Aaron & Partners posts record profits

NORTH West law firm Aaron & Partners has announced record revenues of £5.7m, thanks to some “exceptionally high” wins through conditional fee arrangements.

The firm, which employs 90 staff across its offices in Chester and Manchester, said turnover had increased 4.5% for the year to the end of April 2009, from the £5.45m it made a year earlier.

“We had a good year,” said chief executive Andy Duxbury. “Successes were had in two or three big litigation matters backed with successful fees from conditional fee arrangements.”

Mr Duxbury admitted that CFAs were “a bit of a risk” but added that the company had done well out of them over the last year.

“We’ve had a good track record of running those and getting money back in insolvency cases – trying to recover assets when others have given up – but not just insolvency, a few were professional negligence as well,” he said.

“It  has helped us enormously in a year when straight forward transactional work took a real hit. We have struggled in those areas but litigation was very good.”

Around 40% of the firm’s income is from litigation, with private client work taking around 17%. Property is at around 12% in the depressed market, and employment law around 10%, with transport, company commercial and planning taking up the remainder.

Mr Duxbury added that the company had developed its private client offering “significantly” over the year and that the firm had taken on two more solicitors in that team, taking the total to seven.

He admitted that profits had been hit and added that the firm had made two redundancies during the year – one support staff and one fee earner – to keep costs down.  It now has 38 fee earners and 18 partners.

“Not unlike every other firm profits have been hit and we have had to take costs out of the business, but nothing too dramatic,” he said.

The firm expects this year’s performance to be around the same level, although first quarter performance was “slightly above” expectation.

“We’ve not had a bad start despite the pressures,” he said.

The firm, which has its head office in Chester, had said it was keen to merge with a firm of a similar size earlier this year and to grow its presence in Manchester. But Mr Duxbury said although the firm was still open to this idea, it would now be taking a more cautious approach to any investments it makes over the next year.