Matthew Claughton
Managing Director at Olliers Solicitors
The managing director of Olliers Solicitors tells The Brief about building a highly successful – and profitable – criminal defence practice, and shares his advice for aspiring solicitors who are considering entering the field.
Olliers Solicitors is that rare beast – an outstanding criminal defence practice that is both growing rapidly and highly profitable.
Specialising in the defence of individuals, businesses and other organisations across a broad range of serious and “white-collar” offences, it has over the past eight years inverted its business model and, having previously been a fairly traditional Legal Aid practice, now derives around 80 per cent of its revenues from privately funded work.
The big shift began in 2018 when partner, now managing director, Matthew Claughton bought out his fellow partners and took sole control of the Manchester-headquartered firm.
“We were really highly regarded at the point when I took over, and had won various legal awards, but we were facing the same problems that all defence firms were facing at the time,” he tells The Brief. “So this was our opportunity to look at our core focus and start again.
“We were great at serious crime, we were great at fraud, but we were still also representing shoplifters from Hull and burglars from Blackburn, who could have been just as well represented by a local solicitor.
We were great at serious crime, we were great at fraud, but we were still also representing shoplifters from Hull and burglars from Blackburn
“At the same time, I was starting to do really well in privately funded pre-charge work, which was an area that very few lawyers were involved in.
“We also moved to a new office in 2018, so one of the first things I did when we moved there was to make it paper-free and refocus on privately funded work rather than loss-leading Legal Aid matters.”
Content hubs
To attract significantly more privately funded work Olliers began to focus in earnest on marketing, in particular web, blog and YouTube content, with Claughton taking the lead. This content is now structured into a range of “hubs” dealing with different topics.
“We have a huge amount of content on our site,” he says. “There’s no firm that can match us for content, and in the past 12 months, as people have begun searching via AI, it has become even more important.
“We were doing really, really well on Google searches but now, with AI searches, we are doing even better.”
As its marketing strategy began to pay off, the firm also had to revisit its “client acceptance” policy.
We were doing really, really well on Google searches but now, with AI searches, we are doing even better.
Claughton says, “We needed to educate some of our lawyers that you weren’t always doing someone a favour by taking their case on.
“Saying ‘no’ could be a form of kindness if they could be far better represented by a solicitor who was local to the court they would be appearing in, even if they were regular clients of ours. Giving the best client care matters, even if it means referring work elsewhere.
“This also meant that we gradually moved away from loss-leading work.”
Pandemic pivot
This process accelerated around the time of the pandemic, when jury trials and prosecutions came to a standstill and the focus of the police shifted to ongoing investigations.
“This led to a growth in pre-charge work, where we seek to avoid the client being prosecuted, and we were well-placed to accept all of it,” Claughton explains. “We had refused to furlough anybody and we were attracting more and more pre-charge work, and the number of our people who were doing it increased dramatically.
What if the best criminal defence lawyer is not the one who wins in court, but the one who stops the charge from happening in the first place?
“We say that we pivoted in the pandemic. It was planned before then, and had been ongoing, but the pandemic certainly accelerated the process.”
Claughton says he believes Olliers is now the leading firm in the country for pre-charge work: “I say that with a high degree of confidence.
“It’s a massive amount of the work that we do now, and it’s probably the single biggest factor in our growth.
“What if the best criminal defence lawyer is not the one who wins in court, but the one who stops the charge from happening in the first place?”
Growth trajectory
Since Claughton took control of Olliers it has trebled its turnover to £6.5 million, achieving a profit margin of more than 25 per cent. It has been named Crime Team of the Year eight times at the Manchester Legal Awards.
The firm now employs 45 people, of whom 30 are solicitors.
Claughton is quick to acknowledge the roles played by his colleagues in the firm’s growth, in particular commercial director Stacey Mabrouk and business development director Ruth Peters, both of whom are highly experienced solicitors.
In April 2026 Mabrouk and Peters each took a ten per cent equity stake in the firm, solidifying the senior leadership team as Olliers establishes its long-term succession plan.
Claughton says, “I couldn’t be more pleased with the position of the firm in 2026. We have a really strong cohort of young lawyers and we’ve focused really hard on issues of succession in the last seven years.”
The next generation
Although Olliers is bucking the trend and building a highly successful business based on privately funded work, the well-known financial issues facing Legal Aid criminal defence practices mean the pipeline of new talent is not overflowing.
To address this, Claughton says the firm has since 2020 run an internship programme aimed at boosting its intake of younger lawyers.
He says, “We have an internship programme which runs for ten weeks every summer.
“We also have an online internship programme for those who can’t make the summer programme, and that has upwards of 200 people who take part in a day-long session.”
Since 2020 Olliers has taken on ten trainees, who have gone on to remain with the firm, from its pool of former interns.
AI is moving so fast that this year’s accreditation is only going to be relevant for 12 months and then it will have to be updated and people will have to do it again.
In recent years the firm has also begun supporting its lawyers to become accredited in relevant areas. Claughton explains, “There are a couple of really good Law Society accreditations: the one for duty solicitors and the one for Magistrate’s Court advocates.
“But there was no external accreditation for pre-charge representation, so we created our own, along with our own Crown Court and client care accreditations.”
The next accreditation the firm will introduce is in AI. This is currently being developed but, as Claughton acknowledges, “AI is moving so fast that this year’s accreditation is only going to be relevant for 12 months and then it will have to be updated and people will have to do it again.”
Persistence and commitment
Olliers’ internships and accreditations have a huge impact on those aspiring and recently qualified lawyers fortunate enough to take part in them but, with the best will in the world, their intake will always be constrained numerically. So, what advice would Claughton give to the wider community of would-be criminal defence lawyers?
He says, “I would give them the advice I give participants on our virtual intern day: try to get your foot in the door.
“Even if you don’t have any connections, start going to court. Offer to do a week’s shadowing or going to court with a lawyer. Speak to lawyers in the court building if needs be – it’s not easy for a busy solicitor to be pestered by youngsters but you can try speaking to the ushers.
“Speak to your lecturers, too. We frequently find that criminal lecturers put students forward to us.
“Just do whatever you can to get some experience in a law firm, because once you’ve got experience in one, and then maybe another, you can use it as a stepping stone to get experience with another firm that’s actually recruiting and will want to see that you are committed to this area.
“That’s the key to it. Do whatever you can to get experience, and be willing to be flexible, for instance by taking a couple of days’ work experience during term-time.
“If you can be persistent and show you’re committed through the process, you will stand out. And that’s what you really need to do.”
Looking to the future
Despite Olliers’ success, Matthew is clear that he has no plans for a quick sale to the highest bidder. Now 62, he is a man who has most definitely found a second wind.
Taking 100 per cent of the risk at 53 was the most exhilarating and terrifying thing I’ve ever done.
"We are an outstanding firm.” he concludes. "We are debt-averse, prudent and entirely focused on unmatched client care and our people. There are no huge egos here; there is just a shared sense that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
“Taking 100 per cent of the risk at 53 was the most exhilarating and terrifying thing I’ve ever done, but it was the only way to ensure Olliers Solicitors would outlive its founder.”
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