United Press is a UK legal-technology PR agency that helps legaltech companies build credibility with a famously conservative audience: law firms, general counsel and the legal profession.
Why credibility is everything in legaltech
Lawyers are trained to be sceptical, and buying decisions inside firms are risk-averse and consensus-driven. A tool that appears in the legal press, is endorsed by respected practitioners, or is backed by credible commentary clears a trust barrier that advertising simply can’t. Earned media is how legaltech moves from “interesting” to “safe to adopt” in the minds of buyers who protect their firm’s reputation above all.
The media that matters for UK legal tech
Specialist outlets such as Legal IT Insider, Legal Futures, The Lawyer and Law.com reach the innovation leads, managing partners and GCs who drive adoption. Broader business media matters when your story touches access to justice or the economics of legal services. We help you target the titles the profession actually trusts.
How we approach legaltech PR
We build coverage around proof: firm case studies, adoption data, funding, and informed commentary on where the profession is heading — from AI in legal work to changing client expectations. We prepare your spokespeople to speak the profession’s language, handle outreach to legal journalists, and report honestly on results. Coverage is earned, never guaranteed.
FAQ
Our buyers are risk-averse — can PR still help? That’s exactly why it helps. Third-party validation from the legal press is what reassures cautious buyers.
Can you handle case studies with named firms? Yes, working within the confidentiality and approval requirements law firms need.
Tell us who you sell to and we’ll map a realistic plan to build credibility in the legal market.
PR for UK law tech: writing for readers who are professionally paid to find the hole in your claim
Legal technology has one of the best-served trade presses in Britain and one of the least credulous. Legal Futures, edited by Neil Rose, has tracked the reshaping of the legal services market since the Legal Services Act opened it up. Legal IT Insider, edited by former City solicitor Caroline Hill and still known to its readers as the Orange Rag, has covered legal IT since the mid-nineties and publishes rankings of which firms run which systems. The Law Society Gazette, The Lawyer and Legal Cheek sit alongside them. Regulation shapes everything: the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Legal Services Board, the Bar Standards Board and the courts themselves. Your buyer is a risk committee, and it reads all of this.
Name firms or say nothing
Legal IT Insider built its authority on knowing which firms use which systems, and its readers are IT directors who will recognise a vague claim instantly. A named firm, a named practice group, a described rollout and a partner willing to be quoted is the currency. Anonymous references to a top fifty firm are read as evidence that the deal is smaller than implied.
Regulation drives the news list
The Solicitors Regulation Authority publishes work on technology and innovation in legal services, the Legal Services Board sets the framework above it, and consultations from either land as trade news within hours. Responding substantively to a live consultation, or explaining what a new rule means for smaller firms, gets you into the conversation far faster than announcing a product.
The courts set the AI tone
Judicial guidance on the use of artificial intelligence, and a run of cases where fabricated citations reached a court, mean AI in law is now covered as a risk story rather than a novelty. That is an opportunity if you can talk credibly about verification, audit trails and what your system refuses to do. It is a trap if you cannot.
Confidentiality is question one
Before a firm considers whether your product works, it asks where client data is processed, who can access it, whether anything is used for model training, how long it is retained and what happens on termination. Publish clear answers. Legal journalists will ask the same questions on the firm’s behalf, and an evasive response becomes the angle of the piece.
Work to the legal calendar
Firm financial years commonly close on 30 April, which shapes when budget is available and when results become news. The court terms structure the litigation year. The British Legal Technology Forum and the trade awards season create fixed windows the specialist press plans around. Pitching into the fortnight before a firm’s year end rarely gets attention from anyone.
Sources the legal press trusts
The Solicitors Regulation Authority register, Companies House filings, published Law Society research, the Legal Ombudsman and court judgments on the public record all stand up to checking. The LawtechUK programme, funded through the Ministry of Justice, publishes ecosystem work as well. A vendor-commissioned survey needs its method disclosed in full or it will not be quoted.
Legal technology stories that get published
The legal trade press covers this market closely enough to know your competitors, your funding and roughly how many customers you have. That narrows what counts as news considerably.
- Firm implementations, where a named practice describes what it replaced, how many fee earners use it and what changed in billable process or client service
- Regulatory developments, including SRA and Legal Services Board consultations, rule changes, and what compliance actually requires of a firm in practice
- Court and tribunal decisions touching technology, from fabricated citations and disclosure disputes to judgments that change how evidence is handled
- Access to justice work, covering tools for litigants in person, legal aid provision, advice charities and the funding behind any of it
- Market structure news: alternative business structures, private equity in law firms, mergers, new entrants and the consolidation of legal software vendors
- Original data on the profession, such as adoption rates, billing patterns or fee earner behaviour, drawn from real systems and properly aggregated
Where law tech pitches fall down
Lawyers are trained to test assertions, and the journalists who write for them have inherited the habit. These are the specific failures that end an approach immediately.
- Claiming to disrupt the profession. Legal Futures has covered market reform for years and has watched a lot of disruptors leave quietly. Describe what your product does for a firm instead.
- Unnamed reference customers. A leading City firm is not a reference. Legal IT Insider tracks these deployments and its readers know each other, so an unverifiable claim is a reputational cost.
- Hand-waving on data. Refusing to say plainly where client data sits, who processes it and whether it trains a model reads as a compliance problem, and gets written up as one.
- Product news with no regulatory context. A new feature that ignores the SRA rules, professional indemnity implications or privilege is a feature no risk partner will approve, whatever the release says.
- Founder quotes with no legal grounding. Sweeping statements about how lawyers work, from someone who has never worked in a firm, tell a specialist reporter exactly how much to trust the rest.
Not sure which of these applies to your story? Send it to ceo@unitedpress.uk and we will tell you straight.
Questions UK legal tech founders ask us
How do we get a law firm to go on the record about our product?
Slowly and formally. Approach the firm’s marketing or business development lead rather than the partner directly, offer a draft quote for approval, expect their risk and communications functions to review it, and be prepared for a limited approval covering one publication only. Firms guard reputation carefully, so make the ask small, specific and easy to say yes to.
Is Legal Futures or Legal IT Insider the better target?
They serve different readers. Legal Futures covers legal services as a market: regulation, structure, new entrants, how firms are run and where the profession is heading. Legal IT Insider covers legal technology itself, with a readership of IT directors, innovation leads and vendors who follow procurement closely. Product and deployment news suits the latter; market and regulatory arguments suit the former.
How should we talk about AI given the court cases?
Cautiously and concretely. Judicial guidance and several widely reported incidents involving fabricated citations have made the legal press treat AI as a risk subject. That is workable ground if you explain verification, source linking, audit trails and the situations where your system declines to answer. Marketing language about transforming legal work now attracts scrutiny rather than interest.
Do the regulators ever comment on private legal tech products?
Not on individual products, no. The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Services Board publish research, guidance and consultations about technology in legal services generally, and they will not endorse a vendor. What you can do is respond substantively to their consultations, and cite their published work accurately when explaining why a problem exists.
Can we reach the national press as a law tech company?
Occasionally, through the access to justice angle rather than the software. National legal correspondents cover court backlogs, legal aid, unrepresented litigants and the cost of advice. If your product measurably touches one of those and you have data plus a real person affected, there is a story. A workflow tool for commercial firms will stay in the trade.