Acquisitive law firms keep up pace with slew of fresh deals


Talbots Tinsdills: (l-r) Peter Hamilton (chairman, Tinsdills), Dave Hodgetts (Talbots Law) and Rebecca Medcalf (chief executive, Tinsdills)

This year’s M&A activity has continued with deals announced by law firms owned by employees, public shareholders and a global investment manager, as well as activity in the costs world and a blockbuster legal IT acquisition.

Talbots Law has completed its fourth acquisition since becoming employee owned in late 2021 with a deal for Tinsdills, which has around 85 staff in offices in Leek, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Sandbach and Stoke-on-Trent.

Talbots now has 19 offices and more than 500 staff across the Midlands as a result, and a turnover exceeding £40m. The firm had seven offices and a £17m turnover at the time the employee ownership trust was formed.

Chief executive Dave Hodgetts said: “North Staffordshire and Cheshire have long been ‘target’ areas for us, and there are few firms as respected as Tinsdills Solicitors whose roots date back to 1580.

“The decision to join forces was easy – our values align, and we share a deep commitment to supporting local people and businesses. Tinsdills’ client service is ranked as top 15 nationally on Review Solicitors, which speaks volumes.”

Talbots’ growth drive has involved the acquisitions of Sarginsons in Coventry, Wright Solicitors of Dudley and Bewdley, and Worcester firm Scaiff in the last two years.

Listed firm Knights yesterday unveiled a deal for Rix & Kay, a 33-lawyer firm with offices in West Kent, East Sussex and Hove. Staff will relocate to Knights offices in Kent and Brighton.

Its acquisitions are usually followed by redundancies among support staff of the acquired firm but this has not been confirmed.

Unusually, Knights did not announce the deal to the London Stock Exchange – because of its size – meaning that for once the price it is paying is undisclosed. Rix & Kay reported revenue of £4.2m in its last financial year.

It is Knights’ 25th acquisition since listing in 2018, after the £16.6m deal for Essex law firm Birkett Long revealed in May that will take its annual revenues to over £200m. Knights now has around 1,350 staff in 32 offices nationwide.

Richard Cripps, managing partner of Rix & Kay, said: “We have been considering our options for some time and it is great news that we have been able to conclude our deal with Knights…

“I know our fee-earning colleagues will thrive in a bigger, better resourced business, and all of us are excited to be joining new colleagues in Brighton and Kings Hill.”

Stowe Family Law has acquired six-person Hatton Family Law, based in Chatham, Kent.

Chairman Ken Fowlie said: “Adding the Hatton team to the Stowe family will add depth and breadth to our offering and help us expand our presence in the southern Home Counties…

“As we continue to pursue our aspiration to be the UK’s leading family law practice, adding Hatton is another step towards our goal.”

Stowe now has more than 90 offices across England and Wales and over 200 family lawyers.

Stowe was itself acquired last year by Bahrain-headquartered global alternative investment manager Investcorp from private equity firm Livingbridge, which bought the practice in 2017.

It is the firm’s fifth acquisition in a little over three years, following Chapman Pieri, Watson Thomas Solicitors, Crisp & Co and Hawkins Family Law.

In the world of costs, Carlisle-headquartered Paramount Legal Costs and Liverpool-based KE Costs are to merge in September to create Peak Costs. They will have a combined workforce of more than 40 staff and turnover exceeding £3m.

The firm will provide costs services in multiple practice areas, including clinical negligence, personal injury, Court of Protection and commercial litigation.

Managing director of Peak Costs, Martin Walsh, said: “Like its predecessors, Peak Costs will support lawyers by enabling them to unlock commercial value from their files, allowing them to work with experts that they know and trust, and supporting the critical work carried out by the legal sector in England and Wales.”

Elsewhere, the board of listed personal injury group NAHL has announced that the process to dispose of its critical care business, Bush & Co, has concluded without a sale. It began in April 2024.

“The process drew interest from a wide variety of potential bidders and the group had lengthy discussions with and detailed proposals from two final parties, however these discussions have now ceased,” it told investors.

“The board also concluded that neither proposal delivered appropriate value to shareholders. The board is considering its options and will update shareholders as and when appropriate.”

Finally, in the world of legal IT, Clio yesterday struck a $1bn deal to buy vLex from UK private equity firm Oakley Capital.

Founded in Spain, vLex has developed from a research database business into software following its launch last year of Vincent, an AI-powered legal workflow platform.

Clio said the combination with its legal operating system—used by more than 200,000 lawyers globally —would create “a new category of intelligent legal technology at the intersection of the business and practice of law, empowering legal professionals to seamlessly manage, research, and execute legal work within a unified system”.

Oakley, which invested in vLex in September 2022, said it would partially reinvest in the combined business alongside vLex’s founders, Lluís and Angel Faus, “in order to benefit from expected future growth”.

The latest mergers come as figures obtained from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) by accountants Lubbock Fine revealed that there were 91 mergers in 2024, down significantly from 122 in 2023 and 117 in 2022.

It said one reason could be that “senior partners are increasingly delaying mergers or sales to another law firm in the hope that they can attract a higher bid from a private equity backed law firm”.

Partner Mark Turner said: “Few lawyers will have the opportunity to sell their firm twice – holding out for a cash bid from a deep pocketed PE fund is an attractive alternative.”

He added that the recent increase in National Insurance contributions for employers could add significant financial pressures on many small and medium-sized law firms to merge.

“Tax hikes will dent the profit margins of those law firms that can’t pass those costs onto their clients. This may be compounded by a loss of income as their clients similarly tighten their belts.

“If a firm continues to lose money, after all the obvious cost-cutting has been done, then a merger may be the only way to keep the practice afloat.”




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