Stephens Scown worked with Legl to consildate its tools into a single digital solution, enhancing visibility and efficiency across the client lifecycle

About Stephens Scown

Stephens Scown is a highly respected law firm with a clear mission: to go beyond expectations and put clients first. As the firm continued to grow across the South West, the leadership team identified an opportunity to modernise and unify its approach to client onboarding, compliance, and client lifecycle management.

Stephens Scown partnered with Legl in 2025 to deliver a single, scalable solution. The objective was to enhance visibility across the client lifecycle, strengthen compliance and AML risk management, and support the firm’s ambition to deliver a best-in-class, digital-first client experience.

After the successful launch and roll out, the teams have come together to discuss the process and impact of implementing Legl both on the firm’s clients, and on the firm’s operational and compliance processes. 

Highlights

Client completion time for ID checks dropped from a two-day average to hours, driven by Legl’s simple, browser-based experience

Legl replaced a complex 4-provider tech stack with a single platform, simplifying internal workflow and reducing risk 

Enhanced due diligence for higher risk clients was accelerated with access to higher quality and more comprehensive data sources through Legl. ‍

‍The search for the optimal solution

There was alignment amongst the leadership that the onboarding and compliance process, as well as the client experience, could be accelerated and improved by unifying their tools. With four different tools being used, there was interest in consolidation and simplification.

There were also challenges with friction in the client experience. Previously, the tools used to manage identity verification (IDV) included an app-based IDV provider and other screening tools. These required clients to download an app, causing delays and confusion, in addition to lots of manual intervention required by the onboarding team at Stephens Scown. While these four tools were functional, the approach created friction for clients and internal teams, limiting flexibility and slowing down completion rates.

The firm set out to find a solution that would:

• Achieve the vision of a centralised, unified onboarding experience and management from both the firm and client perspectives.
  ‍
• Provide clear visibility across the entire client lifecycle, ensuring robust, consistent compliance and AML risk management.
  ‍
• Deliver a seamless, intuitive client experience whilst supporting automation and efficiency drivers across the firm.
  

Stephens Scown also wanted confidence that the solution would scale with the business as it continued to grow, as well as to find a trusted partner for the business to support that journey.

Choosing to partner with Legl 

Stephens Scown joins several other leading UK law firms using Legl. Recommendations from peers across the legal industry highlighted Legl’s scalability, firm-wide visibility, and proactive, customer-centric approach.

While the firm considered other providers, Legl stood out for going beyond compliance. Rather than focusing solely on AML risk, Legl offered a holistic platform that supports firms in understanding and managing clients throughout the entire lifecycle.

This spanned beyond onboarding to ongoing engagement and risk management, presenting an opportunity for significant technology consolidation in the firm. 

Crucially, Legl’s browser-based client experience offered greater optionality for clients, whether required in-person or remotely, and delivered a far more streamlined and polished user journey than app-based alternatives.

Further, Legl’s Sales and Customer Success teams provided unique insight into the market, helped to provide guidance on best practices, and were responsive and supportive throughout the process of moving to a single, unified platform experience. 

Successful rollout of Legl 

Stephens Scown rolled out the full Legl platform across the 370+ strong law firm.

Legl now underpins both:

• Operational workflows for internal teams, accelerating onboarding, compliance checks, and day-to-day processes
  
  
• Client-facing workflows that simplify complex requirements and deliver a frictionless, digital-first experience
  

Client-facing workflows enable Stephens Scown’s team to customise the approach for working with clients in different departments. Workflows include all types of important compliance and due diligence considerations such as biometric identify verification and source of funds, but also include opportunities to accelerate document sharing, information capture and beyond. 

Legl’s customer enablement team delivered comprehensive training, allowing Stephens Scown to ramp up quickly and confidently across the firm.

Driving measurable impact across the firm 

It was critical to the leadership at Stephens Scown that Legl helped to impact important firm objectives, including enhancing client experience, improving operational efficiency and making life easier for lawyers working in the firm. 

The results were staggering:

Across all the firm’s clients, 78% of client onboarding is now completed in the same day, helping the firm to scale, meet ambitious growth objectives and deliver on client service goals. Prior to using Legl, the time to complete this process with clients took two-days on average, with 20% of checks being completed in three days and over, and 6% over nine days.

With clients completing the process in just 11 minutes on average using Legl, this has been a game-changer for client experience. The ease and convenience of supplying information at a time of their choosing, on a device of their choosing is evident in the completion times. Further, the team at Stephens Scown report receiving feedback from clients in customer surveys specifically calling out the simplicity and seamlessness of the onboarding process. 

Areas such as carrying out source of funds checks, an endeavour that used to take weeks for the client to complete, causing much confusion and back and forth, have also become significantly smoother and easier:

95% of source of funds requests are now completed within 24 hours.

This approach is 10x faster than before, enabling lawyers to process matters for clients quickly, whilst simplifying requirements for clients. 

The impact of Legl is a faster, more transparent onboarding process that benefits both clients and internal teams, all whilst helping the firm to manage AML and compliance risks effectively. 

The partnership 

Beyond Legl’s technology, Stephens Scown has valued Legl as a true partner to the business. With shared values around client service, innovation and long-term growth, the partnership supports Stephens Scown’s ambition to continue growing across the South West without compromising on quality or experience.

‍