Katharine Hardie

In addition to commercial results, the firm measures itself against other metrics including ‘people and development opportunities’. It announced that 50 per cent of Scotland-based lawyers promoted to partner in May 2022 were female and that over the past three years it had achieved the target of 45 per cent of its legal director and partner promotion candidates being women.

Senior partner at Pinsent Masons, Richard Foley, said: “The progress we have made in diversifying client services, improving representation across the legal profession, and taking action to do our part to address climate change are all testament to what can be achieved when broader measures of success are applied to a business. We, like many other organisations, aspire to do the right thing for our clients, people and communities, but what we have seen since we introduced our broader metrics three years ago, is that when we measure these things over time behaviours do change.

“Purposeful and profitable growth are a consequence of getting everything else right. We’ve made great strides over recent years and are delighted to see others in our industry do the same. It’s a reassuring signal of the direction of travel within the legal sector and Pinsent Masons has no intention of slowing the pace.”

Katharine Hardie, Pinsent Masons chair of Scotland and Northern Ireland, said: “Delivering good growth underpinned by healthy financial performance has led to an encouraging FY21/22 financial year. Sector-led and commercial expertise combined with a blend of professional services skillsets and the use of process and technology has enabled us to advise on a number of high-profile purpose-led projects such as Ireland’s first ever energy storage project, the Equality Law group’s work with St Modwen to address gender imbalance across their business and our data trust work which seeks to harness the power of data to tackle societal issues such as food poverty.

“Half of the lawyers promoted to partner in our Scottish offices in May were female, which underlines the firm’s commitment to gender equality.

“Health and safety and real estate specialist Katherine Metcalfe in Glasgow and employment expert Claire Scott in Aberdeen have made significant contributions to our success and are a welcome addition to the Partnership, while the promotion of Geraldine Kelm, who is head of account management in the UK and Asia Pacific for our flexible legal services division Vario, is another step towards us building a professional services firm with law at its core.”