National law firm Ashfords, which has an office in Bristol, has broken the £50m annual revenue barrier after growing by 3% over the past year.
The £50.2m achieved in the 2022/23 financial year triggered a 7% firm-wide bonus at the firm, which employs more than 500 people.
Profits increased by 10% to £19.9m while like-for-like revenues rose 7% following the firm’s divestment of its equity release business in June last year.
Ashfords said revenues had been strong across its service areas, with notable client wins including CCS (Crown Commercial Service) Public Sector Legal Services Framework along with its reappointment to utility group Pennon’s legal panel.
The firm, which also has offices in London, Taunton and Plymouth, is part way through a five-year strategy focused on growing its core legal advisory work for commercial, real estate and private clients.
As part of that strategy, it has added a number of strategic lateral hires over the past year, including restructuring & insolvency partner Melissa George, commercial disputes partner Tom Llewellyn, tax partner John Pindard and banking & finance legal director Anna Thompson.
The also firm said it had maintained its focus on its people and responsible business agenda and over the past year had continued to work to improve social mobility and widen access to law through initiatives such as work placements, workshops and apprenticeships.
It has also continued to reduce its reportable emissions as part of its wider environmental impact initiative.
Ashfords CEO Louise Workman, pictured, said: “We have had another year of strong sustainable financial growth across the business advising our commercial, public sector and private wealth clients.
“Some really interesting projects and legal work sit behind that revenue growth including advising on 160 corporate deals to drive developments in area like AI, healthtech and battery development, providing a range of legal services to energy and resources projects, supporting landowners with diversification and advising on significant regeneration and real estate developments across the UK.
“We have a strong team, strong business and strong platform to accelerate the development of our business further in the future, grounded always in doing all we can to deliver an outstanding service for our clients.”
