Ward Hadaway Named in Top 10 most Highly Recommended LB100 Law Firms

The findings from Legal Business collated the responses of nearly 80,000 law firm clients to determine their satisfaction. This is quantified using the Net Promoter Score (NPS) benchmark, whereby clients were asked – “on a scale of 1–10, how likely are you to recommend this firm?”

This recognised Ward Hadaway as the 7th most highly recommended out of the LB100 – a ranking of the UK’s top 100 law firms by turnover – with an NPS score of 79.9%.

NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of ‘detractors’ (clients who scored firms six or less) from the percentage of ‘promoters’ (those who scored firms nine or 10).

Manging Partner Steven Petrie said: “We are delighted that our clients can see the value of the hard work and expertise demonstrated throughout our team and we are grateful for the level of trust they continue to have in Ward Hadaway.

“These rankings give further credence to the strategic investments we have made over the past year and the platform this has given to elevate our ability to deliver exceptional results for our clients in a way that encapsulates our core values.”

These results come at an exciting time for our firm, following record financial performance in our latest filed accounts for 2023-24 along with the addition of more than 100 colleagues in the past year.

Our leadership team was bolstered by the appointment of Nick Gholkar as Executive Partner of the Newcastle office, further to the addition of eight new partners across a wide variety of service areas.

Our continued investment in our people, the services we provide and the environment we do it from, coupled with these recent rankings, reaffirms our belief in Ward Hadaway being a firm you want to work with and a team you want to join.

We strive to maintain this leading service by understanding our clients’ experience, both overall and specifically in relation to our stated values of respect, straightforwardness and ambition. Having carried out NPS research of our own from May 2024, our clients’ likelihood of recommending us stands at 83.05%.

Broken down into our core values, our clients rated us at 83.62% for straightforwardness, 94.92% for respect and 78.53% for ambition, with an overall satisfaction score of 84.18%.

We are particularly proud to have successfully tendered to provide legal support for a number of regulatory bodies and education hubs in the past year, while also being appointed to the legal service panels of affordable housing associations including Riverside, Broadacres and Sanctuary.

Our values also extend to our mission of being a responsible business. We provide a paid volunteer day for all employees, equating to a contribution of £125,000 in the last year. This compliments a similar contribution in the form of providing our legal expertise to causes in most need of it, but can’t afford it, on a pro-bono basis.

Our roots in the North East are particularly important in this drive to be a good corporate citizen. In 2024 we again worked closely with Upstart Enterprise, an initiative supporting young people from disadvantaged areas of Newcastle in developing personal and employment skills. Our engagement here, alongside volunteering with the Enterprise Challenge, led to our Emerging Talent team winning the Best CSR Initiative Award at the 2024 People in Law Awards.

We are extremely proud of our work and grateful to our clients and the recognition they have given us. We look forward to building on this momentum through 2025 and continuing to deliver exceptional client service.