Why Lawfront thinks regional law firms need private equity-backed scale

Private equity-backed legal consolidator Lawfront is betting that scale, technology and centralised infrastructure will redraw the regional UK legal market - and COO Axel Koelsch believes many traditional partnerships are not ready for what comes next.

Speaking on The Non-Billable Podcast, Koelsch - whose CV includes COO roles at Freshfields, Linklaters and Addleshaw Goddard - says that law firms now need to “change faster than they ever did” and make “bigger bets than they ever did”, particularly around AI and technology investment.

That, he argues, is increasingly difficult within the traditional partnership model.

“If you are dealing with a partnership, senior partners are motivated by several things, including their own personal financial trajectory, but also very rightly so by the electoral dynamics within a partnership,” Koelsch says. “I can only ever do things that upset so many partners if I want to continue to be managing partner.”

Building regional scale

Lawfront was launched by private equity firm Blixt in 2021 and has since acquired 16 firms, consolidating them into seven regional hub brands including Nelsons, Slater Heelis, Trethowans and Field Seymour Parkes. Group revenue is now running at more than £150 million.

Koelsch describes the strategy as “national scale for regional leaders”.

Rather than targeting distressed firms, Lawfront focuses on already successful regional practices before layering on centralised infrastructure including technology, finance, recruitment, digital marketing and risk management.

“These are things smaller firms would really struggle to hire the experts for or make the investments to deliver,” he says.

Lawfront keeps the local brands and management teams in place.

“We don’t run law firms,” Koelsch says. “The managing partners run the law firms. We run the overall group and the infrastructure behind that.”

AI and the future of legal services

Koelsch believes AI will accelerate consolidation across the legal sector, particularly outside the City where pricing pressure is more intense.

“The way technology works is you invest quite a bit of money, you build a machine which works really well, and then you use it a million times,” he said. “That just doesn’t work in small organisations or small law firms.”

For regional firms weighing their future, his message is straightforward: “Where would you like your firm to be in five years’ time?”

Listen to the full conversation with Axel Koelsch on The Non-Billable Podcast.