Harper James continues scale-up journey with 42% revenue increase

Harper James, the full-service business law firm purpose-built to enable entrepreneurial and ambitious businesses to succeed, continues its own scale-up journey by closing its financial year with a 42 per cent increase in revenue to £9.8m.

With strong growth each year since inception, the firm is on course to double its team of lawyers by 2025 and increase turnover to £20m by the fiscal year 2026, solely through organic growth.

Founded by Toby Harper in 2014 with a model of senior remote-working lawyers and unique subscription plans, the firm is now a team of 113 professionals, and it has supported over 4,400 businesses. Its people are united in a collective vision of a world in which all viable businesses thrive and contribute to a healthy economy through access to excellent legal services delivered by people who enjoy a true work-life balance.

A great deal of the firm’s success is attributed to its unique culture. To protect this as the business scales rapidly, the firm undertook a collaborative project this year to authentically articulate its core values and behaviours, resulting in a ‘Guidebook to working at Harper James’. A firmwide pulse survey revealed that 100 per cent of respondents agreed the values identified resonated strongly with them.

The seven values which underpin the firm’s culture are:

1. We practice flexibility without judgement.
2. Everyone feels trusted and supported in every aspect of their job. We can do this because everyone is responsible, productive and wants to succeed.
3. We are relaxed and informal, but super organized. No power-dressing is required, neither is jargon. Say it like it is and do what you say you’ll do.
4. No politics. People don’t feel like they have to get one over on their colleagues to succeed. If people around us succeed, so do we.
5. Humility. We love to celebrate Harper James and each other. There’s no room for big egos though!
6. We recognise the hardest conversations are the ones we should always have. Handled with openness so we can focus on the solution.
7. We make decisions with compassion, integrity and responsibility.

Commenting on the firm’s growth and its unique values, founder & CEO Toby Harper says: “Achieving financial strength is important for everyone at Harper James and to our clients, particularly in these uncertain times when stability is so important. Reaching our growth targets allows us to continue to invest in new technology and services so we can better serve our clients’ needs and it also enables us to invest even further in our employer proposition for our people.

“Founding Harper James, I had a strong desire to offer a genuinely flexible working environment and a culture that would be free of traditional law firm politics. I wanted to allow great people to do the work they love while achieving a true work-life balance and their career ambitions. Distilling our values into words this year was very rewarding and it’s clear that our inclusive and healthy workplace culture has shaped how we work with each other and our clients. It has also proven to be the best foundation for our success, and we are fully committed to protecting our values now and in the future.”

Earlier this month, Harper James was named in the inaugural Midlands & East of England Fast Growth 50 Index and it was the only national commercial law firm included in the listings for all regions.