The co-founders of Bexley Beaumont update The Brief on how their award-winning fee-share firm has grown while maintaining its vision and culture, and its journey to being accredited as a B-Corp.

The Brief last interviewed Karen Bexley and Anna Beaumont, co-founders of their eponymous law firm, back in spring 2021. In the intervening five years the firm has grown from 20 to 75 partners, plus another 36 lawyers and support staff.

It has also won a host of awards including UK Business of the Year at the Business Brilliance Awards 2025, Law Firm of the Year at the 2024 Modern Law Awards, and Legal 500 Boutique Law Firm of the Year in 2023.

The female-founded and led firm is, according to the big four business advisory firm PwC and the legal market intelligence specialist Codex Edge, currently the fastest growing “platform” firm. The most recent edition of the Codex Edge Platform Firms Report says, “Bexley Beaumont have consistently appeared at the top end of the compound growth charts.”

Founded as the pandemic erupted in 2020 and headquartered in the North West, Bexley Beaumont now has offices in Manchester and London, along with meeting facilities in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff and Leeds. It has lawyers based all over the country.

To put the firm’s achievement into context, in the past year alone 326 new SRA-regulated law firms opened in England and Wales, while 518 closed. Approximately 27 per cent of newly founded legal services businesses fail to survive their first five years.

We caught up with Bexley and Beaumont again this month to find out the latest from the firm and how it has developed, while maintaining the culture that was so important to Bexley and Beamont from its inception.

Autonomy and culture

The firm was launched with a vision to create the “best of both worlds”, providing lawyers with the flexibility and autonomy that characterises fee-share consultancy, with a collaborative, supportive environment more commonly associated with traditional firms.

Bexley Beaumont’s lawyers, who range from partners to senior associates, are all engaged as consultants. The only employees are paralegals and a central support team who support lawyers with compliance, finance and marketing.

One of the many things to have changed in the wider environment over the five years since we last spoke is that the fee-share model has become much more widespread, and widely understood, in the legal sector. This means, for lawyers considering making the leap into consultancy, there are more options than ever.

We are very measured and strategic in our recruitment, and recruit on cultural fit in a way that is a bit more aligned to a traditional law firm.

So, why should they choose Bexley Beaumont?

Beaumont says, “We have huge clarity of vision. Yes, we operate on a fee-share basis, so lawyers have control and autonomy over their careers and transparency over how they are remunerated.

“However, we are very measured and strategic in our recruitment, and recruit on cultural fit in a way that is a bit more aligned to a traditional law firm. The same could be said of our approach to team culture, collaboration, bringing people together, facilitating collaboration internally and providing infrastructure and support to the partners.

“We also provide marketing and PR support, individually helping them raise their profiles, supporting them in their practice and also raising the firm’s profile. So, we have taken the best elements of a traditional law firm and coupled them with the autonomy that comes with a fee-share model.”

Maturing and evolving

The firm’s growth has been accompanied by a ramping up of the central support team, BBSupport, which has embarked on a range of projects and initiatives to support its lawyers. It also now offers a much fuller range of practice areas.

Beaumont says, “I think we have matured, evolved and developed in a lot of different areas over the past five years.

“Of course, the partner numbers have increased. We have attracted top talent to the firm, strengthening existing practice areas and introducing new ones, which creates a much wider offering for clients.

We continue each year to challenge ourselves to make sure we are developing and launching new projects and initiatives.

“We have also expanded our geographical presence. We now have lawyers from Durham to Cornwall, and that has very much been part of our vision.

“We continue each year to challenge ourselves to make sure we are developing and launching new projects and initiatives. That’s one of the toughest parts of being a growing business – making sure that each year we better our offering to clients, lawyers and our employees.”

Empowering Excellence

These initiatives include BBWellbeing, which is being developed with the help of the chief executive of the charity LawCare, and BBCollaborate and BBConnect, which involve the marketing team facilitating introductions internally and supporting collaboration and connectivity between lawyers.

A whole-firm retreat in autumn 2026 will, meanwhile, explore the theme of “Empowering Excellence."

The firm has also launched BBAcquire, a client acquisition programme spearheaded by Bexley. BBAcquire is being ramped up this year, providing high-level focus on the firm’s marketing and PR team as well as supporting partners in drafting pitches and tenders to help them grow their practices and create additional work opportunities.

People have been able to come in at one level and grow and develop into the senior leadership team.

Empowering Excellence is also a focus in BBSupport, with people development the primary objective as the firm continues to prioritise excellent service to lawyers.

Bexley explains, “People have been able to come in at one level and grow and develop into the senior leadership team as part of their journey, alongside the growth of Bexley Beamont.”

Beaumont continues, “That senior leadership team, which consists of our head of finance, our head of compliance and our senior marketing executive, are supporting the board and us, the founders, with the operations of the business on a day-to-day basis. That’s a huge difference from day one when we established the firm.”

Mission and values

What hasn’t changed over the years, Bexley says, is the firm’s commitment to its mission and values. “We know what Bexley Beaumont is and we are proud of and committed to it,” she says.

“We are creating an environment where everyone can thrive, and this has remained the case throughout the pandemic and the various political, social and economic upheavals of the past five years.”

We want to empower excellence, and maintain the support team around the partners that enables this while remaining true to our culture.

The firm’s approach to bringing partners into the team has also remained consistent, she continues: “We want to empower excellence, and maintain the support team around the partners that enables this while remaining true to our culture.

“We know what our vision is. How you continue to embed, and keep the collaborative, supportive, innovative team culture as the organisation grows will continue to be a challenge but it is one we are very much aware of and committed to overcoming.”

Commitment to community

Throughout its growth Bexley Beamont has maintained its early commitment to supporting the community, launching the BBFoundation two years ago. The firm puts a minimum of £10,000 from its profits into the foundation each year, to support good causes.

These causes include the Sutton Trust, which champions social mobility, and LawCare, the mental health charity for the legal sector. It also supports the Ocean Conservation Trust, as well as taking personal fundraising requests from Bexley Beaumont lawyers for causes close to their hearts

B-Corp

The firm has just taken an even bigger step in terms of social responsibility, becoming a certified B-Corp in early 2026. It is one of just 38 UK legal services businesses to have achieved this accreditation, and the largest fee-share law firm to have done so.

Achieving this globally recognised certification took two years. However, as Bexley explains, “Accreditation is not a moment in time, it’s a continual process of improvement.

“It has been a massive achievement, both to gain accreditation and to continue to work and develop alongside B-Corp. We’re very proud of that.”

We live in a world where everyone wants to see businesses doing the right thing and being better businesses. And that is B-Corp.

In addition to chiming with the values of the firm’s two founders, Bexley says B-Corp status will be “hugely” important in attracting people to join Bexley Beaumont.

She explains, “We live in a world where everyone wants to see businesses doing the right thing and being better businesses. And that is B-Corp.

“Anyone can say they’re doing the right thing and being a better business but, as I can testify, we have had to answer hundreds of questions and provide vast amounts of information to achieve this.

“We have been tested beyond our belief that we are doing the right thing and are a better business, and I think that to go through that process and then get accreditation will, quite rightly, benefit Bexley Beaumont.”

External validation

Beaumont picks up this point, saying, “That external validation is, of course, going to benefit clients or potential clients who are interested in B-Corp or who have also gained that accreditation. So, I see it as supporting business development and marketing initiatives.

“From day one our website has highlighted our commitment to community but gaining this accreditation showcases and demonstrates to external stakeholders that we are passionate, keen and interested in doing good business.

“It will hopefully attract lawyers. It will also be important in terms of suppliers – there is definitely a B-Corp community, supporting each other, knowing that we have all been through that rigorous two-year process.”

Holding their nerve

Bexley Beaumont has, by any standards but particularly a law firm reliant on organic growth, progressed rapidly from a “crazy plan on a piece of paper” on Beaumont’s kitchen table in 2019 to being a widely known respected challenger firm today.

“If we could go back to the beginning I think we would let ourselves know that everything would be OK,” Beaumont says. “It has a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for obvious reasons – we launched three months before March 2020.

“We believed in the vision but if we could go back we would tell ourselves to hold our nerve and be reassured that people would believe in our vision, because we did challenge ourselves a lot in the first couple of years, in reaction to the economic environment we found ourselves in.”

Bexley picks up this point, concluding, “With hindsight it would be great to be able to go back and tell ourselves where we would be in 2026. It’s fantastic to know that there are people who share our passion and want to be part of the firm’s vision.”

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Bexley Beaumont

Connect with Anna Beaumont via LinkedIn

Connect with Karen Bexley via LinkedIn