International law firm DAC Beachcroft is pleased to announce its provisional, unaudited results for the year ended 30 April 2024, achieving a tenth successive year of revenue growth, as well as record profits.
The firm’s total turnover reached £326.5 million, an increase of £27.5 million (9%) on the previous year. Profit before tax increased by a record 15% to £71 million and profit per member exceeded £700k.
David Pollitt, DAC Beachcroft’s Managing Partner, said, "We set ourselves ambitious financial targets for FY24, and we have seen very strong performances from our core sectors of insurance, health, real estate, technology and financial services, as well as from our international offices. As a result, we have beaten our targets, whilst continuing to make key investments in the future success of our business.
"Throughout the year we also focused on our working capital, driving reductions in our debtor days. Even with the significant growth in our business and the investments we made during FY24, we ended the year with more cash and less debt than we started.
"Among those investments, we have been exploring additional ways to harness the power of AI. In addition to creating AI-based products for our clients, we established a dedicated AI committee which is driving our strategy, and we are developing our own in-house, AI-powered 'bot' to increase internal efficiencies. We are also testing a number of market-leading legal AI tools and we are making use of CoPilot within the business.
"We drove forward our international expansion, opening offices in key jurisdictions where our clients need us to be and internationalising one of our fastest-growing offerings: shipping, trade and commodities. During 2023 we launched three new offices – in Milan, Rome and Buenos Aires – and so far in 2024 we have launched in Peru where we have a strong, LatAm-based shipping team. These investments are yielding promising returns, and we have more exciting international projects in the pipeline for FY25.
"For us, a key indicator of success is helping our colleagues succeed and we continue to invest in our people. Our ambition is to be the place where talented people want to work. We made important and strategic lateral hires throughout the last financial year and promoted 11 of our lawyers, five of whom trained or qualified with us, to partner at the start of this year. We remain committed to nurturing and developing the future leaders of our profession, offering a diverse range of alternative routes into the legal profession.
"During FY24 the work we did for our clients and our local communities was recognised externally. Among the many awards we won, we were named 'Legal Advisors of the Year' in both the public and private categories at the HealthInvestor Awards, 'Insurance Law Firm of the Year' in Italy in the Legalcommunity Litigation Awards, and we took home the 'Outstanding Social Impact' trophy at the British Legal Awards for our responsible business partnership with Change Please.
"We continue to do great work, for great clients. We are benefitting from the prudent investments we have made in the past couple of years in our systems and technology. We also continue to reap the rewards of our trailblazing Flex Forward approach, which sets us apart for the flexibility we offer our colleagues to balance their personal and professional commitments more easily.
"After another year of strong performance, we are confident about the future success of our firm and about our ability to deliver the best possible advice and bespoke solutions for our clients."
