IT'S not so much a case of small, but rather "optimum" that is beautiful at the venerable Edinburgh-based law firm of Fyfe Ireland - at least according to managing partner Greig Honeyman.

"We believe in the model of an optimum-sized firm'. That is the aim of Fyfe Ireland now", says Honeyman. "With (the) Clementi (report) around the corner, it will be the optimum-sized firms that will prosper.

Honeyman is one of three partners who revived Fyfe Ireland in 2005, after two troubled decades which saw the firm get into bed with another firm only to see it end in "divorce".

"It was never quite a marriage made in heaven", said Honeyman.

And it took some time to recover.

"We moved along quite comfortably for a while", he adds. "But we were becoming increasingly vulnerable to predators and the strains of competing priorities from within.

"We were approached a couple of times by interested firms, but none of the deals felt right. A few of us just weren't prepared to lie down. We wanted to create something that would be different."

Also, the firm, which can trace its founding back to 1830, still had values that Honeyman felt worth dusting off and and introducing to the 21st century. He and his colleagues sat down and drew up an aggressive growth plan.

The Fyfe Ireland that emerged was a highly-focused boutique centred on its primary legal businesses: taxation, litigation, property, environmental, contract and construction law, matrimonial law, European law, partnership and corporate structures, intellectual property, and insolvency.

The aim is to grow to 16 partners over the next three years, and expand out of its existing Charlotte Square, Edinburgh and Glasgow offices into other areas of the UK.

However, Honeyman says: "We are not looking to be all things to all clients. We are building a sustainable business with the emphasis on service and specialisation.

"It's easy to build numbers. But that can generate a momentum of its own. You overshoot your target size, lose sight of what you set out to do originally. That's why our watchword is optimum'. The right size for that which we seek to achieve."

And one thing Fyfe Ireland is seeking is to ride the Clementi wave. They are already looking at opportunities to "sign up" a small accountancy firm to "broaden the service".

Also, they have just signed as partner Gerry Kerr, who has transferred his financial services legal practice from Maclay Murray Spens where he was a partner in the corporate department in Edinburgh and London.

Kerr will provide legal support and advice to asset management companies, their investment funds, to pension funds and other institutional investors.