Dickson Minto retains top spot as Scotland’s highest-paying practice

The publicity-shy Edinburgh-based firm has again topped the league table on terms of profit per equity partner, according to Legal Business magazine, with its partners pocketing £950,000 each.

The firm’s highest-earning partner – understood to be Alastair Dickson – took home £1.92 million, the third-largest payout for any lawyer in the UK.

The performance meant Dickson Minto, with its 105 lawyers, out-shone larger “big five” rivals, with mid-tier firms Brodies, Burness and Turcan Connell also posting high profits per partner.

Among the nine Scottish firms listed in the magazine’s latest league table, only two posted falling profits per partner, with Turcan Connell down 19 per cent year on year to £377,000 and Maclay Murray & Spens 4 per cent lower at £258,000.

Partners’ profits came amid rising turnover, with Maclays the sole firm out of the nine to post a fall in turnover, down 7 per cent.

Scotland’s big corporate law firms took out costs – including axing jobs – during the recession to cope with a lack of deals. Practices switched from transaction work to offering more general advice to clients to help weather the economic storm. But the magazine warned “the mood in Scotland this year is not overly-optimistic, with little evidence of any significant upturn”.

Philip Rodney, chairman of Burness, said: “Economic growth in Scotland has been and will continue to be slow. The market for legal services here will not, in our view, improve over the next few years. A lot of ﬁrms are ﬁnding it very tough. At best, many are ﬂatlining.”

Douglas Connell, joint senior partner at Turcan Connell, added: “We ourselves are in a relatively-strong position, but I would prefer to have reasons for being more bullish. The report card generally is ‘little or no progress over the past two or three years and the outlook is not particularly positive’.”

Throughout the UK as a whole, the magazine reported that the legal sector was starting to emerge from the downturn. Combined profits at the 100 largest UK firms – which include Scotland’s Dundas & Wilson and McGrigors – were up 12 per cent year on year to £4.65 billion, on the back of a 13 per cent rise in turnover to £15.5bn.

Mark McAteer, national editor of Legal Business, said: “Increased billings and profits means increased earnings for partners. The legal sector is starting to show signs of health once again, despite the economy still playing catch-up.”

DLA Piper maintained its lead as the largest UK law firm by turnover – ahead of the five “magic circle” practices – although the magazine noted only 22 per cent of its revenues came from Britain.