If you’re a fee-earner, you’ve probably felt it. The late nights. The constant juggling. The sense that no matter how hard you work, you’re still falling behind. 

In 2025, lawyers need to handle more than just legal work. Compliance demands on fee-earners are growing as the SRA and other bodies ramp up their regulatory oversight. Meanwhile, solicitors are also responsible for growing their firms, ensuring they hit ever-increasing billable hours targets.

This article draws on insights from our recently published report ‘Under pressure: How fee-earners are balancing compliance, client expectations, and growth in 2025’.

It looks at what’s driving the pressure on fee-earners, and how firms can effectively support their people moving forward.

Increasing compliance obligations

Compliance used to sit in the background. Now, it shapes every matter before the first draft is even written.

SRA audit activity has doubled, with desk-based reviews up 350% in the past year. From 1 September, the new Failure to Prevent Fraud offence extends criminal liability to every associate, not just firm leaders. 

What’s more, the costs of non-compliance are real. The SRA issued £556,000 in AML fines last year, while one firm was fined £60,000 by the ICO for a data breach. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. With the right systems and support, firms can make compliance more efficient, and free up fee-earners to focus on what they do best.

Learn more about how to do this by reading the full report.

Changing client expectations

Clients want more, and they want it faster. They expect competitively priced legal services that are technically sound and easy to engage with. According to the SRA, consumers now want solicitors to “prove their value for money” and communicate information about process, pricing, and progress up front.

Unfortunately, our research found that many firms aren’t meeting clients’ ever-increasing expectations. Only 38% offer client portals, just 19% provide automatic updates, and a mere 12% allow clients to book appointments online. 

The takeaway? There’s a growing gap between what clients want and what many firms can currently deliver.

For fee-earners, this creates day-to-day friction. Instead of focusing on legal advice, they’re stuck in email chains, chasing documents, and managing avoidable frustration. When experience doesn’t match expectations, it’s the relationship (and potential for repeat business) that suffers. 

Over time, this seriously impacts the firm’s long-term growth prospects. 

Rising growth targets and billing pressure

Fee-earners are under more pressure than ever to hit high billing targets, generate new business, and demonstrate commercial impact. 

On the face of it, law firms seem to be thriving. Over 70% of law firms reported year-on-year fee growth in 2024. Behind those figures, however, is a growing reliance on fee-earners to drive that momentum.

The impact is tangible. One mid-level associate at a US firm billed more than 2,000 hours in a year, often working 10-hour days. Across the sector, recorded hours often fall well below targets – not because fee-earners aren’t working, but because so much of what they do goes unrecognised or unbilled.

As Dan Warburton, law firm coach and author of ‘Delegate Now to Supercharge Your Profits’, explains, “Targets are often unreachable. However hard you work, you can’t seem to get noticed for your efforts, and that’s exhausting.”

Thankfully, there’s a better approach.

It doesn’t have to be this way

When firms equip fee-earners with tools and processes that support their day-to-day work, everything gets easier. Automation-based tools speed up compliance, removing manual work from fee-earners’ to-do lists. This gives them more time to focus on delivering a great client experience, which in turn, helps to grow the firm. 

Over time, these benefits compound. 

This all sounds simple in theory, but what about in practice? How can your firm take the first steps towards making life easier for your fee-earners?

Our report explains exactly how to get started. Read it to learn how you can give fee-earners the tools, time, and energy to do what they do best: delivering excellent legal services. 

Read the full report here.