Double-digit boost for City law firm Osborne Clarke as it beats revenue target

City-headquartered law firm Osborne Clarke international revenue jumped to €525m (£445m), beating its €500m target.

Osborne Clarke full practice including its international arm pulled in a revenue of €525m (£445m) across 2023/24, which was nearly 20 per cent up on the €442m (£375m) recorded in the previous year.

While the firm’s UK revenue was up by 11 per cent to £240.5m, as four of its seven key sectors achieved double digit growth.

The firm’s UK net profit increased by 14 per cent to £84.8m, up £74.7m recorded in 2022/23. While its profit per equity partner (PEP) jumped 11 per cent to £771,000 compared with £687,000 in the previous year.

This was down to its life sciences and healthcare, retail and consumer, mobility and infrastructure and and energy and utilities practice groups, as all experienced double-digit growth. While its other two sectors, built environment and and technology, media and comms sectors had “strong growth”.

Over the last financial year, the firm opened its third office in the US as it added Miami to its portfolio, the Magic City joins New York and San Francisco.

While in the UK, the firm made its biggest partner promotions round in the last 10 years, with 11 lawyers added to the partnership back in May.

According to the firm’s UK managing partner, Conrad Davies, the firm “awarded all..UK colleagues with a 5 per cent profit share in June”. This profit share is based on annual salaries of all qualifying UK colleagues and paid in June 2024, with a £2,000 minimum payment and pro-rated for new starters.

While in August it will be the first year of the firm’s “long-term incentive plan” which rewarded high performers with bonuses up to 40 per cent paid over three years.

Commenting on the results, Davies said: “This time last year we committed the business to a number of key change and investment programmes aimed at growing our income and improving profitability.”

“We’re proud of what we’ve achieved and it’s all down to the dedication and commitment of our teams. We set ourselves some challenging goals around productivity and efficiency – driving more focus into what we do and how we do it.”

“It’s all about asking our people to work smarter not harder. Ensuring more of our income falls to the bottom line gives us the ability to continue to invest heavily in our people and business, which is essential to keep pushing forward with our strategy and to deliver on our client promises,” he added,