Thomson Reuters buys Practical Law Company Robert Dow and Chris Millerchip - who both worked as corporate lawyers at Slaughter & May, one of the City's leading law firms - could earn tens of millions of pounds following Thomson Reuters's acquisition of Practical Law Company. The duo founded PLC in 1990 after quitting their jobs at Slaughter & May and are still the largest shareholders in the business, according to the company's accounts. Yesterday, Thomson Reuters refused to comment on how much it paid for PLC or on the structure of the deal. However, senior industry sources speculated that Thomson Reuters is likely to have paid between £200m and £300m given PLC employs 750 people and generated pre-tax profits of £18.1m on revenues of £48.2m in the year ending April 2011. Mr Dow and Millerchip are not the only employees that will see cash windfalls from the transaction. The company's accounts from early last year show that there are 26 PLC shareholders, many of whom are thought to be employees at the business. PLC was initially founded to publish a magazine to help City lawyers carry out their jobs. However, since then the company has successfully transformed itself into a business that provides subscription services, such as document templates, to law firms and departments over the internet.