By Alaistair Beddow, Managing Director, Meridian West
As findings from Meridian West’s client listening benchmark study show the adoption of strategic listening is accelerating, Alastair Beddow offers four practical insights to help elevate the impact of your firm’s approach.
A quiet revolution is underway in many law firms. After decades of internal resistance and persistent challenges in articulating the value of client feedback, law firms are increasing recognizing the strategic gains from active, structured client listening at scale.
Meridian West’s Client Listening Maturity Benchmark (CLIMB), conducted with Plowman Consulting, reveals the adoption of strategic client listening across the legal industry has accelerated rapidly over the last five years. Today, six in ten law firms (58%) report having a centralized, coordinated approach to client listening while just 11% say they capture no feedback from clients at all.
CLIMB is based on data from nearly 200 of the world’s leading legal and professional services firms including global industry leaders, fast-growth mid-market firms, and specialty boutiques.
The study measures listening maturity across five categories: approach and governance, research, technology and data, integration and driving change, and commercial impact. Firms are assigned an overall maturity score which places them into one of four segments: base camp, foundational, intermediate, and advanced. A quarter of firms (26%) now sit in the advanced category, and many more are taking ambitious strides in that direction.
The collective experience of participating firms points to a fundamental shift in how client and market insight is being used both to enhance day-to-day client experience and to drive measurable commercial impact. Four key lessons emerge from the research.
1: Leadership Buy-In Is the Catalyst for Strategic Listening.
More than half of the law firms (52%) say their Managing Partner or CEO is a key champion of strategic listening. Among firms in the advanced category, that figure rises to 89%, underscoring the critical link between leadership engagement and listening maturity.
Successful programs typically share a common feature: alignment among the Managing Partner, board, CMO, and their team around a shared goal of improving client experience –and a shared understanding that progress must be consistently.
One CLIMB participant, law firm Mills & Reeve, describes their program as ‘fearless feedback’, encouraging fee-earners to engage actively and contribute to the firm’s growth. For Kirsty Shenton, Head of Client Care, explains, framing feedback in this way “led to increased accountability and helped to reinforce the belief that improving client experience is a responsibility shared by everyone at the firm.”
2: Multi-Touchpoint Listening Has Become the Norm
Listening can take many forms. Our CLIMB shows that law firms today increasingly adopt a blended approach including in-depth interviews (adopted by 73% of firms) and online surveys (69%). This allows firms to balance depth and scale - focusing on strategic client accounts and clients with growth accounts without neglecting the wider client base.
Firms are also listening at multiple points across the client journey. While holistic relationship reviews are the most common (adopted by 88% of firms), post-pitch and post-matter reviews are increasingly becoming the norm (adopted by 69% and 63% respectively). A smaller but growing number of firms, 19%, are gathering feedback after onboarding new clients.
Concerns about ‘feedback fatigue’ are often overstated. In my experience, in-house counsel and buyers of legal services welcome opportunities to share perspectives provided the process is well designed and leads to visible improvements.
That said, inviting feedback raises expectations. Firms that benefit most are those prepared to listen deeply and adapt how they work in response.
3: Technology Is Enabling Scale and Insight
Despite the growth of CX roles and client account teams within law firms, most firms still operate lean internal teams to support strategic listening activity. Even among large firms it is not uncommon for there to be no full-time roles dedicated listening activity.
Technology is helping bridge the gap. Forty-five percent of law firms now use centralized dashboards to report and track their client experience KPIs, and a further 39% are planning to implement one in future.
AI is accelerating this shift. Tools like Meridian West’s CoreClarity are enabling faster, evidence-based insight, growth opportunities and development areas fast and evidence based. Two thirds (65%) of law firms who are not currently using AI to support their listening activity plan to do so within the next 18 months.
4: Advanced Firms Use Client Insights to Drive Strategic Growth
At advanced firms, client listening is evolving into a “demand center” for insight. As the Head of Client Insight at a top 10 global accountancy firm recently described, listening has shifted from an opt-in activity with limited engagement to a central source of insight that fee-earners actively draw on to deepen client relationships and identify new opportunities.
This evolution takes time. However, firms making progress are intentional about aligning listening efforts with the strategic priorities of their firm. That means they have a regular source of insight about topics such as international expansion, AI investment, succession planning and changing client needs that can support the strategic decisions being taken by their firm’s leadership.
To benchmark your firm’s listening maturity and receive tailored recommendations, you can complete the CLIMB survey here.
Alastair Beddow, Managing Director, Meridian West is the co-author of the Client Listening Maturity Benchmark (CLIMB). Connect with Alastair on LinkedIn or visit the Meridian West website.
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