A quarter of top UK law firms now have one or more non-executive directors on their board.
The sea-change at partnership level is part of a trend for large law firms to bring in outside management expertise, according to research by recruitment specialists Edward Drummond.
Although law firms have grown rapidly in the last two decades, with many breaking through the £1bn turnover level, they only recently started adopting corporate management structures similar to their FTSE equivalents.
Neill Fry, director of Edward Drummond, said: “Large law firms faced very challenging trading conditions during the financial crisis, which spurred them to look at whether they have the right balance of fee-earning talent and senior management expertise.
“The top law firms see non-executive directors as offering a vital sounding board for the firm’s strategy and its implementation. Law firms have grown so rapidly over the last two decades that only now are the management structures beginning to catch up.”
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