The UK's 250 largest law firms posted 15,666 times on their own LinkedIn pages last quarter. Their favourite feeling? Delight. It edges out pride by 23 posts, and it is still rising.
The feelings league
Posts using each word, Q3 2026
One post in five (3,272) uses at least one of these five words. 1,210 open with "We are" or "We're" and one of them. That is one post in thirteen starting the same way.
September is peak delight
Share of posts saying "delighted"
Trainees start, NQs qualify, rankings land. Nearly one post in ten said "delighted" in September.
Does it work?
"Delighted" posts get twice the likes: a median of 35, against 17 for everything else. Don't credit the word. It turns up on hires, promotions and awards, the posts people like anyway. Compare like with like and the gap shrinks: about 40% on people news and awards, 20% on deals.
| Post type | With "delighted" | Without | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| People news | 44 | 31 | +42% |
| Awards and rankings | 40 | 29 | +38% |
| Deals | 36 | 30 | +20% |
| Everything else | 24 | 14 | +71% |
Median likes per post. Some of what's left is bigger news getting the bigger adjective. None of it needs the same first line as 1,210 other posts.
The clean sheet
Nine firms posted 60 times or more in Q3 and never once said "delighted". Including the UK's largest.
- DLA Piper71 posts
- Gowling WLG86 posts
- Pinsent Masons62 posts
- Weightmans62 posts
- Browne Jacobson81 posts
- Womble Bond Dickinson110 posts
- Tees Law94 posts
- Bates Wells69 posts
- Tilly Bailey & Irvine64 posts
Five better first lines
Instead of We are delighted to welcome Jane Smith as a partner in our real estate team
, try:
- Lead with the person. Jane Smith has joined our real estate team as a partner.
- Lead with the client's problem. Developers with stalled sites have one more person to call: Jane Smith, our new real estate partner.
- Lead with a number. Twenty years, 40 schemes, one new partner. Jane Smith joins our real estate team.
- Lead with their words. "I came here for the clients," says Jane Smith, our new real estate partner.
- Lead with what changes. Our real estate team now covers the whole North West. Jane Smith joins as partner.
Keep the news. Lose the preamble. The first line is the only one most people read.
What actually works on your firm's page?
Your firm dashboard shows which posts earn attention for you and for your rivals, quarter by quarter.
How we measured it: 15,666 original posts by the LinkedIn pages of the TBD250 (the UK's 250 largest law firms), posted between 1 July and 30 September 2026, compared with 16,600 in Q2. Reposts are left out and each post is counted once. Words are counted whole and in any case, so "delightful" doesn't count. Post types are read from the words of the post. Likes are medians and still growing on late-September posts. How we rank.