Matthew Cowan and David Gerber ranked in Best Lawyers 2025
Matthew Cowan was delighted to be invited to take part in a discussion on client service for the most recent edition of Modern Law magazine.
The article considers how three law firms of differing sizes navigate client care, why it is so important and how building and maintaining relationships is key.
Matthew explains that Bracher Rawlins has many deep and long-standing client relationships that are key to the firm’s success. The firm ensures a bespoke service by taking time to listen and fully understand what clients need, and then tailoring their approach to each client. This includes prioritising what is most important to them but also advising the client on matters they perhaps haven’t considered.
Read the full article below, first published in Issue 72 of Modern Law:
Scaling Client Care: How different sized law firms approach client service
As part of this issue’s focus on client service we spoke to three law firms of different sizes about how they navigate client care, why it is so important and how building and maintaining strong relationships is key.
We chatted with Matthew Cowan, Managing Partner of Bracher Rawlins – a boutique commercial firm based in London with seven partners, Grant Sanders, Partner and Practice Manager at Stephen Rimmer Solicitors – a full service law firm with offices in Eastbourne and Hastings with thirteen partners and nearly 50 members of staff and Rachel Smith, Director of BD & Marketing at Cripps – a large regional firm of over 500 members of staff with offices in Tunbridge Wells, Horsham and London.
Why is developing a good understanding of your clients so important? What are the implications if you don’t?
Rachel Smith, Cripps: Through our client listening programme and market research our clients repeatedly tell us that outside legal know-how, which is a given, they expect us to understand their commercial issues and industry. Becoming sector specialists is also driven by competition as it allows us to differentiate ourselves from the competition in a very crowded market. Clients often don’t see their issues as legal issues but business challenges which may require multiple legal disciplines. They value lawyers who are able to have commercial conversations, proactively identify opportunities and potential risks, and bring in the right legal experts from across the firm to provide a cohesive solution. Therefore, to remain competitive and be seen as more than just a transactional lawyer, you have to take the time to listen and understand the long-term goals of your clients and understand the markets in which they operate.
Grant Sanders, Stephen Rimmer: At Stephen Rimmer, understanding our clients isn’t just an ideal – it’s central to how we operate. Relationships are based on trust and if we don’t invest time getting to know and understand our clients they simply won’t trust us. We know that trust is earned, not given, and we take that responsibility seriously. As part of this approach – we offer a free meeting for all new clients so that we can start building that all important relationship .We recognise that clients often come to us at pivotal moments in their lives, whether they’re buying a house, starting a business or getting a divorce. At these moments, trust is paramount, and we work hard to earn and maintain that trust through every interaction.
Matthew Cowan, Bracher Rawlins: We have built our firm on the strength of deep and long-standing client relationships. The firm is 35 years old and many of our clients have been clients from day one. They are key to our success. Understanding their business and what is important to them is key to that relationship. Over 35 years the individuals at both our firm and the clients have changed it is important to us that the knowledge we gain is embedded in our firm not certain individuals.
What steps do you take to ensure you understand the unique challenges of each client? And how do you tailor your services to meet these challenges?
Grant: It sounds simple but we start with active listening. During consultations, we focus on understanding our clients’ goals, concerns, and circumstances. Managing expectations is also key—if there’s a delay, we make sure the client knows right away. This transparency is essential in maintaining trust and ensuring that our services align with what the client really needs.
Every client brings unique challenges, and addressing these effectively means we’ll tailor our service accordingly. For instance, in our residential conveyancing practice, we’ve introduced a “no completion, no fee” policy to give our clients peace of mind. While we’ve implemented technology to streamline processes and enable online transactions, we’ve also maintained the option for face-to-face meetings. There are lots of clients who still like to come in and meet their solicitor in person. Offering both options allows us to meet the diverse needs of our clients who extend beyond Eastbourne, Hastings, and East Sussex to across the UK.
Matthew: We are a small firm and generally we try and build discussions with clients outside the straightforward fee engagement process. We can then adapt internally to what they tell us and ensure the service we deliver to them is tailored to their needs.
Rachel: We have an internal programme called Spark which is focused on how we improve the delivery of our services. With this programme, we adopt a client-centric approach. Once we have identified the service area we are focusing on, we interview a number of clients who receive that service to understand from their perspective what works well and where the pain points might lie. We then go away and develop some potential solutions which may or may not involve technology solutions. We’ll test these ideas with the same clients to refine our thinking before developing the solution and putting it back into our service. We did this for example when developing our residential conveyancing CrippsApp. Our Spark programme was recognised at the British Legal Awards in 2022 in the Alliance of the Year category after we developed the programme with business consultants, Sprint Valley.
How do you identify and prioritise the needs of your clients?
Matthew: We talk to them. Our clients generally know what is important to them. It is our job to listen to those needs, perhaps advise on matters they haven’t considered but ultimately prioritise what is important to them.
Rachel: We run a key account programme to proactively look after our largest clients as well as identify ones that have the potential to grow. We conduct in-depth qualitative interviews with them to discuss our service and how we might improve and put in place key client plans to ensure we act on the client insight gained. Our BD and marketing content will invariably respond to the commercial issues our key clients face, and it is likely that these issues will be common in their industry, so that content becomes useful for other companies within that sector.
How do you measure client satisfaction and ensure you meet your client’s expectations?
Grant: Understanding the role reviews play in today’s decision-making process, we’ve made them a significant part of our strategy. We’ve established a strong presence on Review Solicitors, Trustpilot, and Google, integrating feedback into our workflows so that every review is acknowledged, and any concerns are promptly addressed. In response to client feedback, we’ve even extended our office hours to include Saturday mornings, making it easier for clients to access our services when it suits them. Our efforts have paid off—nearly 70% of our clients are either repeat clients or have been recommended by an existing client.
Rachel: We run a client insights programme which has two strands – one is for all clients and is a post-transaction high-level review. This is an online survey, with only two mandatory questions and half a dozen optional ones. We use NPS as our benchmark which is supplemented by questions to understand why they gave the score they did. This is managed centrally and is semi-automated so fee-earners don’t need to be involved in the process. All responses are fed back to client relationship partners and appropriate action taking where needed.
The second strand is in-depth qualitative interviews which are conducted with key clients and any other clients where the client relationship partner thinks it might be useful, e.g. if we know they’re coming up to a retender. These are always independent, usually conducted by our senior partner, a non-exec director or myself. We have client plans in place and the findings from these interviews help shape the client plan and we’ll agree any changes needed with the client.
Matthew: We don’t have a formal process and find that feedback comes from the continuous dialogue we maintain with them. An example of a recent change we implemented based on such feedback was the introduction of a bi-monthly on-site presence for one of our clients. They just like us to be around and we pick up far more work from them just by “being there”.
What strategies do you employ to build and maintain strong client relationships?
Rachel: The role of the client relationship partner is key to this. Every client relationship partner needs to understand their role and expectations of that role to provide a consistent level of service. For our larger clients we will have two client relationship partners. This helps to keep relationships broad and manage succession planning. In addition, we have regular key client meetings internally and a key account plan, plus regular communication and structured updates with clients and our independent client listening programme. As a firm, we have five strategic objectives, one of which is focused on delivering an exceptional client service and there are several initiatives that sit within this which include our key account programme, training and development, etc.
Matthew: For us it is all about personal contact – whether that is going to their offices for a day and working from there, or allowing clients to use our offices even if they aren’t meeting us. It has to be calibrated to the amount of contact and interaction a client wants but if you listen to them you generally get a good feel for what they want.
Grant: Building strong client relationships goes beyond providing legal advice; it’s about communication and transparency. Regular updates and check-ins keep our clients informed, and clear communication helps manage expectations. We keep in touch with our clients after their transaction is finished with regular newsletters which include up-to-date information, insights and special offers.
Another part of our strategy at Stephen Rimmer is ensuring that our team is happy, motivated, and empowered. We firmly believe that happy staff lead to happy clients. When our staff feel appreciated and valued, it reflects in their work and in the way they interact with clients, which is why we invest in ongoing training and support for our team. We also encourage our teams to network and socialise with community organisations and local charities – we want to keep in touch with our community and be a part of it.
What continuous improvement practices do you follow to enhance client service?
Grant: Continuous improvement is a core value at Stephen Rimmer. Ongoing training for our teams ensures we stay ahead of industry trends and continue providing services that meet our clients’ needs. In addition to client feedback, we also regularly conduct mystery shopping to ensure our client service standards remain high and consistent. This practice helps us identify areas where we might improve and ensures that every client receives the same level of exceptional service.
Rachel: The Spark programme I mentioned previously started as an internal process improvement programme. We have now introduced a Spark Client programme, so we will work with a client on a problem they need to solve and use our Spark methodology to help them identify some potential solutions. This enables us to really understand some of the commercial issues our client is facing and work collaboratively with them to solve it. Clients like the fact we’re being proactive and thinking beyond being purely transactional lawyers.
Matthew: We talk about client matters both at department and firm level on a weekly basis. We like to ensure that the whole firm has an understanding of what we are undertaking and then use that as a platform to break down into smaller groups if specific issues arise.
What role does technology play in helping you understand and serve your clients better?
Matthew: Very little. We are of a size where we can still easily all talk to each other at our weekly firm meeting. Nothing beats that.
Grant: We’ve moved from paper feedback forms to integrated electronic solutions, driven by client preferences and our commitment to efficiency. We regularly review our internal processes, technology, and communication strategies to find areas for improvement and are always open-minded about using new technology and systems.
Rachel: Our technology team is continually working on projects that re-imagine how we deliver legal services. We only adopt solutions that enhance the experience of our clients and our people and that can improve our efficiencies and enable a more tailored and better client experience. For example, we use tools like Introhive, a customer intelligence platform to help us understand the strength of relationships with clients and contacts across the firm. This helps us to see where we may need to strengthen relationships, where there might be opportunities we’re missing and succession planning.
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