In 2025, small and medium-sized law firms are facing a familiar but intensifying pressure: clients want more. More speed, more clarity, more flexibility—and all without higher fees. The latest Bellwether Report reveals that firms are being pushed to rethink how they communicate, price, and deliver their services to meet evolving client demands.
The shift isn’t subtle. It’s reshaping how firms operate, where they invest, and how they define value. And while the pressure is real, many firms are responding in creative, thoughtful ways, balancing client service with sustainability.
The clearest message from clients? Don’t keep them waiting. Four-fifths (80%) of small law firms said that clients now expect faster communication and quicker answers. While slightly down from 83% in 2024, it’s still the most dominant expectation across the sector.
But delivering speed consistently is proving to be a real challenge, especially for smaller firms trying to maintain personalised service.
Zoë Bloom, partner at family law firm AFP Bloom, shared:
“Keeping pace with client expectations is exhausting and makes us all prone to mistakes. We cannot be everywhere all at once, so we employ people to second us, and then more people to second them. But clients are not satisfied because they want the fee-earner they instructed in the first place.”
Firms are having to find new ways to manage expectations, internally and externally.
“Being firm with clients about what they should expect is crucial,” Bloom continued. “If they want a senior team member who is always available, they cannot also pay less. If they want to keep their fees down, then response time will have to give.”
This tension between availability and affordability is driving firms to rethink resourcing, pricing, and client communication strategies.
Alongside speed, clients are demanding more transparency in pricing. Half of all respondents (50%) said clients want clearer, more upfront fee structures, up from 44% last year.
Traditional billing models are increasingly out of sync with client preferences. There’s growing resistance to unpredictable costs and junior-heavy teams that inflate bills without improving outcomes.
Kate Bennett, Co-founder and Partner of Arbor Law, said:
“Clients want cost-efficient, transparent pricing and direct access to senior lawyers who understand their business and deliver clarity and pace, not inefficiency disguised as process.”
In short, clients don’t want to pay for internal process, they want results. Many firms are now exploring fixed-fee models, service menus, and clearer quotes as a way to offer more predictability without compromising margins.
Beyond pricing and responsiveness, clients are looking for firms that make legal services easier to access and understand. This means more flexible communication channels, more digestible reporting, and more intuitive experiences.
A third (33%) of firms said clients now expect more flexibility in how and when they engage with their lawyers, slightly up from 31% in 2024.
Ben Giaretta, partner at Fox Williams, explained the shift in expectations:
“Clients want transparency but more than that, they want information in a user-friendly way; and in a way that they can easily package up and pass on to their superiors.”
He noted that while some firms are helping by providing accessible data, such as graphics showing spend against budget, others are still falling short.
“Some firms are responding to that well by trying to ensure that information is provided to clients in an accessible form… Other firms are exacerbating the problem either by providing too much or too little information.”
This highlights the growing value of client-centric design, not just in how services are delivered, but in how results are communicated.
For some firms, AI is emerging as a useful tool to help meet client expectations for speed and efficiency.
One legal associate shared:
“Clients are increasingly expecting faster, more efficient legal services. AI can automate time-consuming tasks like legal research and document review to help meet these expectations.”
Another added:
“We are finding that user experience surveys are valuable for measuring the effectiveness of AI tools. Satisfaction often hinges on the usability, design and integration of the tools.”
While not all clients are aware of the technology behind the scenes, they increasingly feel the difference it makes, especially when it leads to faster turnaround and clearer advice.
Still, there’s a recognition that AI is only part of the solution.
As one associate put it:
“The only way to compete in the long run is through client experience. We cannot compete with robots for speed.”
Despite these rising demands, many lawyers are pushing back against the idea that client service must always come at the expense of profitability or wellbeing.
One legal associate said:
“Clients always should come first, then cost and outcome second.”
But there’s a growing awareness that sustainable service requires honest conversations about trade-offs, between availability and affordability, speed and accuracy, flexibility and focus.
In a crowded market, what sets firms apart is increasingly how they deliver, not just what they deliver. And as client expectations rise, small law firms are finding that small changes make a big difference.
Faster replies. Simpler pricing. Better-designed information. These aren’t radical innovations, but they’re exactly what today’s clients notice and remember. The firms that succeed won’t necessarily be the fastest or the cheapest. They’ll be the ones that respond best to what clients actually want, and communicate clearly when they can’t.
Read the Bellwether 2025 report here.
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