Partnership Survey: Piper Alderman primed for growth in legal rebound

Some law firms are booming on the wave of business shake-up that’s rushed through the economy in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Piper Alderman’s new partner Lis Boyce with managing partner of the firm Tony Britten-Jones. Picture: Ryan Osland

Commercial law firm Piper Alderman is reaching for the sky, notching up double-digit growth on the back of strong demand for services following the chaos of the Covid pandemic.

The mid-tier firm, which has outgrown its roots in Adelaide, now boasts 86 partners across its offices.

This includes Lis Boyce – a recent arrival to the firm who signed up at the start of this year – but her involvement with the firm stretches back some way longer.

Ms Boyce said she’d known the Piper Alderman team for years during her time at Dentons.

The firm reached out to her in mid-last year to see if she’d be interested in joining their team and bringing to bear her considerable knowledge and skills in the life sciences realm.

“For the last 10 years I’ve had a focus on life sciences, working with companies developing medical devices. It’s a very topical area at the moment,” she said. “Last year and a bit with Covid has focused everyone’s attention on the value of the sector.”

Piper Alderman set a cracking pace in the past six months, with a 13.8 per cent growth across its partner numbers.

This ranked the firm second of all Australian firms for growth, in The Australian’s legal partnership survey conducted by Eaton Strategy + Search.

Ms Boyce said she’d noticed the rate of growth at the firm in her short time there. “Since I’ve arrived I’ve noticed several other partners have joined since I did. It’s not like it was just me and then nothing.”

The strong growth at the firm has been supported by a boost to underlying revenues, which grew from $72.8m to $83.4m over the past 12 months, with the bulk of the rise in just this calendar year.

Piper Alderman managing partner Tony Britten-Jones said growing the firm during the pandemic had been difficult given the disruption to age-old hiring habits.

“Talking to a prospective lateral hire I’d always have the first serious meeting face-to-face and that just wasn’t happening,” he said.

Mr Britten-Jones said the legal industry was now faced with a shift from the post global financial crisis period which saw clients shrink legal budgets.

“Post-GFC the clients became so much more cautious and discerning about consumption of legal services that it put a lot of pressure on firms,” he said.

“But at the moment there’s a lot of work around and not always enough people to service it and that’s a big change from what’s been going on in recent years.”

Mr Britten-Jones said the firm was now faced with attempting to continues its growth, while grappling with a closed borders environment.

“There’s less people coming in from overseas but at the same time there’s less people heading off overseas,” he said.

“It’s a bit of a perfect storm, various royal commissions leading to increased regulation. I’ve got no doubt that Covid has motivated clients to pursue opportunities and a growth agenda in a way that’s resulted in an increase in demand for legal services.”

But for Mr Britten-Jones growth is not the means to an end, noting he was comfortable “not being as large as a number of the other firms that have grown over the last few years”.

“It’s become a point of differentiation not just from clients but to prospective staff,” he said.