Record 6-month performance at JMW

Leading full service law firm JMW Solicitors LLP has announced an impressive rise of 36% in revenue at 31^st October 2021, its half-year point, as well as profit increasing by a similar amount. This follows a turnover rise of 12% in the financial year to April 2021.

The firm now employs over 600 people across its two offices in Manchester, London and has a small satellite Family Law office in Liverpool. The revenue from May to October 2021 reached £32.5 million, an £8.5 million increase from October 2020. The firm is therefore on track to far exceed its target for 2021/22 of £61 million and is likely to reach £65 million in revenue. The London office which only opened in May 2019 should produce £15 million of fees while Manchester revenue should rise to £50 million based on the half year performance.

Both offices cover most legal disciplines and the strengths of departments working together has nowhere been greater than the family law department. Manchester and Liverpool have 49 team members while London has 14.  JMW’s family team posted an impressive 32% increase and are on target to bill in excess of £8 million this financial year having billed £4.1m in 6 months.  Other departments that have also seen impressive fee income increases include; Court of Protection 148% (following the joining of the Linder Myers CoP team in September 2020), Real Estate Finance 90%, Corporate 69%, Real Estate Residential 65%, Restructuring & Insolvency 63% and Real Estate Commercial 33%.

The Family teams are now viewed by the marketplace as a standout national family law offering. The team were recently ranked in The Times Best Law Firms 2022 for Family Law and ranked in the top tier of the 2021 ‘eprivateclient’ Top Family Law Firms. Further to this they achieved a Tier 1 ranking in legal directories, Legal 500 2022 and Chambers & Partners 2022, as did Clinical Negligence, Crime & Fraud, Media, Personal Injury and Personal Tax, Trusts & Probate also all ranked along with all the ones named above in Tier 1 in the Legal 500 2022.

Three family law Partners; Beverley Jones, Elspeth Kinder and Michael Chapman, were promoted to Equity Partner in May 2021 along with Steve Morris (Commercial litigation), Thomas Pearson (Real Estate Commercial), Lee Adams (Head of London) and Anita Rai (Employment, London).

JMW continues to recruit extensively with a number of lateral hires across all departments in the last 12 months.  Over the last 10 years headcount has increased from 170 to 600. In May 2021 there were 43 promotions across all levels, departments and offices, including the 7 promotions to Equity level as above.

JMW were recently ranked 70th by income in The Lawyer Top 100, moving up from number 74 and in May were ranked number 50 in the Best Large Companies to Work For 2021 and ranked 4^th Best to Work For in the Legal Sector.

Commenting on the growth, Joy Kingsley, Senior Partner at JMW said:

“We are delighted that we continue to grow our revenue. Our 6-month financial results show that our strategy of providing a full service to our clients and the continuation of lateral hires of those individuals who wish to bring their clients to JMW, has been very successful for us. We have enjoyed substantial growth over recent years and the success we continue to enjoy is achieved by the hard work of all our Partners and staff.

The pandemic has been a difficult time for all but after a good year last year despite early problems, this half year has been even better than predicted. We have welcomed our staff back to our offices and they now work in an agreed hybrid model.”