Consumers of legal services are less likely to shop around than they were last year and find it harder to track down information about lawyers.

These were among the key findings from this year’s tracker survey conducted by the Legal Services Consumer Panel, a survey of 3,500 people who have used a lawyer in the last two years.

The proportion of people shopping around fell to 39% from 43% last year, while the ease with which information could be found also dipped: 57% could find information about how long services took (down from 62%), 50% found information about PII cover (down from 55%) and 58% knew whether they could complain to the Legal Ombudsman (down from 60%).

Shopping around was most common among those using legal services for family matters (48%), accident or injury claims (47%) and conveyancing (45%).

Promoters of the sector will point to satisfaction levels of 85% being as high as ever and six percentage points higher than a decade ago. Satisfaction was high across all areas of law and reached 87% for satisfaction with the outcome of the service provided.

But reports of information being harder to access and fewer consumers shopping around will alert regulators who have made this a priority. This will also be of particular interest to the Competition and Markets Authority, which has twice criticised the legal sector for lack of transparency and information about lawyers.

Sarah Chambers, chair of the Legal Services Consumer Panel, said: ‘We are concerned that shopping around has fallen post-pandemic now that "normal" life has resumed. The fact that fewer consumers are finding it easy to find information about the legal services available has only strengthened our resolve to call the CMA’s attention to the current state of transparency in the sector, nearly seven years after their initial report.’

Sarah Chambers

Sarah Chambers, chair of the Legal Services Consumer Panel

Despite regulator misgivings about people not shopping around, 80% felt they had a choice in the provider they opted for. This was 16 percentage points higher than a decade ago.

When asked how consumers choose their provider, influence from family members and friends continues to be the most popular factor, as it was in 2022. Just 4% of legal service users made their choice based on a customer review website. Almost all consumers (92%) were confident in the choice they made and 68% stated that the overall service and advice they were provided was good or very good value for money.

Consumers were most likely to favour a face-to-face contact for their initial meeting with a lawyer rather than through the telephone or email, and more than two-thirds (68%) felt it was important to have met the person working on their case.

Fewer respondents than last year stated that the price of the service was advertised on law firm websites, but in any case three-quarters of consumers said they found it easy to understand the cost of their legal services.