Slaughter and May

Slaughter and May’s business model exists outside of the typical City law firm classifications. Unlike its magic circle counterparts, it has not sought scale through international expansion. Unlike its US-based competitors, it has been slow to capitalise on the past decade of private equity frenzy. Rather, Slaughters has carved its own way by dominating in its own niche: UK public listed companies. Specifically, Slaughter and May has sought to win and keep the business (especially the dealmaking-business) of the UK’s largest domestic firms through developing long-term working relationships. By any metric, they have been extraordinarily successful in doing so. For instance, they were the firm most likely to advise on big-ticket UK M&A, acting on 5 of 8 of the largest of such transactions over the course of the last year (and grossing £43 million in the process). Particular recent highlights include its work on Nationwide’s acquisition of Virgin Money and on International Paper’s acquisition of DS Smith. The firm does not merely excel at the big-ticket work. It has cultivated impressive breadth within its niche, acting for more FTSE 350 companies than any other law firm. Slaughter’s remarkable profitability for a UK-firm is testament to the leverage it has within this subsection of the market - clients are evidently willing to pay a premium for the firm’s reputation. What is perhaps even more unique is that the firm’s profit per lawyer is among the top five in the City despite much greater scale than many similarly ranked firms. This suggests that Slaughter’s corporate practice is not unduly reliant on any given rainmaker - rather, the firm itself has sustainable margin on its competitors. From an internal perspective, Slaughter and May also takes a unique approach to career advancements and incentives. Regarding the latter, the firm is one of the few elite firms without billable hours targets. The goal is to prevent associates and trainees ‘creating work’ at the expense of real productivity or becoming territorial about the workload that falls to them. Regarding the former, the firm is one of the only firms globally still operating a general partnership, rather than an LLP. There are several relevant implications of this structure, but perhaps the most salient is that it maintains a true equity lockstep. Partners of the same seniority receive the same pay regardless of practice area or billables. This, it is said, contributes to a sense of collegiality and co-operation amongst seniors at the firm. The firm also intends for a ‘trickle-down’ effect into the associate ranks, something made more plausible by the fact that the partnership is composed almost entirely of internal appointments. Touching on culture, Slaughter and May has, over the course of recent years, begun to place a real emphasis on social mobility. For instance, it was the first firm to set social mobility targets and was ranked 5th in the 2024 Social Mobility Employer Index. This is clearly an issue of importance to the firm.