Clifford Chance FY Revenue up 11%, Hits $2.623 Billion

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Clifford Chance FY Revenue up 11%, Hits $2.623 Billion

Posted May 29, 2008, 12:16 pm CDT
By Martha Neil

Corrected: Clifford Chance has started the British law firm earnings reporting season with a bang, announcing a hefty revenue increase regardless of the economic slowdown that began last year. The London-based international firm is the first magic circle firm to report its earnings for the 2007-2008 fiscal year.

"Despite its historical strength in finance and private equity—two of the practice areas most affected by the credit crisis—turnover at the firm rose 11 percent in the year ended April 30, according to figures released today," reports the London Times.

"David Childs, the global managing partner, said a slump in high-value transactional work in Europe and the U.S. after a record-breaking first half was offset by rapid growth in Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, where the firm has invested heavily in recent years," the Times writes.

The reported revenue growth—from 1.194 billion pounds ($2.357 billion, in U.S. dollars, at the current exchange rate) to 1.329 billion pounds ($2.623 billion), according to Legal Week—is impressive. (Top U.S.-based law firms last year broke the $2 billion barrier for the first time.)

However, Clifford Chance, billed as the world's biggest law firm, has some 3,800 lawyers, and its average profit per equity partner is a bit less stratospheric: a 13 percent increase raised PEP during the same period, from 1.015 million pounds ($2.005 million) to a new high of 1.151 million pounds ($2.272 million), Legal Week reports.

Some make even more: those at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz earned a breathtaking $4.48 million profit per partner last year, as discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post. The New York's corporate boutique's closest competitor, Manhattan-based Cravath Swaine & Moore, netted a $3.3 million average profit per equity partner.

Not surprisingly, given the challenging economy, the new figures for Clifford Chance show slower growth than the previous fiscal year's 15 percent revenue rise and 25 percent bump-up in profit per equity partner, according to the Lawyer.

Corrected at 3 p.m. to explain that the Clifford Chance revenue figure is higher than what top-producing U.S.-based law firms made during 2007.

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