Yes, it is May... but the ONS release was dated April based on data to 31 March. So at this point, I think pick a month you like the look of :) Broadly it looks like input inflation for law firms is around 2.5-3.0% with increased inflationary risks in the second half of 2026 and output inflation (legal prices) stabilising at around 6%. However, predicting where prices are going from here is unusually fraught - up if we see an inflation shock from the Iran war? Down if we see

Not a trick question With UK firms looking ahead to set standard rates for 2026/27, there's a tension in raising standard rates, knowing that realisation will likely dip Partners will be concerned about falling realisation in two ways in the coming months: (1) any inflationary increase to the firm's standard rate card, and (2) any upwards drift in rates (e.g. the individual on an NQ rate today, is on a higher 1 PQE rate tomorrow) Even a relatively modest increase to the stand

The story around Baker McKenzie 's reorganisation of business services seems to have grown legs since it was first reported in Roll On Friday earlier in the month Going back to the original article (link in the comments), it is up to 10% of business services staff at risk, not (a) 10% definitely being laid off and (b) certainly not 10% of everyone (incl. lawyers in the firm) - as I've seen others report ROF estimate total staff of 600-100 at risk, and Legal Cheek a more

There's a rule of thumb that the partners take 1/3 of the profits for themselves and this broadly looks to be the case looking at the UK Top 200 in 2025 Partners retained 33% of profits across the Top 200 (weighted average), or an unweighted median of 32% Remarkably similar to our 2022 analysis in The Legal MBA Essentials, which also showed profit before partner remuneration of... ...32% The chart below shows the distribution across the Top 200 for 2025 (minus a couple of out

After a brief hiatus from March - October 2025, the ONS SPPI is back with a corrected methodology. Let's look at what it shows for UK legal price inflation, and then cover off what's practically changed with the revised methodology. Legal Services Prices increased by 5.6% in 2025 First up, we can see that UK legal prices increased by 5.6% across 2025, down from its 2023 peak of 7.5% and close to the Post-Covid Average (2021 - 2025) of 5.8% Source: The Legal MBA Analysis of ON

"Firms have the systems, the dashboards, the professional resources, and the reporting structures to understand profitability. Yet profitability continues to leak in everyday decisions made by partners, team leads, and matter owners" This, on page 18 of BigHand 's 2026 Annual Law Firm Finance Report, is why I do what I do with The Legal MBA Over the years, it has become increasingly clear to me that there is a fundamental disconnect between the tools, the policies and the

A rare hot topic on a cold winter's day Within Background to the current consultation (link below), the MoJ paints a picture of client interest being somewhat inconsequential to law firms, particularly with reference to 94% of 604 surveyed legal services providers claiming that losing the interest would have little/no impact But this stands in stark contrast to: - Adil Taha 's recent analysis in the Financial Times citing £350m of client interest income in 2024 (i.e. that do

Conversations around Value Based Pricing are often framed in a comic book casting of good (VBP) vs evil (Cost Based Pricing / CBP) But it's not an either/or, and it's an incomplete picture Cost and perceived value set the parameters of what a price can be, but they don't define what the price ultimately is Unless you're a VC backed SaaS company burning other people's money, the price a client pays does generally need to be higher than your cost to deliver the service In profe

Ropes & Gray LLP have captured headlines in recent weeks for permitting AI experimentation to contribute towards 20% of first year billable hours targets We've seen tentative, small steps in this direction over the past 5 or so years, but they've tended to be low single digits of total hours targets, and possibly diluted with other non-billable activities such as BD R&G's 20% equates to 380 hours, out of a 1,900 annual target and is a significant step change. The targeting o

BigHand 's 2025 Pricing and Budgeting Survey is a worthwhile read, and timely for our current Legal Mini-MBA delegates who are wrapping up our lesson on Pricing this week! I normally expect the march of progress to head in one direction in these sorts of surveys, but there's one area in particular that stands out... Clients want greater visibility over fees (p8), but firms are offering less of it (p16) I can't help but (perhaps unfairly) draw a link between less visibility he

The PwC 2025 UK Law Firm Survey is available here, and always a good read There's a picture painted here of the Top 10 continuing to pull away from Top 11 - 100 firms - and that's illustrated most clearly on p13, showing Top 10 PEP of £1.8m, compared to £1m for Top 11 - 25 and £0.6m for Top 26 - 100 firms On average, all categories of firms now have PEP ahead of inflation over the post-pandemic period and I would take that as a positive Beneath the broad brushstrokes there

On my list of headlines I wish I had written, but didn't... all flash but no cash... 🙂 It's a good read from Taha & Watmough , based on...

Steve Rowan , Nicky Lloyd and I had a good discussion at last week's Managing Partners'​ Forum roundtable around how business services...

We’re wrapping up our Fundamentals of Law Firm Finance live sessions with this term’s Legal Mini-MBA cohorts this week As a broader...

As things stand, from 1 April 2027 far smaller firms will need to file a profit and loss account at companies house than is currently the...

Good round up of recent NQ salary increases in this FT article (paywall) I don't really share in the "this is terrible, in my day NQs...

Couple of reflections on last week's event with law firm Commercial Finance folk, very kindly hosted by Dee Deol MSc and Totum...

Roll On Friday broke the news on DWF putting 100 roles at risk of redundancy a couple of weeks ago and some of the commentary since...

Interesting report coming out of Bucerius Law School and Simon-Kucher looking at the impact of GenAI on law firm business models last...

One of the questions left open in The Law Society 's Financial Management Survey is that of effective rates, or price achieved by...