When it comes to marketing to solicitors, treating the legal sector as one group is a common and costly mistake. The reality is that the term “solicitor” encompasses a wide range of professionals operating in very different business environments, from sole practitioners in rural regions to global firms in the heart of London.
If your messaging doesn’t reflect these differences, it’s likely missing the mark. Segmentation is the secret weapon of successful legal marketing campaigns, allowing you to tailor your outreach based on real-world factors such as firm size, decision-making structures, practice area focus, and geography.
In this blog, we’ll break down the key segments within the legal sector, explore who makes the buying decisions in each, highlight which areas of law tend to adopt innovation more quickly, and explain how your marketing strategy can (and should) adapt. Plus, we’ll show how our legal database gives you a head start in targeting the right type of solicitor with precision.
Table of contents
Three Key Segments: Not All Solicitors Are the Same
The first step in effective marketing to solicitors is understanding the different types of legal practices that exist. While there are exceptions and hybrids, most firms fall into one of three main categories:
- Sole Practitioners: These are individuals who run their practices, often serving local clients with a mix of personal legal services, including conveyancing, wills, probate, and family law. Budgets are tight, and purchasing decisions are quick, because the solicitor is also the business owner. Marketing to sole practitioners should be highly targeted, value-led, and ideally offer immediate, practical benefits.
- High Street Firms: Typically made up of small partnerships, high street firms handle a broad mix of client work and often serve a defined geographic area. They may have a practice manager or lead partner responsible for business development and purchasing. Marketing to solicitors in this segment requires a relationship-based approach, where trust and reputation are just as important as the product itself.
- Corporate Law Firms: Large firms with multiple departments and international reach fall into this category. These firms usually have structured procurement processes, internal innovation teams, and layers of decision-making. Marketing to solicitors in corporate practices is a long game; you’ll need tailored messaging for different stakeholders, from IT leads to department heads.
| Firm Type | Typical Size | Decision Maker(s) | Focus Areas | Marketing Approach |
| Sole Practitioners | 1 | The solicitor themselves | Local/personal law | Direct, value-focused outreach |
| High Street Firms | 2-10 | Partner or practice manager | Mixed generalist | Relationship-driven marketing |
| Corporate Practices | 50+ | Procurement, IT, partners, innovation | Commercial/corporate law | Strategic, multi-channel campaigns |
Who Holds the Power? Understanding Decision-Makers in Legal Firms
Understanding who makes the decisions within each type of firm is essential for effective marketing to solicitors.
Sole Practitioners: You’re dealing directly with the decision-maker. This makes them relatively easy to reach, but also extremely busy; your messaging must be sharp and instantly relevant.
High Street Firms: Purchasing decisions often rest with one or two senior partners, or in some cases a designated practice manager. They tend to favour suppliers with proven track records and personal referrals.
Corporate Firms: Decision-making is layered. You may need buy-in from IT, compliance, procurement, and department heads. Success here depends on account-based marketing and persistent, coordinated campaigns that address the unique needs of each role.
Tailoring your tone and message to these decision-makers is a non-negotiable if you want your marketing to solicitors actually to convert.
Where Legal Innovation Thrives: Practice Areas to Watch
Some areas of law are faster adopters of new technologies, tools, and services. Understanding this can help you prioritise your outreach, especially if your product or service is geared towards improving efficiency, client experience, or compliance.
Commercial Law: Often driven by client demands and market competition, commercial law teams are typically open to tech that enhances collaboration, speeds up document production, or improves reporting.
Intellectual Property (IP): This area sees rapid change and often involves tech-savvy clients. Solicitors working in IP tend to be more open to automation and legal tech tools.
Employment Law: With high volumes of recurring work, employment law practices look for scalable solutions, especially around document management, e-signatures, and case handling.
By contrast, more traditional areas like conveyancing, family law, and criminal law may be slower to adopt innovation. This doesn’t mean they’re not worth marketing to; just that your approach should focus more on cost-savings, simplicity, and ease of implementation. In all cases, effective marketing to solicitors requires aligning your message with their immediate challenges; whether that’s increasing fee earner efficiency or maintaining compliance in a shifting regulatory landscape.
Think Local: Geography Still Matters in Legal Marketing
While London and other metropolitan hubs dominate the headlines, regional firms make up a significant portion of the UK legal landscape. When marketing to solicitors, geography is more than just a postcode; it’s a proxy for firm size, specialism, and client base.
- Regional firms: Often serve individuals and SMEs, and are more likely to be generalist in nature. They’re also more agile, with fewer barriers to purchasing new services.
- City-based firms: More likely to be specialised and structured. Budgets are higher, but so are the expectations.
There are also regional legal ecosystems to consider. For example:
- Bristol and Leeds have intense commercial legal scenes.
- The North East tends to be more focused on private clients and property law.
- Scotland and Wales have their own legal systems and procurement nuances.
Smart marketing to solicitors takes these local characteristics into account, whether it’s by referencing local case studies or timing your outreach to regional legal events.
Our Data, Your Advantage: Segment Smarter with Our Legal Database
The final, and perhaps most important, step in segmented marketing to solicitors is having the necessary data infrastructure in place. That’s where we come in. Our B2B Solicitors Database is built specifically to help marketers reach the right solicitors, in the right firms, at the right time. Here’s how we segment our data:
- Firm Size: From sole practitioners through to firms with 500+ employees
- Geographic Location: By postcode, region, or UK nation
- Practice Area: Commercial, private client, litigation, IP, and more
- Job Role & Seniority: From managing partner to innovation lead
- Inclusion of SRA-registered solicitors: Ensures verified and compliant contacts.
You can build custom lists based on your exact ICP (ideal customer profile). Ensuring your campaigns are tightly targeted and cost-effective. Whether you’re running email marketing, direct mail, LinkedIn ads, or outbound sales, this segmentation allows for personalisation that resonates. Our Business-to-Business Data is fully GDPR-compliant, regularly verified, and designed for marketers who want results, not just contacts.
If you’re serious about marketing to solicitors, you need to move beyond generic campaigns. By segmenting your audience based on firm type, decision-maker role, practice area, and geography, you gain the insight needed to speak directly to what matters.
The solicitor market is competitive, and attention is hard to earn. But with the right segmentation strategy and quality data at your fingertips, your next campaign doesn’t have to be another shot in the dark. Ready to refine your legal outreach? Request a free legal data audit or book a tailored demo today, and discover how much more effective your marketing to solicitors can be.
