Decline in consumers shopping around for legal services 

The number of consumers shopping around for a legal services provider has fallen from 43% in 2022 to 39% in 2023, according to the Legal Services Consumer Panel’s annual tracker survey, the first it has undertaken that reflects post-pandemic data on consumer behaviour.

It is the only time that shopping around has declined in the 11 years the survey has been conducted, suggesting the job of enabling consumers to effectively consider a range of providers “is far from complete”.

The panel found consumers also struggled to find helpful information about the legal services providers they were considering and were much less likely to find price comparisons easy when compared to last year – 66% found the process easy in 2023, down from 75% in 2022.

The panel asked that regulators “reflect on these findings when monitoring and evaluating how their efforts to boost transparency are progressing”.

A return to relative normality after the pandemic also revealed that although most preferred a hybrid approach to service delivery, combining face-to-face contact with telephone and email, a large majority of consumers (68%) still want to meet their lawyer in person at least once.

Consumers who expressed satisfaction with the service they received from their lawyer were twice as likely to have received face-to-face services than those who were dissatisfied. This, said the panel, “underscores the importance of the quality of lawyer-client interactions”.

Other findings included a slight reduction in consumers stating that the price of the provider they chose was advertised on their website (12% compared with 15% in 2022) and that most still find out the price primarily by talking to the provider.

Sarah Chambers, chair of the Legal Services Consumer Panel, voiced concerns over the decline in shopping around with the resumption of 'normal' life post pandemic. Referring to the 2016 Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) study into the legal services market, she said the fact that fewer consumers were finding it easy to find information about the legal services available had “only strengthened our resolve to call the CMA’s attention to the current state of transparency in the sector, nearly seven years after their initial report”.

She continued, “The panel would also like to see regulators acknowledge the reasons why consumers feel they need to meet with their lawyer in person at least once. We must try to understand what consumers are seeking from this interaction so legal services can adapt in a way that validates what consumers want in a cost effective and accessible way. We look forward to working with regulators to resolve this issue.”