Liverpool law firm MSB Solicitors reports a big fall in annual profits and says it intends to relocate its city centre headquarters in 2026 amid ambitions to become a national firm. Tony McDonough reports

Liverpool law firm MSB Solicitors says it intends to find a new city centre headquarters in 2026 when its current lease at No 4 St Paul’s Square expires.

Plans for the move have been revealed by managing partner Emma Carey in the firm’s annual accounts for the 12 months to February 28, 2025, just published on Companies House. She said: “We are excited to find and launch a new Liverpool city centre office.”

Revenues for the year were just shy of £11m, up from £10.2m last year, and the firm is targeting revenues of £12.5m for the current financial year. MSB saw a big drop in pre-tax profits from £1.7m last year to £772,527 in the latest accounts. It has paid out dividends of £855,853.

In the report, Emma said: “The firm’s collective net profitability declined in 2024/2025 due to investment in our support infrastructure by building our accounts team, IT team, education and training team.”

She added the firm had recruited a number of new senior staff members whose fee generation “would not impact for 12 to 18 months”.

MSB has been at No 4 St Paul’s Square for several years. Over the past couple of years the firm has closed its Allerton Road and Wavertree offices in south Liverpool and moved staff to the city centre HQ or to Cheshire and Manchester.

Emma’s ambition is to “firmly establish MSB as a national firm”. The practice is now operating in Manchester, Cheshire and Birmingham. 

“We have been granted a Criminal Legal Aid contract for Birmingham, Manchester and Cheshire which started in October 2025 and we wish to expand our criminal teams in these areas,” she said.

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During the year MSB recruited nine trainees taking its total to 17. A further seven trainees will start at the firm in late 2025 and early 2026. It has also promoted four people to associate and created seven new partners. The business employed 196 people during the accounting period.

Emma added: “There are massive opportunities nationally for us to expand our services. We need to look at how we can optimise our search engine so that people searching within these areas come through.”