Law Practice Management
Going Public Pays: 56% Profit Increase Follows Law Firm’s IPO
Posted Feb 22, 2008, 12:54 pm CDT
By Martha Neil
The eye-popping expansion of an Australian plaintiffs firm that went public last year in order to fund its acquisitions of other law partnerships has also led to an eye-popping increase in its revenue stream.
Slater & Gordon reports that its overall half-year profits are up 56 percent since it sold about a third of the firm to nonlawyer shareholders in an initial public offering in May. Today, the firm upped its estimate of annual profits for its 2007-2008 fiscal year by about 12 percent, to $67.6 million ($73.5 million in Australian dollars), according to the Age and the London Times.
"The company on Friday booked a net profit for the first half of fiscal 2008 of $6.9 million," the Age adds.
Slater & Gordon is believed to be the first law firm to go public, which is now legal in Australia and will soon be in the United Kingdom. The firm, which has acquired six other law shops since its May 2007 IPO gave outside investors control over about a third of its shares, is being "closely watched by law firms in England and Wales, which were given the green light to seek external funding or to float by the Legal Services Act," reports the Lawyer.
Prior coverage:
ABAJournal.com: "IPO Funds ‘Eye-Popping Expansion’ of Australian Plaintiffs Firm"
Related Stories
- Ginsburg: War Crimes Charges Against Bush Officials Unlikely
Jul 4, 2008, 03:48 pm CDT - Jenner #1 in Am Law Pro Bono Survey
Jul 3, 2008, 02:17 pm CDT - World Justice Project Reveals ‘Rule of Law Index’
Jul 3, 2008, 01:09 pm CDT - New ‘Rule of Law Index’ Will Measure World Justice
Jul 3, 2008, 10:56 am CDT
Related Topics
Commenting has expired on this post.
Comments
Posted by Seth Rosner - 4 months, 1 week, 4 days, 21 hours ago
Multidisciplinary practice returns with a vengeance. Slater & Gordon’s experience demonstrates just how unbalanced has become the professionalism-business continuum. As I wrote in a 1992 ABA Journal piece, Professionalism and Money, both are real and there is a tension between the two. The question is not either/or. The real question is which has a prior claim on the heart and soul of each individual lawyer. Slater & Gordon provides one answer, the wrong one.
Posted by Kofi Mensah - 4 months, 1 week, 4 days, 18 hours, 49 minutes ago
It seems nonlawyer shareholders will soon become more of the rule than the exception. I can’t even begin to understand how the profesion will be regulated. I guess we have to study the Australian example carefully.