The Octopus Group has pledged to bring the same disruptive force to legal services as it did to the energy market, after bolting on a new probate arm.
Octopus Legal Services has taken on the private client team of Cardiff-based NewLaw Solicitors, adding around 50 staff and growing headcount by a third.
The deal increases the company’s live probate and estate administration caseload by 348%, and brings together the group’s estate planning and bereavement business under the Octopus Legacy banner.
Octopus plans to use AI to handle repetitive administration at scale, allowing it to streamline and improve customer process. The business expects to grow its probate caseload tenfold within 12 months of completion without hiring any extra lawyers, using the proprietary AI platform to free up existing staff to support bereaved families.
Sam Grice, founder and chief executive of Octopus Legacy, said: ‘When someone dies, families should not have to learn how a system works. Yet at the moment they are dealing with loss, they are left calling one place, then another, trying to make sense of it. One provider should take responsibility for the whole experience, not pass people between services but own it from start to finish.
‘That is where AI comes in, but not in the way people often talk about it. It takes on the admin that slows everything down, so our team can spend more time with families and every family can deal directly with a person at the point of a death.’
The legacy firm’s sister company Octopus Energy was founded in 2015 and soon took a large chunk of the market through AI-driven smart tariffs and a reputation for good customer service. Grice drew parallels with the probate and legacy sectors as another business that suffers from slow processes and unclear costs, with fees often linked to the value of the estate rather than the work involved.
He added: ‘At Octopus Energy, we saw what happens when a service is rebuilt around the customer rather than the system. The bereavement sector is at that same moment now, where a more joined-up model can replace one that no longer works.’
Octopus Legacy was founded in 2016 under the name Guardian Angel, after Grice’s mother died unexpectedly and he had to deal with the probate system. It joined the Octopus Group in 2022 and now supports around one million people.
The latest acquisition brings together wills, estate planning, probate and practical support for what happens after a death, allowing families to manage legal matters, paperwork and day-to-day tasks, including finding a funeral director or arranging house clearance, through a single service and platform.
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