Turnover at law firm Thrings, which has an office in Bristol, rose by 4% to £21.5m in the year to last April, it has revealed.
Profits increased by 12% to £4.9m. The firm, which also has offices in Bath, Swindon and London, has 51 members and employs 305 people, 180 of them fee-earners.
Managing partner Simon Holdsworth, pictured, said a focus in recent years on the firm’s core markets of commercial property and corporate commercial had paid off. 
Investment had continued in its offices and in its key sectors of agriculture, innovation and technology, financial services, defence and aerospace, and energy and waste, he added.
A Law Society Law Management Section (LMS) report published last week showed fee income for legal firms increased by an average of 4.1% last year. The average profit per equity partner rose by 3.6% to £121,731.
Mr Holdsworth said the completion of a number of major deals in the first three weeks of this month, coupled with a substantial pipeline of work, suggested Thrings is set for another year of sustained growth.
“The legal market has changed, and the essence of that change is the level of expectation from clients,” he said. “In an increasingly-crowded legal market, we have invested in improving the ways in which we deliver service to our clients.
“What we have done – and continue to do – is what most successful businesses do. We work hard, we retain close links with our clients, we learn about their businesses, and deliver professional legal advice in a personal way.
“Doing these basics well, allied with a focus on niche specialisms, has propelled the business on to sustained growth. The concept of how we act with our clients and the relationships we have with them can be very much a key differentiator for us as a law firm.”
Thrings recently provided legal advice to the shareholders of Wiltshire-based fuel distribution business Watson Petroleum on its proposed £117m acquisition by global fuel logistics company World Fuel Services Corporation.
The firm’s agriculture team has also collaborated with rural and development land agents WebbPaton to negotiate the lease of land in Didcot, which at 230 acres, will be the largest solar farm in the UK.
