Blackadders: Dundee growth plans as law firm aims to become ‘top 5’

Blackadders is aiming to increase revenue by 50% and become a ‘top five’ legal firm in the next three years.

It is just over a year since Dundonian Emma Gray and Aberdonian Ryan McKay became the Dundee headquartered firm’s joint managing partners.

They have now announced a bold new strategy to increase its revenue, headcount and standing within the Scottish legal sector.

The vision is to become a “destination” law firm for employees and clients.

Blackadders growth strategy

Emma and Ryan joined Blackadders within a few months of each other 10 years ago.

And when they met to discuss succeeding Johnston Clark as managing partner they realised they had complementary skills.

The pair said sharing responsibility for taking the firm to the next stage of growth has been a success.

Ryan said: “We sat down and spoke honestly to each other about what parts of the job we’d be interested in and good at.

“All the things I wanted to do Emma didn’t want to do and vice versa. There was a natural fit.

“It is an all-consuming job but being able to bounce ideas off each other is tremendously helpful.”

Ryan leads on delivering financial targets, looking at productivity as well as risk and client relationship issues.

Emma’s passion is on workplace culture, people issues and the working environment.

She said: “We are at a hugely exciting time. We’ve been through a long project with a rebrand which has taken in the view of our colleagues, clients and the marketplace.

“It feels like we’re at a tipping point.”

Blackadders ambition

The firm has more than 220 staff across its four offices in Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

An imminent office move in Dundee is on the cards while the pair say the Aberdeen office will soon be at capacity.

Currently the firm’s annual sales around £17 million, of which around £2m is from its wealth management arm.

The co-managing directors have targeted revenue of £25m by 2025-26.

They are not ruling out making acquisitions to achieve this goal.

Ryan said: “We are looking at organic growth but we are conscious getting from £17m to £25m is difficult to do in terms of productivity and bringing in additional partners.

“We are looking at the opportunities in the ever changing Scottish legal market.

“A lot of our growth to date has been as the result of a number of successful mergers so we can’t discount doing that.”

Emma said equally important is their standing in the Scottish legal sector.

She said: “We want to be a destination law firm and for people to be proud to have us as their lawyers.

“We have recently taken on 10 new trainees.

“The work we do and the talent in the business is as good as anywhere else. I want us to be a top five firm in terms of our reputation.

“We want to become an employer of choice. For us, it’s all about people and service.”