George Davies moves back to growth
MANCHESTER law firm George Davies announced that it had moved back towards growth after posting a 16% rise in turnover in the year to April 30 to £6.3m (2011: £5.4m).
The firm, which had witnessed two previous years of decline, said that the move followed a period of major investment which had seen it relocate to new premises at 1 New York St and make a number of “high level” lateral hires.
Managing partner Mark Hovell said: “We had budgeted for growth at this level, so it is great that we managed to achieve this. It is a positive step, but I am cautious to budget for a similar increase in 2012/13 whilst the economy is still so unstable.”
He argues that the move has played a major part in the firm’s return to growth.
“It has modernised and streamlined us and has got us working with a ‘one firm’ culture,” he said.
“The result of this is an increase in cross-selling and productivity. It has also enabled us to attract key lateral hires with banking lawyer Shaun Rearden, dispute resolution lawyers Richard Dawson-Gerrarrd and Giselle Williams and corporate/commercial lawyer Scott Sands all joining us since the move.”
He said that he expected further hires within the next year both to strengthen existing departments and to potentially add new practice areas.
“We are a full service independent Manchester law firm.
“We have no plans to merge or join a national brand as we feel our own brand is strong and it is good to have the freedom to continue to operate in the way that our clients expect.
“We have a very loyal client base with the majority of our work last year coming from existing clients and we continue to attract new clients in our target markets – owner managed businesses/SMEs and the public sector so hopefully these figures demonstrate that we are doing something right.”
