Well. That escalated.
TBD Marketing has published the Q1 2026 Legal LinkedInfluencers Report and I’ve come in at number two, with a power score of 21,034. For context, the power score is total likes plus four times total comments, measured across the quarter. Inaara Touryani of Leigh Day took the top spot with 44,093, which is more than double anyone else and frankly a ridiculous achievement. Jayne McGlynn at DWF came third with 20,665.
Ninety-two firms featured in the top 200. The combined power score of that top 200 hit 1,041,060, delivering an advertising value equivalent of around £2.1 million. The bar to enter the top 200 rose 20% from last quarter. The universe of people posting in and around the legal profession is growing fast, and the competition is getting sharper.
Being number two in that field, against around 200,000 profiles surveyed, is something I’m quietly proud of. I say quietly because the report’s authors, kindly, did not say that about me. Here’s their description, which I’ll quote because I couldn’t have written it better myself:
“Steven Mather’s Q1 is a quarter of range. One post dissects a single email’s wording. Another asks which sentence is grammatically correct and pulls in nearly 500 comments. A third watches Eileen Gu’s press conference and draws a thread about aspiration, decency, and what we should be inspired by – generating a power score of 4,845, the single highest individual post score on the main list this quarter.”
That Eileen Gu post was the highest-performing individual post on the entire main list. Ninety-three posts in the quarter. Brand archetype: The Creator. On-brand phrase, apparently, although not sure I agree: “I think we can all agree.” (They rarely do. That is the point.)
What this actually means
I’m going to resist the urge to turn this into a humblebrag essay about personal branding, but give a few honest observations instead.
First, visibility compounds. I’ve been writing on LinkedIn consistently for years. Not because I had a strategy deck, but because I found I had things to say and the platform rewarded me for saying them in my own voice. The Q1 number is the result of hundreds of small decisions to press post rather than talk myself out of it.
Second, the legal profession’s relationship with LinkedIn is changing fast. TBD’s report makes the point that fewer than one in ten people at UK law firms both write original content and repost their firm’s content. Most people do one or the other. The firms and lawyers who understand that visibility is not a risk but a reputational asset are pulling ahead. The ones still treating it as marketing theatre are falling behind.
Third, and this is the bit I actually care about: clients instruct people, not logos. I’ve said this for years, and I’ll keep saying it. Running Steven Mather Solicitor under Nexa Law, I don’t have a brand marketing team. I have me, a keyboard, and a view. That’s the whole operation. The number two ranking is, in a roundabout way, proof that the model works. Business owners who need sharp, practical legal advice on a sale, acquisition, shareholder agreement or settlement can find me because I’m findable. The posts are the shop window.
Hopefully, what you see on LinkedIn is me – the real me – and if you’re a client and I’m your cuppa tea, then great, and if not, that’s fine too. I’d rather work with people who I like, are nice, and get me and vice versa. And people who like puns.
On being a “Creator”
The archetype they gave me made me laugh. Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s uncomfortably accurate. I do get twitchy when I’m asked to write to a template. I’d rather spend an afternoon finding the angle nobody else saw than produce another safe, lukewarm update about a case that everyone else has already covered.
That approach doesn’t scale. It can’t be systematised. And it’s exhausting. But it’s also the reason any of this works.
Thanks
To everyone who liked, commented, shared, argued, disagreed, and occasionally told me I was wrong in the comments: thank you. The engagement is the point. An unread post is a tree falling in an empty forest. A post that makes 500 people stop and type something back is a conversation, and conversations are where the work comes from.
To Simon Marshall and the TBD team: thank you for running this project with rigour. The methodology is transparent, the analysis is thoughtful, and the fact that the top 200 now includes 92 firms tells you how much the profession has shifted.
To Inaara Touryani: congratulations. The gap between one and two is enormous and entirely deserved.
Onwards to Q2.
If you’d like to read the full report, it’s available via TBD Marketing here.
If you’d like to talk to me about a business sale, acquisition, shareholder agreement, business law matter, tennis, travel or good restaurants or anything else in my wheelhouse, you know where to find me.
