The Morphis Research Project

If you have ever looked at what your firm has spent on change and wondered how much of it actually landed, that is the question this research is built around. Taking part is one conversation. What you get back is a confidential read on how your own operation compares with its peers, and an early look at what we find across the sector, which is a view most operations leaders never get.

The question we're exploring

Law firms have spent heavily on change over the last few years. New systems, new roles, transformation programmes, and now AI. The harder question, and the one that tends to go unasked in the partnership, is how much of that investment has turned into realised value, and how much of it leaks away before it does.

We call that the value-realisation gap. It shows up as spend and effort that never quite lands as the improvement everyone expected, and most operations leaders recognise it the moment it is named. Few have the time, or the outside comparison, to map it properly.

This research sets out to map it across the market, from the people who run these firms day to day.

Why we're running it

Morphis is an independent operations advisory firm. We work with professional-services businesses on this exact problem, and we wanted to understand it across the sector rather than one firm at a time. We are now speaking to operational leaders at a broad set of UK law firms with revenues over £40m and building what we learn into an anonymised study.

There is a second reason worth saying out loud. We are a young firm, and this is how we learn the market properly, from the people who know it best. The research stands on its own, and the conversation is a research conversation, nothing more. We are not there to sell you anything.

What taking part involves

One conversation, about an hour. We would rather do it in person, and we try to group firms by location so we can see several over a day or two when we travel. Where that is not practical, we do it online.

The discussion runs under the Chatham House rule. Nothing you say is attributed to you or your firm in anything we publish, unless you tell us you are happy to be quoted on a particular point. We would like to record it, with your agreement, purely for accuracy, so that we can be present with you rather than heads-down taking notes. Most people are comfortable with that once they know why, but it is your call on the day.

What you get back

The main thing you get back is a confidential benchmark. It shows where your firm sits against the wider picture we build, and it is yours privately, not something that appears in the published work.

A benchmark is only as good as the number of comparable firms behind it, so we will share an interim view where it is useful and a fuller one once the study closes. You also get early sight of the findings before they are published, and a hand in shaping the questions we think the sector should be asking. It amounts to a view of your own operation from the outside, which is a hard thing to come by honestly.

How we handle what you tell us

We take one set of notes and, with your consent, one recording, both held securely and used only to produce the research. The published study is anonymised. We process your details on the basis of legitimate interest under UK GDPR, we will not add you to a marketing list off the back of this, and if you want anything you have said removed, you only have to ask.

And if it leads somewhere

Now and then one of these conversations surfaces something a firm would value help with. If that happens we will say so plainly and pick it up separately, after the research, if you want to. It never changes the interview itself. The research is the research.