The history of Howes Percival begins with a wedding, when 18th-century lawyer Richard Howes exchanged vows with Mary Percival. In 1790, Howes had founded a practice in Towcester, on the outskirts of Northampton that would eventually evolve into the firm that exists today; his in-laws would add their name to the practice a century later. Michael Percival, a seventh-generation member of the family and the last to work at the firm, retired in 2005. Howes Percival enjoyed a significant period
The history of Howes Percival begins with a wedding, when 18th-century lawyer Richard Howes exchanged vows with Mary Percival. In 1790, Howes had founded a practice in Towcester, on the outskirts of Northampton that would eventually evolve into the firm that exists today; his in-laws would add their name to the practice a century later. Michael Percival, a seventh-generation member of the family and the last to work at the firm, retired in 2005.
Howes Percival enjoyed a significant period of growth in the late 1980s, opening up in Norwich and Milton Keynes, which would eventually eclipse Northampton as the region’s most important legal hub. Another office in Leicester opened in 1997 while a Manchester hub arrived in 2008. By that year, Howes Percival ranked 95th in The Lawyer UK 200 with revenue at an all-time high of £21.9m.
The firm was then hit by a double blow. In the autumn of Denton Wilde Sapte poached virtually all of Howes Percival’s corporate/commercial team in Milton Keynes. A group of 40, including six partners, departed, led by Milton Keynes head Brandon Ransley, who would go on to become UK managing partner of the newly global Dentons a couple of years later. The much-diminished MK office was reduced from corporate centre to a volume residential conveyancing practice.
The loss of that corporate team coincided with the financial crisis, and Howes Percival saw six successive years of revenue decline. By 2014 turnover was barely £15m and the firm had fallen to 133rd in the UK 200.
Since then, however, the firm has rebuilt. As of 2018/19 revenue had still not returned to 2008 levels but there had been five years of growth. The firm launched in London in 2010 with the hire of an insolvency lawyer (though that office didn’t stick).
The firm’s other greatest problem has been one of geography. Howes Percival was essentially an East Midlands outfit, but it had acquired a Norwich office and the two regions operated as separate profit centres (the Manchester office bizarrely counting as East Anglia). Under former chair Tessa Haskey that situation was remedied and the firm now functions with cross-office teams. A real-estate-focused Cambridge office arrived on the scene in 2015, helping to bridge the geographical divide between Norwich and the rest of the firm.
Howes Percival leadership
| Senior partner | Chair | |
| 1989 | Alan Kefford | |
| 2005 | Andrew Barnes | |
| 2014 | Tessa Haskey | |
| 2017 | Gerald Couldrake | |
| 2020 | Geraint Davies |
