The productivity challenge: How LEAP Estates helps private client teams work smarter

In a fast-moving Private Client industry, lawyers are under growing pressure to combat shrinking margins and comply with increasing regulations.

Whenever I meet fellow private client lawyers, a recurring subject of conversation is the pressure to deliver more with less. Client expectations continue to rise, caseloads become increasingly complex, and teams are not always provided with additional headcount.

The result is a familiar challenge: talented professionals spending too much time on administrative work and not enough on the specialist legal expertise their clients value.

As head of LEAP Estates, this is one of the driving forces behind my goal to make legal technology impactful for private client firms, supporting lawyers in their day-to-day jobs.

Here is how we’re helping firms meet the productivity challenge head-on.

Bringing everything together under one secure solution

Private client work is heavily reliant on document exchange, third-party correspondence, compliance, and internal collaboration. When those elements live in separate systems, friction creeps in, and time is wasted.

LEAP Estates eliminates that fragmentation.

By consolidating matter documentation, precedent automation, email correspondence, billing, and client communication into a single, integrated platform, we provide teams with a central source of information. No more chasing information across inboxes, servers, or notebooks. Everything is structured, consistent, and accessible, helping practitioners recover hours each week.

According to our study surveying LEAP users, 85% of firms say that LEAP helps their staff work more efficiently.

Automation to enhance legal expertise

There is one thing I learnt very quickly in my transition from a law firm to a legal technology company: automation is often misunderstood.

Historically, lawyers would rely heavily on the support offered by secretaries and paralegals to complete the administrative tasks that just couldn’t be overlooked. However, with recent advancements in legal technology, automation, particularly AI-powered, can handle those repetitive, manual tasks that drain time and introduce risk, allowing support staff to add increased value in the work they are carrying out.

LEAP Estates supports private client teams with:

• Automated document generation for wills, LPAs, and estate administration through LEAP Prompts. At the click of a button, fee earners can create high-quality, matter-specific legal documents in a fraction of the time with LEAP's library of AI prompts – think of a precedent that already contains matter-specific details.

• Matter analysis and evaluation with LEAP’s MatterAI. With the capability to scan thousands of pages of documents, MatterAI can quickly produce a detailed response, including references to specific files, in seconds.

• Pre-built workflows designed around private client best practice, with integrated compliance prompts to ensure nothing essential is missed

As the digital evolution of legal technology continues, firms that adopt automation will lead the way for a more focused and productive legal practice. When legal teams no longer need to manually re-key data or recreate routine documents from scratch, they gain more time for the part of the job that truly matters: providing reassurance, building relationships, and delivering considered legal advice.

Collaboration with internal and external teams

Estate work is inherently collaborative. Fee earners, support staff, partners, executors, and families all play a part. If communication isn’t seamless, productivity suffers, and the client experiences a decline.

As part of my role at LEAP Estates, I am continuing to build processes and systems that help firms foster collaboration in one place, increasing efficiency within internal teams and transparency with external collaborators.

With real-time access to live matters, LEAP users can work from the same information, share task lists, and ensure responsibilities are clear and visible. This is essential to produce clear audit trails, which reduces confusion and – most importantly - protects firms against risk.

When communication flows effortlessly, so does productivity.

Accuracy that doesn’t go unnoticed

Private client firms rely on accuracy and precision, as even minor errors can lead to reputational damage for law firms. Beyond that, private client work is deeply personal, so any hiccup or mistake can cause upset for families.

LEAP Estates enhances accuracy through automatic updates and built-in validations, ensuring a consistently high level of trust that fee earners can rely on. This not only improves accuracy levels within the firm and builds client trust, but it also helps practitioners and firms remain profitable.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: improving productivity must lead to increased profitability.

The private client firms we work with tell us that LEAP doesn’t just make their work easier by reducing administrative overheads, but it also makes their business stronger by allowing fee earners to focus on chargeable activity.

The productivity challenge isn’t going anywhere. With growing client expectations and fierce competition, firms that embrace the right technology will turn productivity into an advantage, not an obstacle.

At LEAP Estates, our mission is simple: to help private client teams work smarter, deliver exceptional service, and run profitable, future-ready practices.

About the author

A recognised Private Client and Trusts specialist with over a decade of experience, Andy Hitchon was previously a Partner at Rothera Bray LLP and also led the Wills & Estates department at Bray & Bray prior to its merger with Rotheras. As Head of Estates at LEAP Legal Software, Andy leverages his deep knowledge of estate administration, trusts, and tax planning to help firms modernise their private client practices through smarter technology.