The Digital Client Experience: What Legal Clients Expect in 2025

Legal services have been slower to digitise than almost any other professional service sector. A client who banks on their phone, files their tax return online, and signs their mortgage documents electronically might find themselves faxing certified copies to their solicitor, attending an in-person ID verification appointment, and receiving multi-page letters they are expected to sign and return by post.

That gap has narrowed substantially over the past five years — accelerated by the pandemic and by the entrance of legal technology competitors. But many traditional firms still underestimate how much the digital expectations of their clients have shifted, and they are losing clients — and reputation — as a result.

This guide sets out what legal clients actually expect from digital services in 2025, where the biggest gaps are, and what firms should prioritise to close them.

The Baseline Has Shifted

The reference point for client digital expectations is not other law firms. It is every other digital service the client uses. When a client interacts with their bank, they expect instant responses, 24-hour access, mobile-first design, and complete transaction history at their fingertips. When they interact with their supermarket, their insurance company, or their utility provider, they expect the same.

A 2024 survey by the Legal Services Board found that 68% of legal consumers considered digital service delivery to be an important factor when choosing a law firm, and 41% said they had previously abandoned an instruction because the firm’s processes felt “outdated or inconvenient.” These are not marginal preferences — they are affecting buying decisions.

The same survey found that younger clients (under 45) are significantly more likely to choose firms with strong digital offerings, while older clients are more nuanced: many prefer a hybrid approach where digital tools are available but not compulsory.

What Clients Actually Expect in 2025

Frictionless Onboarding

The first impression a client has of your digital capability is the onboarding process. Specifically:

• Can they instruct you online, or must they call?
• Can they complete AML verification remotely using an ID verification service?
• Can they sign documents electronically?
• Is there a clear status indicator so they know you have received their instruction and are acting on it?

Firms that still require clients to come into the office for ID verification are creating unnecessary friction at exactly the moment the client relationship begins. Electronic ID verification services — Thirdfort, SmartSearch, Credas — are now widely accepted by the SRA and the regulated sector. They are faster for the client, cheaper for the firm, and more secure than paper-based checks.

Electronic signatures are now the norm for most client-facing documents in the UK. The Electronic Communications Act 2000 and its subsequent development in case law has established that properly executed electronic signatures satisfy most legal requirements. Firms still sending paper documents for wet signature are creating unnecessary delays and signalling to clients that they are behind the times.

Real-Time Case Status

The single most common client complaint is not knowing what is happening with their case. In 2025, clients expect the same visibility of their legal matter that they have of a parcel being delivered — not real-time GPS tracking, but a clear, current status that they can check without having to call.

Client portals that show a matter timeline, completed milestones, and next steps address this need directly. Firms without portals can partially address it through proactive email updates, but clients who have experienced portal-based case tracking find email updates less satisfying.

The key design requirements for matter status visibility are:

• Accessible on mobile — the client should be able to check their matter from their phone without pinching and scrolling
• Plain English — “Exchange of contracts completed” is clear; “Stage 7 of 12 complete” is not
• Accurate — a status indicator that is wrong (or rarely updated) is worse than no indicator at all
• Actionable — if there is something the client needs to do, the status display should show it clearly

Digital Document Management

Clients want to sign documents, view documents, and share documents digitally. The office file sent by post or the email attachment that needs to be printed, signed, scanned, and emailed back is a source of genuine frustration.

In 2025, the minimum expectation is:

• Electronic signature capability for standard client documents
• A secure, searchable repository where clients can access documents from their matter
• The ability to share documents with their firm securely, without using unencrypted email attachments

Several practice management platforms — Clio, Leap, Osprey, Smokeball — now include document portals. Specialist tools like Docusign and Adobe Sign handle electronic signatures. The infrastructure is available and affordable; the barrier is almost always adoption and configuration, not technology.

Responsive Digital Communication

Clients who send emails expect responses within a working day. Clients who send messages through a client portal expect responses within a working day. Clients who submit an online contact form expect to hear within a working day.

This expectation is frequently unmet. A 2023 review by Which? found that 35% of law firms took more than 48 hours to respond to initial email enquiries, and 15% did not respond at all within a week. For firms competing with tech-enabled new entrants, this is a significant vulnerability.

The solution is not unlimited availability. Fee earners cannot be expected to respond to client messages at 11pm. The solution is:

• Clear, communicated response time standards (and meeting them)
• Out-of-office systems that give clients a realistic expectation of when they will hear back
• Intelligent triage so urgent messages are escalated appropriately
• AI-assisted drafting so fee earners can respond quickly without the time burden of drafting from scratch

Transparent Pricing

Clients making decisions about legal services in 2025 expect to see pricing before they commit. The SRA’s Transparency Rules, which came into force in December 2018 and were updated in subsequent years, already require most regulated firms to publish pricing information online for specific services including residential conveyancing, employment tribunal cases, and probate.

Beyond regulatory compliance, pricing transparency is a competitive advantage. Clients who can see your pricing clearly are more likely to contact you, because they have already self-qualified. Clients who cannot see pricing often assume the worst and go elsewhere.

Online pricing calculators — which give a personalised estimate based on the client’s specific circumstances — go further and generate high-quality leads while setting appropriate expectations before the first contact.

Where the Biggest Gaps Are

Mobile Experience

Despite the well-documented shift to mobile-first internet use, many law firm websites and client portals are desktop-oriented. If your portal or website does not work well on a smartphone, you are creating friction for a significant proportion of your clients. The threshold for a basic mobile audit is simple: can a client complete the following tasks on their phone without difficulty?

• Find your contact details
• Submit an initial enquiry
• View the status of their matter
• Read and respond to a document

If any of these require zooming, scrolling horizontally, or switching to a desktop, there is work to do.

After-Hours Access

Clients who work during the day — which is the majority of clients — often think about their legal matters in the evenings and at weekends. A portal that they can check at 8pm to see where their matter stands, or that lets them upload a document without having to remember to do it during office hours, is genuinely valuable.

This does not mean fee earners need to be available after hours. It means clients should have self-service access to their matter information at any time.

Digital-First for Vulnerable Clients

Some clients need additional support with digital services, and the SRA’s expectations around vulnerability require firms to consider this. Good practice is to offer digital services as the default while always providing an accessible non-digital alternative. Never make a digital process mandatory if there is a client segment that cannot use it — elderly clients, clients with disabilities, or clients dealing with the stress of a serious legal matter who simply cannot engage with a new technology.

Prioritising Your Digital Investment

Firms with limited budgets should prioritise in roughly this order:

1. Electronic ID verification — high client impact, significant operational efficiency gain, moderate cost
2. Electronic signatures — removes friction from every document exchange, low cost using established platforms
3. Proactive digital updates — matter status emails at key milestones, achievable with most practice management systems
4. Mobile-optimised website and online enquiry — essential for initial client acquisition
5. Client portal — high value but requires client adoption effort; see our guide on portal adoption

Obiter is part of the digital infrastructure modern clients expect. It connects to your existing email, reads incoming client correspondence, drafts responses, and logs billable time automatically — so clients receive faster, more accurate communication without fee earners spending more time on administration. For firms building their digital client experience in 2025, AI-assisted communication is no longer optional.