How Much and How Long?
How much does it cost to hire us?
The first point we would like to make is that speaking to us is:
FREE
You can call and speak to one of our specialist solicitors about your issue without charge or obligation.
We will do what we can to help you, give you an assessment of the issues you face, give you information about litigation and solving dispites, the court system, detailed information on costs and useful next steps to take. Our first meeting can be up to an hour long, with a chance to speak again if you have any further questions.
Please watch our video below.
Our charges
After that, if you would like to instruct us, we will charge based only on the time we spend on your matter.
Our hourly charging rates are as follows:
| Christopher Burgon (22 years’ experience as a solicitor) “Grade A” | £350 per hour |
| Elle Berrett (11 years’ experience as a solicitor) “Grade A” | £300 per hour |
| Elizabeth Vera – Paralegal | £150 per hour |
Compare our rates to the Solicitors’ Guideline Houry Rates from HM Courts and Tribunal Service HERE.
£2,100
We will ask you for a payment on account of costs of £2,100. This is held in the firm’s client account. A client recently described this as being like a deposit.
Information about costs
We will give you the best information we can, as soon as possible, about the likely costs of your action. We will give you an estimate of costs for each stage of your case. We will let you know before we reach that estimate if we need to revise it and will only increase it if you agree.
No two cases are the same. So, we will give you an estimate of costs that is based on the unique facts of your case. As a guideline though, we have set out some examples of the level of costs of the cases we handle for our clients.
£5-8,000
If your case is relatively simple or you are just obviously in the right and the other side puts up only minimal resistance then we estimate your costs will roughly be between £5,000 to £8,000 excluding VAT.
Examples of recent cases like this are below:
Dishonest architect
We helped an architect leave a practice when he discovered that his business partner had been acting dishonestly. We helped him deal with a number of threats from his now ex-business partner, which were quickly shown to be groundless, and helped our client leave the business with all of the clients and contacts he had brought to the practice.
Debt owed by a large corporation
We worked for an engineering company that was owed in excess of £60,000 by a major corporation. The corporation was being deliberately obstructive about payment. From the information our client gave us, this was seen to be because someone within their organisation was probably trying to cover up for their own mistake.
We engaged with the legal department of the corporation and set out our client’s case with a threat of court action. After some deliberately obstructive correspondence, the corporation saw that they had no reasonable defence to the action and paid the debt.
How long?
We estimate a case like this takas between one and three months to reach a conclusion.
£25,000
If your case is more complex and/or the other side decide to put up a bit of a fight, then costs will increase. How much costs will increase by is dependent on the facts of each individual case. As we have set out above, some cases are simple and finish quickly and as we set out below others take a long time to settle and costs can be unlimited
Asa guideline, having looked at our recent cases, the average that our clients spend with us is around £25,000 excluding VAT.
Minority shareholder leaving a company
Our client was a director and minority shareholder in a successful company.
She found out that the other directors and shareholders, who were also members of her family, were taking funds from the company and sending them to a second company that she was not a shareholder of. The others were claiming fraudulently that these transfers were for expenses that simply didn’t exist.
Our client was the main source of revenue for the company with the best client contacts and we helped her stand up to intimidation and bullying within the company and helped her deal with being dismissed as a director and employee.
We were able to negotiate a sale of her shares for more than £100,000, ensure that there were no restrictions with her dealing with the clients of the first company and helped her set up a new business, owned 100% by her.
How long?
The case mentioned above took nine months from us being instructed to settlment.
£90-100,000
If your case is more complex and the other side are committed to opposing you, it is likely that you will have to issue court proceedings if you want to succeed.
Settlements are most often reached with committed opponents after the court proceedings have gone through the first few stages of the court process. It is often at this point, that the costs of continuing and the strength (or weakness) of your opponent’s case becomes clear to them.
We have worked with a number of clients in recent years where we have helped them achieve success at this stage. The amount of costs incurred in such matters has been around £90-100,000.
Inheritance dispute with step-brothers
We helped a son obtain a fair share of his father’s estate, after his father’s second wife conned him into signing a second will when he was ill, giving most of his estate to his step-sons. See a full Case Study HERE.
Professional negligence against solicitor
We helped a landlord bring a professional negligence action against the solicitor he had instructed to help remove a problem tenant and defeat her claim for excessive costs.
How long?
The cases mentioned above, from us being instructed to settlement, took one year and one year and nine months
£150,000 plus
If your case is relatively complex and the sums involved are worth say £200,000 or more, our estimate is that if the matter went to trial, the case would probably take around two years and if the trail lasted for two or three days, your costs would likely be more than £150,000.
Remember, only a small minority of court actions ever go to trial.
How long?
For a case to go to trial can take from one to two years and possibly longer.
Recovery of costs
We appreciate that these are significant amounts of money to spend on legal fees. We suggest that it is useful to think of money spent on legal costs as an investment.
It is possible to recover a proportion of the money you spend on legal fees from the other side. We will give you all the information you need about recovery of costs to help you make the decisions you need to. It is a complex subject but the general principle is that the loser must pay the winner costs. So, succeeding at trial means that you will recover at least a proportion of the costs from the other side in addition to the Judgment in your favour.
Conditional Fee Agreements
We offer Conditional Fee Agreements to our clients if we know that they have a good case, that justice will be served if they win and they need some assistance to see the case to a favourable conclusion.
We do not offer Conditional Fee Agreements to new clients.
