Newsletter – May 2026
Spotlight on… Two Helens. One shared obsession with legal marketing
We are Helen Burness and Helen Foord, the founders of Helen Squared, a specialist legal marketing consultancy working exclusively within the legal sector. Between us, we have over forty years of experience across law firms, legal tech businesses, chambers, and professional bodies. We know the sector well: its rhythms, its sensitivities, and the particular challenge of marketing something as nuanced as legal expertise.
Helen Squared was built around a simple but important observation: that ambitious legal businesses consistently outperform their own marketing, not because they lack ideas, but because they have never had the right people close enough to help. We exist to change that.
We work with legal organisations at moments of change. Repositioning, rebrand, new narrative, or building the marketing foundations needed to support serious growth. But we always start in the same place: understanding what is true about an organisation, what its clients actually value, and the gap between what it thinks it is saying and what the market is hearing. From there, everything we build is specific, evidenced, and designed to last.
Every client works directly with us. The people who scope the work are the people who deliver it, with trusted specialists brought in when a project calls for it. It is a model built around quality and close involvement at every stage, and it is why our clients tend to stay with us.
That is the approach we are bringing to the CLSB. Over the coming months, we will be working closely with the executive and Board to sharpen the story around Costs Lawyers: who they are, what they do, and why instructing a Costs Lawyer makes a difference. The goal is a clearer, more compelling proposition that the profession can get behind and use with real confidence in the market.
Helen Burness founded Saltmarsh Marketing and has spent years helping legal brands find their voice and build a presence they are proud of. She brings energy, clarity, and a sharp eye for content that lands, along with a healthy sense of humour that makes the whole process a lot more enjoyable.
Helen Foord leads ELE and brings structure, rigour, and over two decades of legal business development experience to everything she does. She is the person who makes sure strategy becomes reality: on time, on message, and built to last.
Together, we are looking forward to getting started. If you have views how to communicate the value of Costs Lawyers to the wider legal services sector, or what you would like them to understand about the profession, we would love to hear from you.