m in Fy2013/14 to £443m and profits for the same period have risen by more than 200%.
Joyce said he leaves the firm “in great shape” and that he has achieved everything he wanted to: “After an amazing 10 years, it is time to move on. One of the first things I did as managing partner was to carry out a major overhaul of the firm’s Members Agreement and that included introducing a two-term limit for Managing and Senior Partners which I believed then and believe now is right as a limit. I never envisaged or intended to do a third term but with the complexities and risk introduced by Covid, the prospect of having an managing partner election at the time it was due was really difficult and so a third term made sense. Those risks have passed, the firm is in great shape and so there is no better time to find my successor.”
He added: “It has been a great privilege to serve as Managing Partner, and I am immensely proud of our achievements over the last decade. The firm is immeasurably different and stronger to the business I inherited and having achieved everything I thought was possible and more I am delighted to leave the business in excellent health and ready for the next generation of partners to grow and develop.”
In his time the firm has undertaken two mergers and the opening of six other offices, including inn Scotland with HBJ in 2017 and Ireland’s Eugene F Collins in 2022, he has been behind the firm’s international expansion with three offices opening in Germany, and one in France and Luxembourg plus another pending regulatory approval in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
