One of the biggest specialist personal injury firms has announced that the business is back in profit as its three-year plan comes to fruition.

Minster Law, based in Yorkshire, posted pre-tax profit of £503,000 for the year ended June 2024, following a year in which the business reported losses of almost £4.8m.

This is the first year of positive results – turnover was also up by 15% to £36.7m - since the reforms to the personal injury market in 2021.

Those changes prompted an overhaul of Minister’s business model, with the pursuit of volume personal injury claims no longer an option.

Chief executive Shirley Woolham said: ‘We had to think like a start-up, challenge everything and be prepared drive transformational changes to find new ways to achieve sustainable growth.

‘Over the last three years we have had to radically review our cost to income ratio, re-engineered our processes, changed our internal structures, introduced new skills, capabilities and technology and re-think how we create value.’

Such a change required significant investment which was reflected in the previous years of losses.

Shirley Woolham

Woolham: 'We had to think like a start-up'

Woolham said the latest results will mark the start of a prolonged period of growth and are a sign of the move towards serious injury work – albeit still from mostly RTA claims. Serious injury case volumes are up by 50% from two years ago and the headcount for multi-track work is 188, out of a total of 508 people across the business. Minster, which acquired the RTA work of Irwin Mitchell three years ago, is now ‘actively pursuing’ further expansion of its serious injury division, both organically and through acquisition.

Woolham added: ‘Minster is committed to broadening its reach and enhancing its capacity to support clients with the most complex and life-changing injuries. With new partnerships in serious injury set to be announced soon, we are focused on extending our network to bring unparalleled expertise and support to even more clients in need.’

The business continues to be owned by a single shareholder rather than private equity investors and Woolham said the firm is well-capitalised to increase its caseload, as well as take on lawyers in different parts of the country who work remotely.

She continued: ‘We have invested in the right people, technology, and infrastructure to deliver consistently high-quality service, and we’re backed by robust capital reserves that allow us to take on significant, long-term injury cases with confidence.’