Events are an excellent marketing channel to help promote your law firm. They can demonstrate lawyers’ expertise, provide discussion and networking opportunities for guests and raise your profile. Not to mention generating content for digital platforms and providing an opportunity to get to know key contacts better.
Bizzabo’s 2026 State of Events report found 78% of organisers rate in-person conferences and events as their most impactful marketing channel, and LinkedIn’s B2B research puts in-person events top of the list at 60%, ahead of video and thought leadership content. For a relationship business like law, that’s not surprising. The client who has sat in a room with your lawyer is far more likely to instruct them (people buy people!) and far more likely to leave the kind of review that now feeds AI search results.
What’s not to like? Well, how many events have you been invited to that you really wanted to attend? How many have you attended that were not a good use of your time? Everyone is busy and time away from the office is at a premium so how do you run an event that will actually add value to attendees?
We’ve put together a list of 12 event ideas for law firms as well as some guidance on a few different kinds of events, what to think about before you start, and how to measure whether the event worked.
12 event ideas for law firms at a glance
- Seminars and legal updates
- Webinars and LinkedIn Live sessions
- Breakfast briefings
- Round table discussions
- Client roundtables on AI and technology
- Podcast recordings with a live audience
- Charity events
- Community events
- Trade shows and exhibitions
- Networking events and business forums
- Awards: attending, entering and sponsoring
- Open days and recruitment events
First things first…
Before you start organising any event it’s important to consider the following:
- What are you trying to achieve? Events, like any marketing tactic are only effective if they are aligned to your overall marketing objectives and your law firm marketing plan. Are you trying to win more clients from a certain sector? Promote a new legal service? Or raise profile of one of your practice areas?
- Who do you want to attend? Are they new contacts, current clients, intermediaries? What kind of event would be suitable for them? Are you trying to educate, inform or entertain?
- What’s your budget? This might affect number of guests you can invite, venues, catering options etc.
- What is your process for managing the event logistics? Creating invitations, managing RSVPs, providing information to attendees etc. We compare the most common booking platform in our Eventbrite pros and cons guide.
- How will you follow up? Decide before the event who owns the attendee list afterwards and what happens to it, or the leads will sit in a spreadsheet. A short email nurture sequence planned in advance is usually the answer.
1. Seminars and legal updates
Seminars are a great way of demonstrating your credibility and expertise. They also crucially (should) provide your attendees with something genuinely useful – an update on a legal development that will affect them, for example.
Consider partnering with another related expert, that way you will have a broader appeal, can share the workload and benefit from more than one promotion source. Providing free seminars also has the benefit of boosting your CSR profile while hopefully collecting new prospect contact details.
2. Webinars and LinkedIn Live
Webinars are the low-cost cousin of the seminar and suit a smaller budget or a geographically spread audience. Keep them to 30 or 40 minutes, lead with the legal change and the practical consequence, and record everything. A single webinar can become a blog, a series of social media clips and a lead generation magnet for your email list. LinkedIn Live is worth testing for shorter, more conversational sessions aimed at intermediaries and referrers. If you want some more tips, we’ve created a guide on how to best use LinkedIn as a lawyer too.
3. Breakfast briefings
A 45-minute briefing at 8am on a specific change, whether employment law, a budget, or new residential conveyancing rules, is easy to say yes to because it’s over before the working day starts. Small numbers, one speaker, a clear takeaway and a coffee (who wouldn’t like that). These are the events that quietly generate the most instructions for regional firms.
4. Round table discussions
Smaller and more intimate than seminars, round table events (often over lunch or dinner) offer an effective way of bringing guests together to discuss a hot topic. A solicitor or guest speaker can open the discussion and chair proceedings. A summary of the events can also be turned into high-quality content or a thought leadership piece; see our guide to thought leadership and PR for lawyers.
5. Client roundtables on AI and technology
The subject every business client wants to talk about in 2026 is AI, and law firms are well placed to host the conversation. Contracts, data protection, employment and IP all sit in the middle of it. Invite a handful of business clients, a tech partner and one of your own lawyers, and let the clients do most of the talking. This helps position your law firm as a peer rather than a supplier, and the discussion writes your next three articles! Our reflections from EVOLVE 26 gives a sense of the questions clients are asking in relation to AI.
6. Podcast recordings with a live audience
If your firm has, or is considering, a podcast, recording an episode in front of a small invited audience turns a content task into an event. Guests get a Q&A, the episode gets energy, and you get photographs and social media clips that you can spread out over a few weeks and months.
7. Charity events
Charity events are a simple way of creating events without looking like too much self-promotion. If you piggyback existing events it also cuts down the workload and you can pretty much guarantee there is already some interest in the event. The charities themselves will also gladly promote your events.
The scale of the events can be vast, from anything small and in-house like staff dress down and bake sales, through to coffee mornings and taking part in fundraisers, right through to holding your own charity ball. The larger events have the added benefit of acting as your corporate hospitality vehicles to thank your clients, suppliers and staff.
8. Community events
Showing support for local community events while raising your profile is another simple way to add to your events programme. Join in with your local seasonal late night shopping events, carnivals and school and college open days. If you want a more measurable ROI, get involved with your local business chambers and trade organisations.
9. Trade shows and exhibitions
Exhibiting at trade shows can get pricey so pick your event carefully. Research the delegates and make sure they are the best audience for you. Exhibitions can range from local and regional business shows to specialist sector events and careers shows. If you do decide to exhibit make sure you do all the prep and after-show work to make sure you get the best coverage and ROI, you will be amazed how many exhibition leads never get followed up after the show.
10. Networking events and business forums
No one can deny the power of networking but how about holding your own networking events or business forums? These can range in size from small coffee mornings to flagship drinks receptions at an attractive venue. The mere mention of networking can put people off so how about running another activity alongside it that would appeal to your guests such as a gallery tour, wine tasting or drop in Q&A session.
For junior lawyers, hosting is also the fastest way to build the business development habit early, which is what our BD Academy is built around.
11. Awards: attending, entering and sponsoring
Awards provide a whole range of opportunities. You can attend award ceremonies to show support for the community or industry sector the event is for. Perhaps use it as hospitality and take your best clients as your guests? Enter the awards yourselves for added PR and kudos or sponsor the awards to raise your profile. All these opportunities will come with the added benefit that the organisers will help you promote your presence in whatever form that takes. You could even create your own awards, promote yourself as the credible thought leader and create events that can demonstrate and cement your relationship with that sector.
Our guide to choosing, entering and winning law firm awards covers the entry side, and our awards submissions service can help write them for you.
12. Open days and recruitment events
Not every event is for clients. With trainee and NQ recruitment tighter than ever, an open evening for law students, an ‘in conversation’ with a partner about their route into the profession, or a work experience showcase raises the firm’s profile with the next generation and with the local universities and colleges that feed it. The same event also produce this kind of people-led content that performs best on LinkedIn.
How to measure event ROI for a law firm
Bizzabo’s research found that 40% of event organisers still struggle to prove event ROI, down from 70% a year earlier, and the difference is always whether measurement was designed at the start. For a law firm event, the numbers worth tracking are:
- Invitations sent, registrations and attendance (and the no-show rate)
- New contacts added to your CRM or email list with marketing consent
- Follow-up meetings booked within 30 days
- Enquiries and instructions in the following quarter that can be traced to attendees
- Content produced from the event: articles, social media posts and clips, photographs and podcast episodes
- Reviews, testimonials and referrals that mention the event
Compare the cost per new instruction with your other channels once a year rather than judging each event on its own. A small breakfast briefing that generates one instruction can easily outperform a large drinks reception that generates goodwill and nothing else.
Law firm events FAQs
What is the best type of event for a law firm?
For most regional law firms, a short educational format such as a seminar, breakfast briefing or webinar on a specific legal change generates the most instructions per pound spent. Hospitality events work best for retaining existing clients and intermediaries.
How far in advance should you promote a law firm event?
Six to eight weeks for in-person events, with a save-the-date first and the full invitation four weeks out. Webinars can be prompted in two to three weeks, however, always reminder to send a reminder the day before regardless.
How much does a law firm senior cost to run?
A breakfast briefing in your own offices can cost under £200 in catering. A hosted seminar for 40 people at an external venue typically tuns from £1,000 to £3,000 including room hir, refreshments and design. The main cost however is always your fee earner’s time.
Should law firms still run in-person events or move online?
Both. Bizzabo reports that over 86% of organisers plan to maintain or increase in-person events in 2026, while webinars remain the most cost-effective way to reach a spread-out audience. Use online for each and in-person for relationships.
Let us take the burden off you
We support law firms with event management, from a single breakfast briefing to a full events calendar. We plan, promote, deliver and follow up so your lawyers can concentrate on the full people in the room, and we’re happy to give a second opinion on which of these ideas would work for your firm.
Call 01903 530 787 or submit an enquiry form below and a member of our team will be in touch shortly.