I remember in my early career days, even before I was a lawyer – I had a client say, “I didn’t ask that because I didn’t want to you to charge me for it”. That is not the ideal relationship that you want to have the person that is assisting you, usually, with one of the biggest decisions or changes in your life.
The very foundation of a good relationship with your lawyer, in any type of matter is that you communicate with them honestly, openly, and freely. Where this doesn’t happen there may be a break down in the way in which a matter proceeds or how your instructions are interpreted.
Fixed fee billing is as explained in the title. The purpose of it is to outline the costs that you are going to be expected to pay and why, at the very beginning of your work with your lawyer. In the service agreement, signed and agreed at the beginning of starting work with your lawyer, generally (and this is what happens at Passage Migration Consulting) is that the following items will be outlined:
• The service. That is, what we are going to be doing for you.
• The inclusions. As expected, this is all the things that we will be responsible for as your lawyers including preparation, guidance, advice, and communication.
• The exclusions. Conversely, this will identify all the things that we won’t do as your lawyers. And usually serves as a good guide of what your responsibilities may be during the matter.
• The stages. That is, the service (and scope) broken down into different sections. This assists you to feel a sense of satisfaction and completion throughout the matter, while managing cash flow for your legal costs.
• The costs. We will identify the cost of each stage and the expectation of payment. For example, you may be expected to pay an amount into our legal Trust Account.
Essentially, the purpose of the agreement is to map out what is going to happen on your matter, including costs, responsibilities, expectations, and a timeline. This is perfect for understanding what is going to happen next and how much you are expected to pay, and when.
Of course, when things happen that are out of the ordinary, that you or we could not have foreseen, there may be a discussion with respect to additional fees being charged. But, great news – we will have a discussion with prior to sending a bill about this and you would usually already know, because this would be an exclusion in your agreement.
If you’d love to have a lawyer that only charges for fixed fee billing – contact us at hello@passagemigration.consulting!
Rachael is our Legal Practice Director, Youtube Host and Creator of Passage Migration Consulting.
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