Law firm unveils record financial year and 39 promotions

Joy Kingsley

Manchester- and London-based JMW Solicitors has announced “excellent growth” with its 2019/20 financial results, despite the effects of the lockdown in March and April.

The firm, which now has 550 partners and employees, revealed that income increased 25% from £38.1m to £47.6m.

Provisional profit increased by 23% from £6.5m to £8m.

The London office of JMW, which opened in May 2019, contributed £5.1m of revenue in its first year of operation.

The Manchester office billed £42.5m, an 11.5% increase on the 2018/19 fiscal year.

During the last year most departments at JMW have continued to increase revenue.

The employment team led the way with an increase of 50%, followed by commercial litigation with a 32% increase.

Fees also grew in real estate finance (31%), corporate and commercial (29%), private client (28%) and family law (27%).

JMW said it remains committed to the use of digital marketing and has again seen excellent growth from instructions via its website, with website revenue up by 36% from £2.5m to £3.4m.

The firm has also made 39 promotions across all levels and departments.

Joint head of real estate finance, Jodi Lund, has been made an equity partner and joins the firm’s board. Jodi formed the real estate finance department at JMW in 2018 with fellow joint head Warren Martin.

She represents lender clients in the specialist finance sphere from private bridging lenders to institutional banks and plc’s. The department’s clients include Precise Mortgages, LendInvest and United Trust Bank.

Clinical negligence partner Angharad Hughes has been promoted to fixed-share partner status. She is experienced in a wide range of clinical negligence claims with a focus on brain damage and spinal injuries.

There have also been seven promotions to partner for Peter Barnard, Richard Glover and Oliver Wright in commercial litigation, Emma Hickman in corporate, Holly Tootill in family law, Julian Rogozinski in real estate residential and Sam McElroy in personal injury.

There were a further seven promotions from associate to senior associate and 23 promotions from solicitor to associate.

Senior partner, Joy Kingsley, said: “We have continued to hire exceptional partners during these uncertain times and have recently made six hires where negotiations have been completed remotely.

“We are working hard to ensure our people continue to work in a strong business. They have adapted very well to working from home but we look forward to welcoming them back when the time is right.”

She added: “We are pleased by the continued growth of the firm across all of our departments and to have enjoyed another year of record financial performance.

“However, we appreciate that we are currently in unprecedented times and that our financial year end in April occurred before the disruption had a real effect.

“These are testing times for all businesses.

“The loyalty and commitment of the people who work for JMW has enabled us again to achieve this success
and their talent and attitude will help us to navigate through difficult times.”

JMW was ranked 33 in the Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For 2020.

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