Legal giant with 570 Scottish staff sees top lawyers pocket £700,000 after revenue hike

Pinsent Masons, the global legal giant that employs some 570 lawyers and support staff in Scotland, has seen its top earners pocket more than £700,000 after a further hike in fee income.

Releasing its year-end results, the firm said revenue had risen by just under 6 per cent to £531.1 million. Profit per equity partner rose by just over 16 per cent - a similar increase to the previous year - to £739,000.

The firm highlighted a number of achievements during the year, including investing in its multinational partnership with 75 per cent of all lateral partner hires based outside of the UK. Of its Scottish-based lawyers promoted to partner in May 2022, 50 per cent were female.

Pinsent Masons has more than 450 partners and some 3,300 people operating globally from 26 offices. In Scotland, about 570 lawyers and support staff operate out of its offices in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Katharine Hardie, chair of Scotland and Northern Ireland, said: “Delivering good growth underpinned by healthy financial performance has led to an encouraging FY21/22 financial year. Sector-led and commercial expertise combined with a blend of professional services skillsets and the use of process and technology has enabled us to advise on a number of high-profile purpose-led projects such as Ireland’s first ever energy storage project, the Equality Law group’s work with St Modwen to address gender imbalance across their business and our data trust work which seeks to harness the power of data to tackle societal issues such as food poverty.

“Half of the lawyers promoted to partner in our Scottish offices in May were female, which underlines the firm’s commitment to gender equality.”

Notable achievements for the firm’s Scottish offices in the last year included completing the move of more than 200 staff into a new 25,000-square-foot office in Edinburgh’s Capital Square development.

Prominent deals in which Pinsent Masons’ legal teams advised on included Springfield Properties’ £46m acquisition of Mactaggart & Mickel’s housebuilding business and its £56m acquisition of Tulloch Homes; Forth Ports’ acquisition of OM Heavy Lift; and Edinburgh-based Craneware’s transformational takeover of Sentry Data Systems.

Katharine Hardie, chair of Scotland and Northern Ireland: 'Delivering good growth underpinned by healthy financial performance has led to an encouraging FY21/22 financial year.' Picture: Ian Georgeson

In the energy sector, Glasgow-based head of oil and gas, Rosalie Chadwick, led on the $1.5 billion (£1.25bn) takeover of Siccar Point Energy by Ithaca Energy, and corporate team colleagues advised Glengarnock-based steelwork contractor JD Pierce on its sale to Swedish investment group Storskogen.

Senior partner at Pinsent Masons, Richard Foley, said: “The progress we have made in diversifying client services, improving representation across the legal profession, and taking action to do our part to address climate change are all testament to what can be achieved when broader measures of success are applied to a business.

“We, like many other organisations, aspire to do the right thing for our clients, people and communities, but what we have seen since we introduced our broader metrics three years ago, is that when we measure these things over time behaviours do change.

“Purposeful and profitable growth are a consequence of getting everything else right.”