The Next Phase for Digital Pioneers in UK Law Article: Colin Bohanna

A monumental shift is taking place in the UK legal market – one that will affect every part of the profession.

As one of the leading legaltech providers in the world, a large portion of Dye & Durham’s activities is to research, track, and foresee changes in the legal industry before they have become mainstream. We did this in our 2024 report, “Digital Pioneers: Leading The Tech Revolution,” which charted how the digital fluency of Millennial and Gen Z legal practitioners was reshaping expectations of the workplace and accelerating adoption of modern systems. That research was important. What we are observing now is more consequential and is likely to have an even greater effect on the legal sector for decades to come.

The UK legal market is entering a period of structural change that will influence how firms operate and compete for years to come. We are seeing how consultant-led and platform models are scaling at pace, alternative business structures (ABS) account for a growing share of regulated firms, and private equity (PE) interest in legal services is now an active feature of the market rather than a distant prospect. This trifecta is the beginning of what we see as a historic moment, one in which operating expectations are shifting faster than the profession typically moves.

Dye & Durham will be releasing original research on this in the coming months that will chart how ownership, working models, and capital are influencing the way legal organisations are structured and expected to perform. In a later article, I will also expand on the changing dynamics that are leading to this structural change. Today, I concentrate on one of the biggest drivers of it: A new type of leader that is at the forefront of the trend.

Ahead of that, here are the broader trends all law firm owners, partners, and CEOs should already have on their radar.

A New Type of Leader

When we first wrote about Digital Pioneers, the picture of a new type of legal professional was already beginning to emerge. As we found then, as Millennial and Gen Z legal professionals rise in prominence, their expectation of digital fluency is reshaping what “good” looks like in a workplace, as well as what “modern” looks like in a law firm. That still remains true. Digital competence is no longer a differentiator for many firms; it is increasingly a baseline expectation among junior lawyers and early-career professionals. But it is not just junior professionals who are embracing this change.

Through our research and many recent conversations with the legal market, we are charting an unmistakable trend in how leadership is changing. For generations, the UK has had a largely predictable set of operating standards that we’re all familiar with: law firm ownership and promotion to senior leadership have most often followed a well-worn path, one that relied heavily on progression through apprenticeship, promotion, presenteeism and networking. Management and leadership were often assumed to be “learned by doing”, a skillset one developed in the office rather than a separate track.

In a different era, that process worked – and it still does for many firms – but the world that law finds itself in now is undeniably different: massively increased investment, particularly in lawtech, evolving client expectations, advancing regulation standards, and crucially, different attitudes within the profession. Where once many law firm owners remained technology sceptics, a growing number of legal organisations are now shaped by leaders who are digitally fluent themselves and commercially oriented in their outlook. These are CEOs, COOs, CIOs, and operationally minded partners responsible for multi-entity groups, consultant networks, or acquisitive growth strategies. Their day-to-day concerns are not only legal delivery, but scalability, compliance visibility, performance management, and how the organisation functions as a coordinated whole. That marks a clear departure from an earlier era, when technology decisions often required persuasion driven by regulation or IT advocacy.

This leadership mindset aligns with wider market signals, particularly in how firms are structured. There is an appetite for new ways of practising and delivering legal services: ABS adoption has risen from around 8% of firms in 2017/18 to approximately 14% by 2024, reflecting steady growth in structures that allow non-lawyer ownership and different approaches to investment and governance. Consultant-led and fee-share models are operating at significant scale, with leading firms numbering in the hundreds of lawyers. At the same time, industry analysis highlights record levels of private equity-backed platform activity in legal services. These are not disparate events; they display a change in attitude and a different standard for success. Increasingly, those who treat legal service provision as a business are likely to be the most successful in a busier and more tech-savvy market. 

This is a topic we will be expanding upon more in our upcoming and market-defining research. To get access to that report when it is available, please visit here or www.dyedurham.com/resources

Kindly shared by  Dye & Durham