Lindsay Healy

The firm, which is attracting an increasing number of big-name lawyers, is underpinned by a commitment to share the wealth between clients, lawyers and society.

Aria Grace Law was set up in June 2018 by Lindsay Healy, a former lawyer at City firm Norton Rose Fulbright and general counsel at CSC UKI.

Its lawyers are individually regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, rather than the firm itself. They retain 90 per cent of their fees, which is around 15-20 per cent more than most of its competitors.

All of the net profits go to charity after the overhead costs have been met. The firm is on track to donate at least £200,000 this year to its charities including AGE UK and the Trussell Trust.

The firm recently advised Send Technology in its £9 million Series A investment raise. The firm made a £3,000 profit from the deal, which Send Technology matched so as to make a £6,000 donation in total. Other clients are doing the same.

Being a not-for-profit CIC means Aria Grace is subject to oversight by the Office of the Regulator of Community Interest Companies and has to deliver an annual report evidencing that it is delivering on its objectives.

The firm now has 58 lawyers generating overall revenue of around £4m, its clients are attracted to a legal services business that operates with a purpose. The number of corporates served by the firm has quadrupled since 2020.

Among the new recruits this year are: Louise Wolfson, former Allen & Overy corporate partner; Elena Cooper, former head of EMEA for employment at Duane Morris; Emma Hickson, former partner and head of IT and cyber and Rocio de la Cruz, a data protection, information and privacy specialist, both from BPE Solicitors; Amy Leite, a franchising partner from Nexa, and Katerina Nomicos, tax and compliance partner, from gunnercooke.

Mr Healy said: “Becoming a CIC shows that our commitment to practising with purpose is more than a tick-box exercise. The regulator puts our feet to the fire and requires us to show what we’re doing, how we’re doing it and how we can get better next year.

“We are all about sharing the wealth – our lawyers get a huge 90 per cent of their fees, which means they can afford to charge clients less and yet still earn way more than our competitors and society benefits from the ever-greater profits we can donate to charity.

“We are unashamedly about making more money for our lawyers because that feeds into the charity pots, but the model means they do not have to flog themselves into the ground to achieve it. We don’t talk about work-life balance at Aria Grace; we talk about life-work.”