Mills & Reeve’s Birmingham office reports increase in turnover and all staff bonus

The Birmingham office of national law firm Mills & Reeve has enjoyed a solid year of growth despite lockdown challenges, reporting a 5.8% increase in fee income.

This result, driven by organic growth and new client wins, contributes to firm-wide success, with Mills & Reeve’s total UK turnover rising to £114.1 million – an increase of 2.9% on last year.

The firm demonstrated a strong financial performance, despite a challenging last quarter that ended in May, and has announced an all staff bonus of around £1,000 for every employee depending on length of service.

For example a full time member of staff, who has been with the firm from 1 June 2019 – 31 May 2020, will receive £966 while a full time member of staff who has worked at the firm for five years will receive £1,111.

The bonus is pro-rated for part-time employees and staff who have been with the firm for less than a year.

Birmingham Head Steve Allen said; “It is very encouraging that despite lockdown our Birmingham office managed a very respectable increase in turnover. Our core sector strengths mean that we have been supporting our clients with our specialist teams through these difficult times and this in turn has delivered cutting edge work for our lawyers. I was particularly pleased to see our corporate team maintaining their place in the top four most active M&A advisors in the Midlands and the arrival of our new International & UK Head of IT Jagvinder Singh Kang is a new and exciting appointment for our Birmingham office”.

The results follow a year in which the firm has achieved some significant milestones, not least of which included seamlessly migrating nearly 1,000 employees from the office to working from home within 24 hours of the first government request to do so. Other highlights of the year pre-lockdown included:

• Winning RollonFriday’s Law Firm of the Year award for a third year in a row
• Appearing for a record 17 years running in The Sunday Times’ Best 100 Companies to Work For list
• Being recognised as one of the top 50 most innovative law firms in Europe by the Financial Times

It was also a year that Mills & Reeve committed to the Mindful Business Charter; launched various initiatives to back its diversity and inclusion objectives – including a BAME and Allies network – and reduced its gender pay gap.

During the coronavirus pandemic the firm has worked hard to ensure the wellbeing of its staff and to preserve its culture. This included daily firmwide updates from the management team, pulse surveys to check on wellbeing, weekly Zoom support calls, and a whole host of resources and support via wellbeing supporters and champions.

Commenting on the last 12 months, Claire Clarke, Mills & Reeve managing partner, said: “It’s easy to forget the months before lockdown and focus instead on how we meet the challenges and opportunities presented by the pandemic but I am enormously proud of everyone in the firm and what we have achieved throughout the year.

“Our growth last year has, without doubt, been affected by the coronavirus pandemic impacting our final quarter. Undaunted, we have worked incredibly hard maintaining our commitment to and delivering for, our clients. We are responding to the challenges through new ways of working, maintaining our culture and commitment to our people as a great place to work and continuing to invest in technology and infrastructure. Whilst we remain in challenging times this has put us in a really strong position as we launch our 2025 strategy, outlining our ambition to become a leader in client experience, innovation, talent development and in the sectors and markets in which we operate.”