Octopus Legal Services has announced the acquisition of the private client team of NewLaw Solicitors, growing the headcount at the private equity backed firm by a third.
The SRA-regulated arm of Octopus Legacy said the deal brings more than 50 lawyers into the organisation and broadens the scope of services, moving the company “closer to handling the full set of tasks that follow a death, from wills and probate to estate administration and practical family support”.
Octopus claims to be the second largest estate planning provider by volume. Octopus Legacy joined the Octopus Group in 2022 and customer numbers grew by more than 340% between the start and end of 2025, with staff numbers increasing by around 160%.
The acquisition also sees the firm invest heavily into artificial intelligence to handle repetitive administrative work at scale, from document handling to case coordination. Rather than “follow the wave” of businesses replacing client-facing teams with chatbots, it says is using them to streamline administrative processes and free up time for better client communications.
The business expects to grow its probate caseload tenfold within 12 months of completion without adding frontline legal hires, using its proprietary AI platform to automate administrative tasks and free up qualified staff to spend more time directly supporting bereaved families.
Sam Grice, founder and chief executive of Octopus Legacy, said: “When someone dies, families should not have to learn how a system works. Yet at the moment they are dealing with loss, they are left calling one place, then another, trying to make sense of it. One provider should take responsibility for the whole experience, not pass people between services but own it from start to finish.
“That is where AI comes in, but not in the way people often talk about it. It takes on the admin that slows everything down, so our team can spend more time with families and every family can deal directly with a person at the point of a death.
“At Octopus Energy, we saw what happens when a service is rebuilt around the customer rather than the system. The bereavement sector is at that same moment now, where a more joined-up model can replace one that no longer works.”
The latest acquisition follows the recent addition of the will bank of Shoosmiths and the 2025 acquisition of WSL.
Octopus said it has grown from supporting around 200,000 people in 2023 to more than one million today. Its services are reacting to a wider shift in how people approach death and planning for it, with earlier conversations happening driven by rising property values, more complex family arrangements and a clearer understanding of what happens when nothing is in place, the company said.
