Garrigues, Spain’s largest law firm, upped global revenue 2.5% in 2023 to €454.3m, becoming what it claims is the first EU law firm to break the €450m revenue barrier.  

The result marks the 10th consecutive year of growth for the Madrid-based firm and should see it stay comfortably ahead of Spain’s second-ranked firm Cuatrecasas, which is yet to post its 2023 results but pulled in €352.7m in 2022.  

The increase marks a step down on 2022 and 2021, when the firm upped revenue by 7% each year after a lacklustre 1.4% increase in 2020, when turnover was dragged down by a ‘sharp’ decline in Latin American currencies due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Revenue totaled €396.7m in Spain this time round, an increase of 2.7%, while international revenue remained roughly stable at €57.6m, having increased by 8% in 2022 to €57m.  

Fernando Vives, executive chairman of Garrigues, commented: “In a year marked by the global geopolitical crisis and political and institutional instability in many of the countries in which the firm operates, Garrigues has remained true to its philosophy of solid and profitable growth, controlling expenses and investing in strategic areas, while at the same time making major strides in terms of our future, particularly as regards digitalisation.” 

Corporate remained Garrigues’ largest practice area in 2023, accounting for 32% of its business. Tax contributed 30.3%, followed by litigation and arbitration (11.8%), labour (11.3%) and administrative (8.2%). All areas recorded sustained growth, the firm said. 

Garrigues said 2023 had also been a key year in terms of sustainability and digitalisation. It marked the launch of the firm’s three-year Sustainability Plan, intended to embed ESG considerations into all areas of the firm’s activity.  

The plan contains 12 lines of action based on ESG objectives and saw the firm achieve 100% of the electricity used in its 23 European offices coming from renewable sources. All the firm’s scope 1 and scope 2 CO₂ emissions were also offset.  

Meantime, at the start of the year the firm’s 16-strong promotions round was evenly split between men and women, and 49% of new hires over the course of the year were women. Last November the firm also announced that labour and employment lawyer Rosa Zarza would become the firm’s first female senior partner at the start of 2024, when she succeeded Javier Ybáñez at the end of his term.  

Garrigues pointed to progress it had made last year in its digital transformation, in which it has invested €64m over the past five years. The firm has developed its own generative AI platform, Garrigues GAIA, to provide staff with access to different internally trained models that are also integrated with commercial models.  

The firm has also been developing its digital business division to enable the launch of products and services related to digital trust, contract digitalisation and the emerging digital asset ecosystem.  

Last May, it bought a controlling stake in EADTrust, a trust service provider registered with Spain’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, to allow the firm to better use digital trust technologies.