Clifford Chance Is No Chump Change Firm

Ben Thomson, LawFuel law business contributor

Clifford Chance just dropped some numbers that’ll make your spreadsheets do a double-take.

But here’s the kicker – it’s the Americans driving this gravy train. US revenue’s up 28 percent and so the Magic Circle firm’s US expansion appears to be paying off big time.

Think they’re alone? Think again. Linklaters and Allen & Overy are also swimming in green. It’s raining money in Magic Circle land.

Charles Adams, (pictured) the boss at CC, is grinning like a Cheshire cat and presumable doing cartwheels with the attractive results and is talking about “substantial investments” and “long-term success”.

Translation: We’re loaded, and we’re not stopping here.

What’s the major legal work bringing home the bacon? Litigation and regulatory work are on fire, up 20 percent. M&A’s not too shabby either. CC’s got its fingers in 224 deals worth a whopping $208bn. That’s not just pocket change – it’s a 9 percent jump, the kind of growth that’d make a tech startup blush.

What about profit? The partnership’s raking in £856 million, up 10 percent. And the profit per equity partner? A cool £2.04 million. Sure, it’s only up a smidge from last year, but let’s be real – nobody’s crying into their Château Lafite over that.

But here’s where it gets juicy: the US market. Clifford Chance has been playing the long game there, and boy, has it paid off. We’re talking a 28 percent revenue jump. It’s like they’ve cracked the Da Vinci code of the American legal scene.

And they’re not the only ones popping champagne. Linklaters and Allen & Overy (pre-merger, mind you) are also doing their happy dance with similar growth, with Linklaters record revenue of £1.9 billion. It’s like the Magic Circle firms are in a secret club where the password is “profit.”

And in London they have also picked up the NQ pay rates, as we have noted.

But wait, there’s more, as you might expect. Their litigation and dispute resolution teams? Up 20 percent. They’ve become the legal world’s version of the Avengers, swooping in to save the day (and pad the bottom line).

M&A and financing? Also killing it. They’ve been in on 224 M&A deals worth $208 billion. That’s not just big business; that’s “reshaping the global economy” kind of business.

Even the usually staid areas like tax, pensions, and real estate are having their moment in the sun. It’s like every department got bitten by a radioactive spider of success.

And let’s not forget the US expansion. They’re snatching up talent like it’s the last day of a Savile Row sale. Nineteen new partners in the US alone.

As we’ve reported, they’ve even set up shop in Houston, probably figuring if they can make it in Texas, and they can make it anywhere.