How Howells Solicitors Reduced Risk and Standardised Residential Reporting

Howells Solicitors advises clients across England and Wales, with a strong focus on providing clear, high-quality legal advice and a reliable client experience.

Before introducing Orbital, residential reporting at Howells reflected the realities of a busy conveyancing practice, relying on proven but largely manual processes. Reports were drafted either directly by fee earners or prepared as first drafts by junior team members. While effective, this approach sometimes increased the risk of inconsistency, made handovers more complex, and required greater senior oversight.

“Reporting was a major risk area: if something is missed, it could easily come back as a complaint. And because everyone worked slightly differently, picking up someone else’s file when they were off sick or on holiday was never straightforward.”
– Michael Smith, Partner at Howells Solicitors

At the same time, client expectations were increasing. Clients wanted reassurance and clarity earlier in the transaction, and sharing something substantive, rather than an update explaining that searches were still outstanding, made a noticeable difference to how matters progressed and reduced the amount of chasing coming back to the team.

Where Time is Really Spent

Much of the work in residential conveyancing sits in reviewing freehold and leasehold matters and translating that review into something a client can clearly understand.

Across a high volume of matters, the same categories of information must be identified, checked, and explained: rights, restrictions, obligations, and key clauses. On leasehold matters in particular, manually extracting and summarising this information is time-consuming.

“Leasehold are a real pain point. They regularly take two to three hours because you have to dig through the lease to find all the rights, restrictions and key clauses for the client.”
–Josh Vers, Senior Associate Solicitor at Howells Solicitors

Why Howells Looked to AI, And Why Orbital Stood Out

Like many firms, Howells had seen growing interest in AI across the legal sector, but any solution needed to deliver practical improvements for both the team and their clients.

“Everyone is ‘jumping on the AI bandwagon’, but we needed something that genuinely worked in practice. We wanted AI that would speed up title checking and reporting, improve consistency, and help us manage risk”
‍– Michael Smith, Partner at Howells Solicitors

At Howells, Orbital Residential is used as soon as titles and supporting documents are available. Fee earners run matters through the platform early and use the outputs as the starting point for review.

Orbital doesn’t replace legal judgement. It handles the heavy lifting of extracting and structuring information from the title and lease. Fee earners then review the draft, apply their legal expertise, and refine the output into a client-ready report that is free from unnecessary legal jargon and tailored to what the client needs to know.

For leasehold matters, the impact was immediate. What previously took two to three hours to review and report on now typically takes around an hour. In many cases, a clear draft report is produced in minutes, replacing up to an hour of manual drafting.

“The leasehold report can take information that might take up to an hour to produce and generate a clear draft in less than five minutes. It’s significantly sped up reviewing and reporting on leasehold property.”
‍– Josh Vers, Senior Associate Solicitor at Howells Solicitors

More Consistent Decisions, Lower Risk

Orbital also changes how reporting decisions are made. Reports are more comprehensive by default, removing the pressure to decide what to leave out when time is tight. Instead, fee earners can focus on what to emphasise and how best to explain it to the client.

Because reports and workflows are standardised, matters are easier to pick up and review. When workloads spike or files need to be progressed quickly, another fee earner can step in and immediately see what has been done and what still needs attention.

“I had a period where around ten title checks landed at once and clients were requesting updates. Previously, in a full day I might realistically have cleared about 30% of that workload. Using Orbital, I put the titles through the system, reviewed the outputs, raised enquiries and completed around 70% in the same day”
‍– Josh Vers, Senior Associate Solicitor at Howells Solicitors

From an audit perspective, every conveyancing file follows a clear, consistent process, reducing the likelihood of “you never told me this” conversations later on. For clients, this means clearer explanations, fewer surprises, and greater confidence that key issues have been properly identified and explained.

Measurable Impact Across the Residential Team

Since introducing Orbital Residential, Howells has seen clear, tangible results:

• Up to 50% reduction in leasehold reporting time, bringing leasehold reviews much closer to freehold timelines
• AI-generated freehold and leasehold reports produced in minutes, replacing up to an hour of manual drafting
• 80% of users report improved efficiency, with one in three describing the impact as significant
• Over 80% of users say they would recommend Orbital to a colleague
• 60% of users say removing Orbital would cause moderate to significant disruption to their day-to-day conveyancing work

A Modern Approach to Conveyancing

Residential conveyancing is high-pressure by nature. Orbital doesn’t remove that pressure, but it makes it easier to manage.

When work builds up, the team can move more matters forward and show visible progress to clients earlier in the transaction. Clients receive clearer reports sooner and feel reassured that their matter is progressing.

The result is higher throughput and greater sustainability for the Howells team, alongside a better, more transparent experience for their clients, reinforcing Howells’ reputation for high-quality, straightforward advice.

“Orbital delivers tangible results. It fits naturally into our existing workflow and saves time in a way that supports consistency and risk management.”
‍– Michael Smith, Partner at Howells Solicitors