Founded in 2014 and based in Leeds, Legal Studio is a consultancy-style law firm that supports experienced solicitors across a range of practice areas, including private client, family, litigation and personal injury.
We spoke to CEO Ian about the story behind Legal Studio, the kind of lawyers the firm is designed for, and why being “humans first, lawyers second” sits at the heart of its culture.
Q: When did you join Legal Studio and how has your role evolved since then?
Legal Studio – or MDLS Solicitors, as it then was – was set up by my colleague Matt in 2014. I came on board very shortly afterwards as a consultant.
Within about three to six months of working with him, I realised there was something really interesting here. I enjoyed the human side of what we were doing – the people, the business development, the recruitment – whereas Matt loves numbers and systems. It felt like a good combination, and also like an opportunity.
So I made him an offer to buy into the firm and joined as a director and shareholder. He’s probably wished he’d refused ever since, because I’ve definitely spoiled his plans for a quiet life! But from there it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster, in a good way. We’ve now been going for 11 years.
From the beginning, Matt’s vision for Legal Studio was clear: to create a place where you can be a lawyer without all the challenges and trappings of the traditional law firm model.
Q: What was wrong with the traditional model, in your view? What were you trying to do differently?
I often describe Legal Studio as the opposite of Steve Jobs’ famous quote. Jobs said: “Why hire intelligent people and then tell them what to do?” Nobody’s told law firms that yet.
Most traditional firms hire very intelligent, very competent people – and then proceed to tell them exactly how to do their job, in a practice area they’ve often never worked in themselves.
Both Matt and I genuinely enjoyed the law itself: what we did, how we did it, and how we worked with clients. What we didn’t enjoy was being told how to make that work – how we “should” deliver our service to our clients, how we should structure our days, or build our practices.
Law is incredibly personal. Your way of working, your relationships, your way of solving problems – no one-size-fits-all system can account for that. Yet that’s what many firms try to impose.
We wanted a place where people could be humans first and lawyers second. That’s not just a nice idea – there’s good evidence that happy workers are better workers. Our own numbers back that up: our retention rates sit in the high 90s compared with other platform law models, and our client reviews are consistently 4.8–4.9 out of 5 stars. Clients like working with happy lawyers.
So, we know the model is good for clients and good for lawyers – and we’ve achieved that without the unnecessary egos, targets and politics that often dominate traditional firms.
If you imagine a 29-year-old lawyer: first child on the way, very good at what he does, liked by colleagues and clients – yet perpetually burned out. Always overextended. Regularly told he has “capacity” despite feeling like anything but.
That was me.
I got to a point where my genuine belief was: “I’m going to have to walk away from the law. I’ll go and do something – anything – else, because this cannot be the next 25 years of my life.”
I’ve had my fair share of mental health challenges and burnout. I later discovered I’m neurodivergent, which explained a lot. But the traditional business of law simply isn’t built to accommodate anyone who doesn’t fit the classic “big law” mould.
If you want to have a personality, any kind of individuality, caring responsibilities, hobbies outside work – or your brain is wired a bit differently – the message is often: “Tough. Pretend you’re not. Push through it.”
Legal Studio exists partly as a response to that. As I’ve said, we wanted to create a place where people could be humans first, lawyers second.
Q: It sounds like autonomy is central to your model – why is that?
For me, the systemic wellbeing problem in law comes back to autonomy – or the lack of it.
If you give people freedom, flexibility and autonomy to create their own practice – to decide how, when and with whom they work – everyone benefits. The lawyer, their clients, their families, their communities.
Our model is designed around that autonomy. Consultants shape their own practice and working pattern, within a supportive platform that handles the infrastructure, compliance and accounts.
It’s not perfect or utopian – nothing is – and there are challenges. The biggest one in any consultancy model is that you’re primarily responsible for finding your own work. That can be scary.
But many lawyers underestimate how strong their own following actually is. They’ve been told that “the clients belong to the firm” and that clients don’t really care who they deal with, as long as the logo on the letterhead is the same.
In my experience, that’s simply not true. Humans work with humans.
A law firm brand’s main job, in my opinion, is not to be actively offensive. It’s very rare that a client chooses a firm based purely on the brand. What they remember is how they felt during the process – and the only person who can deliver that is the lawyer sitting in front of them.
Clients follow people, not law firms. For the sake of example, X LLP didn’t sort out that divorce, Dave did. Y LLP might have been the signature box on the bottom of that SPA, but the person you were talking to at midnight trying to get that share sale over the line just before the budget, she was called Sarah.
If you’ve got a good reputation, strong referrers and you’re responsive and do the right things in the right way, the work follows you. When you set out on your own, you often discover your clients, contacts and referrers are actually very keen to see you succeed – because they like you.
With our model, you’re essentially creating your own law firm, but without having to deal with the regulatory and operational headaches alone.
Q: In the early days, what were the biggest challenges in getting Legal Studio off the ground?
The first challenge was simply being understood.
When we started, consultancy was still relatively new in the legal world. It was seen as something for partners who didn’t quite want to retire yet but wanted to wind down, which is one use case, but not the only one.
We had to get the name out there and help people understand that consultancy could work for a much wider range of lawyers.
The second challenge is the same one every growing business faces: evolving from “two blokes in a cupboard” to a properly scaled platform. We went from the two of us to 10–12 lawyers quite quickly, and now we’re at around 40. Each stage brings a different set of questions about structure, support and culture.
Keeping the lights on while growing is always interesting too – balancing fee-earning work with the work of building a business.
But the biggest ongoing challenge, and also the most rewarding, has been growing while trying to maintain – and protect – our culture.
Q: How does your model work in practice, especially around remote working and culture?
Most of our lawyers work from home or from their own office spaces. We also have a central hub in Leeds that people can drop into if they want a change of scene or want to work alongside others.
The real culture work, though, isn’t about a physical office – it’s about who you recruit and how you stay connected.
On the recruitment side, we’re very deliberate. We’re not for everyone, and that’s intentional. We’re looking for people who are humans first and lawyers second. If your personality is essentially “I’m a lawyer, that’s my entire identity”, you’re probably not a good fit for Legal Studio.
If you’re a person who happens to be a lawyer – and you want time to do X, flexibility around Y, or the ability to shape work around your life rather than the other way round – that’s where we come in.
We also put a lot of effort into staying in touch with our consultants as people. We run weekly informal drop-ins (some weeks 20 people join, some weeks three – it’s optional), regular social events, and of course things like the Christmas party.
I also spend a lot of time checking in one-to-one. Not just “How’s the work?” but “How are you?” I ask everyone the same questions regularly:
- Is there anything we’re not doing that you’d like us to start doing?
- Is there anything we’re currently doing that you’d like us to stop?
It helps us keep a real sense of what people need and how the platform can evolve to support them.
We’re far from perfect, and we’re very aware of that. But the difference, I hope, is that people can actually talk to me about it and see things change, which isn’t always the case in traditional firms.
Q: What kind of lawyers tend to thrive at Legal Studio?
Typically, the lawyers who join us are looking for a life in the law, rather than a life where law is their whole life.
Often, they’re senior associates or partners who are good at what they do and like the work itself, but don’t like the direction their career path is pushing them in.
For example:
- They might be a salaried partner in name only, looking at the equity partners and thinking: “To get to that level I’ll need to borrow money I don’t have, go into business with people I don’t especially like, and wait for someone to retire – or worse – before I get a real say here.”
- Or they’re a senior associate staring down the barrel of three more years of brutal hours and office politics just to be in the frame for partnership.
- Or they know they’d like to work three or four days a week, or build their practice around caring responsibilities, older parents, hobbies or side projects – but they’re worried that if they show their “real self” at work, they’ll be seen as not committed enough.
We attract people who are looking for genuine flexibility and control – and who are ready for the mindset shift that comes with that. There’s a running joke internally about “reverse Stockholm syndrome”: for the first six months, new joiners often apologise constantly for normal things:
“I’ve been to the supermarket this morning, but I’ll make the time up tomorrow.”
My response is always the same: “I genuinely do not care.”
That’s a big culture shift if you’ve spent your whole career having to account for every six minutes.
Q: And finally, what would you say to a senior solicitor who’s curious about consultancy but nervous about making the leap?
Firstly, your fear is entirely normal. It is a big change. But don’t underestimate yourself.
If you’re good at what you do, clients like you, and you’ve built strong relationships, you almost certainly have more of a following than you think. And once you step out on your own, you’ll probably find that your clients, contacts and referrers are quietly rooting for you.
Consultancy isn’t about walking away from everything you’ve built – it’s about taking it with you, on your terms.
You’re effectively creating your own law firm, with the freedom and flexibility that brings, but with a platform behind you so you don’t have to take on compliance, accounts and systems alone.
If you’re looking for a sustainable life in the law – one that allows you to be a whole person as well as a lawyer – then our model is designed for exactly that.
