Fees

Priced in stages

We break a matter into stages and price each stage before it starts.

A dispute might run: initial advice; pre-action correspondence; starting or defending proceedings; disclosure; mediation; preparation; hearing. Each is a decision point with its own estimate.

So there is always a number in front of you before the next stage begins.

Fixed fees where they fit

Some work prices cleanly, an advice, a demand, a contract review before a dispute starts. We quote those as a fixed fee.

Where scope genuinely cannot be pinned down, we say so rather than quote a number we would have to revise.

What drives cost

Some of this is outside your control. It is worth knowing either way.

The issues and the parties.

How many, and how complex.

The other party.

How they run their case affects the work required.

The volume of material.

Often the largest single cost. It scales with how much exists and how well organised it is.

Experts.

Necessary in valuation and other technical matters, and expensive.

Costs beyond our fees

Our fees are not the only cost of a dispute. A court can make orders about who pays the costs of a proceeding, and those orders can run in either direction.

We raise this at the outset rather than when it becomes a problem. How it might apply to your matter is something we will talk through with you, and our own fees are set out in your costs agreement.

Disbursements

Counsel, experts, filing fees, mediators, transcript. Charged at cost, and estimated as part of each stage.