This report considers the state of the UK legal services market today and puts that into context of the changes that are likely to take place over the next two years. It follows a YouGov report on the same topic in 2011 and, where relevant, consumer research results from this latest survey are compared with previous results.
Of particular interest are an assessment of how many adults have actually made use of legal representation recently and how they choose this representation, the extent to which consumers would be willing to use new non-traditional sources of legal advice, the role of legal brands and other brands in the emerging legal market, consumer preferences for specific pricing models and an assessment of the potential changes likely in the market.
This report focuses primarily on legal services for the consumer which are led by wills and probate, personal injury and accidents, and conveyancing. Only limited reference is made to legal services for the corporate sector.
Over 30 questions were asked in total, covering the following topics:
- Use of law firms and solicitors, frequency of use and reasons for use
- The percentage of people who have already made a will, been involved in divorce/civil partnership dissolution or are selling/buying a house
- The percentage of people using a solicitor or law firm for the above
- Methods of choosing a legal representative
- Service delivery and pricing models for legal services
- Satisfaction levels with legal services provided
- Important criteria to consider when choosing a legal representative
- Interest in using alternative sources for legal advice, e.g. insurance companies, banks, building societies, accountants, claims companies, supermarkets, high street brands, motoring organisations
- Likely use of remote and online legal services and support
- Awareness of legal services brands
- Perceptions of major consumer brands extending into legal services
- Interest in selected new legal service models
- Fees and pricing models preferred
- Perceptions of advertising and marketing by law firms
- Use of law firm websites.
Methodology
For this report, YouGov SixthSense commissioned a survey among its online panel, drawing on a nationally representative sample of 2,109 UK adults aged 16+ in January 2013. In the previous survey undertaken in November 2010 and published in 2011, there was a representative sample of 2,336 adults aged 16+.
