Richard Medd’s tenure as Browne Jacobson managing associate started within the spring of 2020, amid the chaos of the early months of Covid. Whereas many would view such timing as unlucky, Medd sees it in a different way: ‘Trying again, there have been benefits to beginning at the moment. The entire world was beginning once more, which gave me an opportunity to implement my concepts.’
This means to take no matter life throws at him in his stride has helped Medd to spearhead a interval of prolonged progress for Browne Jacobson. Since he took over in Might 2020, revenues have grown by virtually 50% from £81m to £118m, with new workplaces opening in Dublin in 2022 and Cardiff in 2023.
As Medd places it: ‘The agency recognised it was at a transition level and determined to speed up hiring, develop protection, and transfer up the meals chain.’
The agency, which has its roots within the Midlands, now has seven workplaces throughout the UK and Eire, and sits at forty ninth within the LB100 on the again of three consecutive years of double-digit progress, with income rising 12% throughout 2023-24.
The agency’s key sectors are authorities, training and well being, and whereas Medd acknowledges that extra London-centric observers are more likely to know them greatest as ‘the well being agency, or the general public sector agency’, in actuality, it has a roughly 50/50 cut up between public sector and personal sector work, with key company shoppers together with Lloyds Improvement Capital, Hiscox, Muller UK & Eire and Scania.
Alongside this, the agency has been blazing a path on social mobility – topping the Social Mobility Basis’s Social Mobility Employer Index thrice within the final 4 years.
‘We’re gaining large momentum,’ says senior associate Caroline Inexperienced, who grew to become the primary girl to carry that position on the agency when she took over in 2019.
It’s clear that each Medd and Inexperienced are excited concerning the agency’s current successes, and are optimistic concerning the potential to take the agency ahead additional.
‘We predict there’s a vital benefit in extra scale,’ Medd says. ‘We’re additionally very centered on getting the fact of our non-public sector apply higher identified, significantly in London’.
Medd and Inexperienced consider the equal cut up between public sector and personal sector work is a key power, with Inexperienced explaining that the agency acts as a connector, forging hyperlinks between corporates and the general public sector in each instructions.
The brand new workplaces have additionally performed a key half in Brown Jacobson’s current progress. Dublin, launched in September 2022 with two companions, now has seven companions and 17 attorneys, with standout offers similar to advising Irish plant-based frozen meals startup Robust Roots on its acquisition by McCain Meals.
Cardiff, which opened in July 2023, has since grown from two companions to 6, and a complete headcount of 29. Standout work for the Cardiff workplace contains performing as sole authorized advisers to the Celtic Freeport’s lead authority and accountable physique.
In London, the place the agency has round 70 attorneys, together with 25 companions, Medd believes the agency has a ‘large alternative’ to develop on the again of shopper demand. The addition of business and know-how companions Rowan Armstrong and Alex Mason from EY Regulation in Might underscored this focus, whereas non-public fairness is one other space during which Medd believes the agency can proceed to develop following the agency’s entry into the Authorized 500’s London non-public fairness transactions rankings for the primary time this yr.
Shifts within the wider authorized market have additionally helped Browne Jacobson. With many former nationwide leaders like Eversheds Sutherland and DLA Piper shifting their emphasis ever extra in the direction of higher-value worldwide work, alternatives have opened up for companies like Browne Jacobson to step in. ‘A bunch of companies that may have beforehand competed with us for work have modified their focus,’ Medd notes.
Medd additionally believes that the agency’s success has not come at a price to the agency’s tradition. Underpinned by its sturdy fame for social mobility, the agency has a fame for being a cheerful ship, and in a current inside survey, ‘inclusive’ was the commonest phrase used to explain the tradition on the agency.
He says the agency has an ‘absolute dedication to non-hierarchical buildings.’ Noting that the agency is all open plan with no closed workplaces, and he mentions a debate the agency had round three years in the past to underscore the purpose: ‘We’d by no means had job titles on emails. However we acquired too huge, and folks could be getting emails from individuals and having no concept who they have been.’
Inexperienced provides that inclusivity on the agency is certainly not a current growth: ‘The very first thing I observed once I got here to Browne Jacobson in 1984 was that there have been no titles – I’d come from an atmosphere the place I needed to name all of the companions Mr So-and-So.’
By way of future ambitions, Medd believes that transferring up the LB100 rankings by 5 to 10 locations – or certainly even additional – within the coming years is an inexpensive aspiration, however is obvious that progress ‘needs to be worthwhile’.
‘I feel the entire trade is simply too centered on turnover,’ he says. ‘To draw and retain the very best expertise and make the investments we’re going to wish to make in know-how and different areas, we must be worthwhile.’
And whereas many companies make daring claims about income targets and ambitions, Browne Jacobson’s current successes do add credibility to the agency’s optimism concerning the future. As Medd concludes: ‘There’s an enormous distinction between saying it and doing it. And I actually really feel like we’ve finished it.’
tom.cox@legal500.com
