Raphael Bohne
Research expert covering professional services
Legal services industry in the UK - statistics & facts
The legal services industry in the United Kingdom has historically been one of the largest in the world. The revenue of the legal services sector was expected to grow to almost 40 billion British pounds by 2028 - with the UK market coming second only to the industry revenue of the United States. The importance of the legal services sector in the United Kingdom as well as the popularity of its law firms was demonstrated by the fact that its total annual exports of legal services was considerably higher than its total annual imports in 2022.
A global presence
The high trade surplus in the sector is due to the fact that the United Kingdom has had a strong reputation for international legal services. In 2022, for instance, almost 3,500 international arbitrations, mediations and adjudications were submitted in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the country's leading law firms have had a strong presence abroad, as roughly 40 percent of the geographical distribution of lawyers from the biggest law firms in the United Kingdom were non-UK based. For instance, DLA Piper, the largest law firm in the United Kingdom, is headquartered in London. The firm is considered as global as it has had lawyers and offices in more than 40 countries around the world. The same has been true for Clifford Chance, second in the ranking of leading UK law firms.The impact of COVID-19 on UK law firms
Law firms and legal practitioners appear to have overcome the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic unscathed, as the turnover of the legal services sector remained steady between 2019 and 2020 and has grown significantly since then. What the pandemic did change, however, is how clients access legal services. In 2021, the most popular mode of delivery for legal services was either through an email or online. This returned to pre-pandemic normality in 2022, with most now preferring face-to-face interaction in the legal services industry in 2023.
