Across the UK, poor communication is the single most common legal complaint. In England & Wales, residential conveyancing accounts for 30% of all complaints to the Legal Ombudsman — the most complained-about area of law. In Scotland, 31% of complaints involve a communication failure. The root cause isn't legal error, it's silence. Irys answers every client query instantly via WhatsApp, so your fee earners can focus on the work that moves cases forward.
Request a pilotEvery one of these costs your firm money. All three trace back to the same thing: clients who can't get answers.
Across the UK, residential conveyancing is the most complained-about area of law. In England & Wales, it accounts for 30% of all complaints to the Legal Ombudsman — with poor communication the #1 complaint type at 24%. (Legal Ombudsman 2024-25) In Scotland, residential conveyancing is the 2nd most complained-about area, and 31% of all complaints involve a communication failure. (SLCC Annual Report 2024-25)
The financial cost is real across the UK. In Scotland, the SLCC awarded £385,586 in compensation for inconvenience and distress and a further £178,537 for financial loss in 2024-25. (SLCC 2024-25) In England & Wales, the Legal Ombudsman directed £935,435 in remedies in Q1 2025-26 alone. (LeO Q1 2025-26)
Communication failure is the one complaint category a firm can directly eliminate. It doesn't require legal changes, new staff, or process overhaul. It requires clients to stop feeling ignored.
Your fee earners carry large, complex caseloads. A significant share of each day is spent answering the same question: "Where are we up to?" — not progressing cases, not generating completions.
As one solicitor put it at National Conveyancing Week: "We seem to be the only profession that gets bombarded with calls and emails asking if we're doing our job. Every one slows us down." (Law Gazette, March 2023)
Every completion generates fixed revenue. More completions per fee earner means more revenue per head — without hiring. The constraint isn't capacity to do legal work. It's capacity to handle the communication volume around it.
63% of clients now find their solicitor online. (Today's Conveyancer / QualitySolicitors, 2026) 57% won't instruct a firm with fewer than 4 stars. (Reputation.com UK legal data)
Nearly three-quarters of homebuyers choose their conveyancer on the basis of a recommendation. (SRA research) Every recommendation is now verified — or undermined — by what's on Google before the phone gets picked up.
Irys connects to your case management system and handles inbound client queries on WhatsApp — no training, no uploads, no extra admin for your team.
Irys integrates with your case management system to read live case stages, dates, and outstanding items.
Clients text your firm's WhatsApp number just as they would any contact. No app to download, no portal to log into.
Accurate, warm, case-specific replies — drawing on real data, not generic answers. Complex queries escalate to your team.
Every interaction is logged and visible to your fee earners. When a client is anxious, Irys flags it. When documents are outstanding, Irys chases them. When something needs a human, it escalates — before it becomes a complaint.
Irys isn't a communication tool bolted onto your workflow. Each capability is mapped directly to a cost, a risk, or a revenue opportunity.
The pain: Fee earners field the same question dozens of times a day. Every answer costs 5–10 minutes and pulls them off billable work.
The fix: Clients text your firm's WhatsApp number and receive a specific, data-driven answer in seconds — drawn from live case data, not a script. No hold music, no callbacks, no FE involvement for routine queries.
The pain: Silence breeds anxiety, anxiety breeds calls, calls breed complaints. The Legal Ombudsman's own guidance says even a "nothing new to report" message prevents escalation.
The fix: When a case hits a milestone — searches returned, enquiries raised, exchange date set — clients are notified automatically via WhatsApp. No manual chasing. No awkward "just checking in" calls.
The pain: Cases stall at the start because clients don't return ID, proof of funds, or signed forms promptly. Chasing them falls to the fee earner.
The fix: Irys prompts clients to photograph and send documents directly through WhatsApp and forwards them straight to the file. Faster cases, fewer delays, less admin — for both sides.
The pain: Managing partners have no visibility into how much time client communication is actually consuming — or where complaints are clustered.
The fix: Irys logs every interaction: queries resolved, hours recovered, peak contact times, which cases generate the most client contact. Data that makes the business case for renewal — and identifies fee earners who need support.
The pain: Outstanding client actions — unsigned forms, missing documents, unreturned information — hold cases up. Chasing them manually is low-value, repetitive work.
The fix: Irys sends scheduled WhatsApp messages chasing outstanding actions before your team has to. Cases move faster. Completions happen sooner. Revenue comes in earlier.
The pain: Sharing case information with an unverified contact is a GDPR and regulatory risk. Consumer WhatsApp provides no protection.
The fix: Irys verifies the client's identity before sharing any case information. Unrecognised numbers are redirected to a phone call — nothing is revealed, not even that a case exists. Every exchange is logged with a full audit trail.
Consumer WhatsApp creates regulatory exposure. Irys was built from day one to close that gap — and to turn compliance into a competitive advantage.
Every message, query, and response is logged with timestamps. When a complaint is raised, you have a complete record of what was communicated and when. Consumer WhatsApp gives you nothing.
Internal case notes are never exposed. Only structured, client-appropriate data is used in responses. Unmatched contacts are redirected — no case information is revealed, not even that a file exists.
Irys identifies itself as an automated assistant on every first interaction — satisfying SRA and LSS professional conduct requirements and setting accurate client expectations from the outset.
Irys answers questions about case status and process — never about legal strategy, liability, or outcomes. Complex or sensitive queries escalate to your fee earner immediately.
Irys is charged per completion at a flat rate, passed directly to the client as a standard disbursement — the same as search fees or Land Registry charges. It appears on the completion statement. Your firm's P&L is unaffected.
Contact us for pricing and pilot terms.
Run a pilot with your own case data. See what your fee earners get back — and what your clients stop chasing about.
Request a pilot