Spanish independent Cuatrecasas increased its revenue by 11% to hit €350m in 2021, joining Garrigues in reporting a bounce back in income after a pandemic-impacted financial performance in 2020. 

The double-digit increase follows a challenging 2020 – the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic – when revenue dipped 0.3% to €315.3m. The firm said billing of new cases jumped by 30% in 2021 and M&A transactions were up by 50%.

The firm’s revenue in its home market generated the majority of the turnover, with work from its 13 local offices accounting for €285m of the total revenue. While that represented 81% of the firm's revenue, it said its international business accounted for nearly a third (32%) of its income when defined as ‘cases referred by international firms, cases of clients residing outside of Spain and Portugal, and cases largely involving foreign jurisdictions’.

The firm, which has 14 international offices across Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, focuses the bulk of its work on clients in Spain, Portugal and Latin America. 

Cuatrecasas’ results follow hard on the heels of a redemptive performance by Garrigues, Spain’s top law firm by revenue, which became the first Iberian law firm to pass the €400m revenue benchmark earlier this month when it reported a 7.4% increase in turnover to hit €412m after a lacklustre performance in 2020. 

Cuatrecasas’ latest results mean it has accumulated €102.3m in revenue between 2017 and 2021, which represents a 41% increase in turnover over the last five years. 

Cuatrecasas, managing partner Jorge Badía, said the firm’s growth during that period was not circumstantial. 

“It is not that it was a good year; it means that things have been going well for us. We have found a formula that enables us to hire exceptionally talented individuals and to offer an attractive range of services for the market,” he said.   

European Law Firm 2021 Financial Results

The firm, which boasts 1,183 lawyers and 229 partners, promoted seven partners in a move that added depth to its tax, litigation, restructuring and employment practices last April. 

It also successfully launched the sixth edition of its legaltech startup acceleration programme, Cuatrecasas Acelera, in October when it announced six startups had joined the four-month initiative designed to advance European businesses in light of the growing focus on legaltech and increased rates of digital adoption seen throughout the pandemic. 

Fellow leading European independent Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek last month reported a 2.4% decline in revenue to €185.4m for 2021, a figure imbued by a profession-wide winding down in diesel emission collective claims in Germany. The Düsseldorf-based firm described the result as ‘sound’ given ‘the further decline in the number of collective redress cases’ and a second year of Covid-19 restrictions.