LPM Frontiers 2025 — research into the outlooks and intentions of 50 senior UK SME law firm leaders — arrives at a time when the pressures on the typical SME law firm seem more intense than ever. Expressions of confidence in future financial prospects are one thing. Leadership must also have confidence in the talent needed not only to do the work and serve clients well today, but to take the business forward into a highly uncertain tomorrow that may faze even the most resilient and adaptable.

Against a volatile macroeconomic backdrop, with career and employment expectations fast changing, that talent may well be tempted away to competing businesses with fresh approaches. Yet cost pressures frequently leave management without the option of continually increasing salaries. So, which other dials — from technology investment to business model transformation — could they turn to appeal to those they most need to keep?

• Research summary — all the key findings from LPM Frontiers 2025
• People prizes — how are firms handling pressure to attract and retain the best talent, as well as competition from other legal businesses and levers of pricing?
• Technology trials — what’s driving the big decisions about when and where to invest in new and/or improved IT systems and functionality?
• Machine movement — can SME firms see a positive future supported by artificial intelligence?

This year’s LPM Frontiers findings arrive with very helpful perspectives on all the challenges, each in the relevant place, from experts at our six partners: Actionstep, BARBRI, LEAP, NetDocuments, OneAdvanced and Tessaract. Thank you to all of them — and to you, of course — for engaging in our research and responding to our analysis and questions with insight and experience.

PEOPLE PRIZES

Half of SME law firm leaders say that effectively engaging and retaining the right people is their top transformation priority. They are more likely to be prioritising factors such as the firm’s culture and values (45%) and long-term career paths for people (39%) than immediate financial reward (31%), the office environment (20%) ongoing learning and new skills development (14%)

TECHNOLOGY TRIALS

Almost three-quarters of leaders are confident in their technology investment positions — but cost remains a key concern and three-fifths say they will now always choose cloud. The main needs driving them in this direction are future-proofing the business and managing everyday risks more effectively (77%), and providing a more productive user working experience at the firm (63%). More than half also believe the arrangement makes for simpler IT management across the firm more generally

MACHINE MOVEMENT

One third of leaders report a plan to adopt generative artificial intelligence for at least administrative business support — over a fifth see potential in areas including legal work collaboration (44%), client onboarding/compliance (31%) and client relationship management — but two-thirds find accuracy of output the biggest barrier to doing more.