At a glance
- The problem
- Legmark's platform needed a second generation, but paying customers used it every day and years of their data had to move with nothing lost.
- Systems touched
- The first Legmark platform and its database, the new platform, and the DNS switch at go-live.
- What we built
- A data importer written for this one migration, with integrity checks on and safe restarts, a new platform on a modern stack, and the product on top, from the public law firm benchmark to AI agents running inside it.
- What changed
- The new platform went live with no downtime, and subscribers kept their accounts, billing and history.
A named client build. The client's own words close this page.
Who they are
Legmark is a marketing agency for law firms. Its product benchmarks around 5,700 UK law firm websites, shows each firm where it stands against the rest, and tells it what to fix first. We built that product. We’ve been Legmark’s development partner since late 2021, and in 2026 we built its second generation.
The first platform
We built the first version while the idea was still young, and it ran for over four years. It grew a long way in that time and held up, mostly because the early decisions about how it was built were sound.
Nobody can tell on day one which way a successful product will grow. Legmark’s grew in a direction no one had planned for, and by 2026 it needed a second generation. Four years of real use turned out to be the best brief we could have had, because it showed exactly where the business was going.
Why the rebuild was hard
The platform was in use the whole time. Paying customers logged in every day, and behind them sat years of performance histories, rankings, reviews and audits. Taking it offline for a weekend and hoping it came back right wasn’t an option.
Every field in the old database had to arrive in the right place in a new structure, with nothing lost. Customers had to keep their accounts, their billing and every month of their history, while the old platform kept running until the moment of the switch. Doing all of that at once is what made the job difficult, and it’s the part we’re proudest of.
What we built
Most of the effort went into a data importer written for this one migration. It moved around 1.6 million records, across more than 40 kinds of data, into the new structure, through a wizard the team could watch while it ran. Two early decisions mattered most. The database’s integrity checks stayed on throughout, so a bad record was stopped on the way in instead of turning up in a customer’s account months later. And any run could be stopped and started again safely, so we rehearsed the migration until it was routine.
The product moved onto a modern, well-supported stack that follows its framework’s conventions, which makes new features cheaper to build from here. We changed database engine as well. That meant giving up a couple of conveniences the old one had, and it was the right trade for where Legmark is going.
On top of that sits the product itself. There’s the public benchmark of UK law firms, which also works as Legmark’s shop window, and performance, search and reputation analysis drawn from many data sources and refreshed on its own schedule. We added a realtime layer so AI agents can run inside the platform, along with the account security and billing a subscription product for law firms needs.
Go-live
On the day, we ran the importer one last time to bring the latest data across, switched the DNS, and the new platform was live. There was no downtime, and the first platform served customers right up to the handover. Paying subscribers came across with their subscriptions untouched.
To users, the visible change was a redesign: a product that looked better and worked better. They didn’t see the larger job underneath, which was years of live data moved into a new shape with every account and every number in place from the first minute.
Legmark now has a platform built for the way it’s growing, with room for the AI work the business is moving towards.
Keeping Legmark involved
Sam mentions this in his own words, and it matters to us as much as the engineering. On a migration this size an agency can disappear for months and hand back something the client has to take on trust. Legmark saw the work as it was built, understood the trade-offs, including the database change, and made the big decisions with us.
In their words
“They first came on to build our SaaS product, and we became so aligned that they went on to build
our website too — and before long they’d become our go-to development partner. What began as a
single project has grown into a genuine partnership.
Above all, they’re always there when it counts — whatever we’re trying to build, they find a way to
unblock the path and make it happen. They keep us involved throughout, so we can see and understand
exactly what’s being built, which is just how we like to work. It’s made them one of the closest and
most valuable partners we have.”
Sam Borrett, CEO, Legmark
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Written by
Alex
CEO
I’m a software developer and CEO of Digital Royalty, helping growing teams scale their SaaS platforms without losing quality, visibility, or control. I focus on building structured, maintainable systems with clear processes, reporting, and accountability. With over a decade of experience across agency and in-house roles, I specialise in delivering long-term, scalable solutions that support complex, evolving products.
