All 1,500-plus employees at Liverpool law firm Weightmans will receive a bonus of almost £3,000 each as it reports record revenues of £140m. Tony McDonough reports
Liverpool law firm Weightmans is to reward its workforce of more than 1,500 people after seeing annual revenues surcharge 12% to £140m and net profit up 41.1% to £18m.
Each member of staff will receive a bonus of almost £3,000. Additionally equity partners at the firm, which has offices across the UK, will receive average payouts of £391,000 for the 12 months to March 31, 2024.
Weightmans, which has its headquarters in Old Hall Street in the city centre, has shifted its financial reporting period by one month from April 31 to March 31. For that 11-month period, income increased to £128.44m and net profit was £16.49m.
Either extrapolating those results for 12 months or adding the firm’s actual trading performance for April 2024 gives the figures cited above. The firm also demonstrated strong cash reserves, rising from £3.4m to £6.9m for the 11-month period.
As well as its Liverpool head office, Weightmans has operations in Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, London, Manchester and Newcastle.
Strong results were delivered by all the firm’s seven key client segments. Six of the segments – built environment, health, individuals, insurance, OMB and public bodies, all produced double digit growth in revenues. Its corporate segment grew by 6%.
Major financial and commercial success was reported in most service lines during the year, especially in employment, property litigation, regulatory and specialty insurance.
Managing partner John Schorah said: “I am very proud of all the hard work and contributions made by our people to make this our most successful year ever.
“Their talent and unwavering support for each other continues to deliver great results for our clients and places the business in a very strong position as we make progress towards being a Top 30 law firm.
“The merger with RadcliffesLeBrasseur in 2022 has delivered significant organic growth for the firm in the second-year post merger in those areas we have combined, as well as delivering cost saving synergies.”
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During the year, Weightmans promoted 15 people to the partnership – bringing the firm’s total number of partners to 248 – and 12 to legal director. The firm also saw 15 lateral partners join.
It also launched CyXcel – its new cyber consulting business which fuses legal and technical cyber expertise. This part of the business has “exceeded all strategic objectives” and is launching in North America this summer.