Website for law firms, with a first meeting at a stated price
Someone reads four firms' websites on a Sunday evening and rings none of them, because not one of the four says what an initial meeting costs. The firms that do state it take the call on Monday, and the call is short, because the price and the scope were on the page before the phone was picked up.
The site runs on your own domain, with SSL, hosting and nightly backups in every plan. From £49 to £199 a month, excluding VAT.
Three moments in an ordinary week
Nothing here is about how the work is done. It is about the hour before a client becomes a client, and about being clear on price when the rules require you to be.
Half past nine on a Sunday evening
A boundary has been in dispute since the spring and the neighbour has now written a letter. The person reading about it is at the kitchen table with a laptop, and what they want to know first is not who you are. It is whether an hour of your time costs more than they can put on a card this month.
If the page does not answer that, they close it and read the next firm's page instead.
Twenty past four, the third call of the afternoon
Reception has a caller asking what a straightforward will costs, and a second caller on hold asking what an employment matter costs, and those two questions have entirely different answers. One is a fixed fee. The other depends on how long it runs.
Whoever answers the phone has to hold both structures in their head, correctly, every time, while a fee earner is waiting on the other line.
Eight in the morning, before the first appointment
Four emails, all asking the same three things. What identification do I need to bring. How long will the meeting be. Do you need the paperwork sent over first, and in what form.
None of it is legal work and every one of them has to be answered before the client arrives, in the half hour that was meant for reading the file.
Four parts that carry the first contact
The site is the administration around a matter, and nothing else. Here is what it does before the client is a client.
Matter types, each with the charging basis that applies
An initial advisory meeting sits at a fixed price. A will sits at a fixed price. An employment matter sits at an hourly rate, and a probate matter is quoted after the estate has been looked at. Each entry on the list carries its own basis rather than borrowing the one above it.
That is the same distinction you already make on the phone. Written down, it stops being a conversation you have to repeat.
An initial meeting requested through a form
The form takes the name, the contact details, the matter type and a short description in the person's own words, along with whatever wording you want attached to it about what the enquiry is and is not.
It reaches you complete, so the conflict check and the diary question can both be dealt with in one reply rather than three, and the caller who was never going to be a client for you has not taken twenty minutes of anyone's afternoon.
A written quote with the scope set out
The quote carries a line for each part of the work, and a plain statement of what falls outside it. The client opens it on its own page, reads it, and records their approval there, with the date against it.
Where a payment on account is taken at that point it runs through your own Stripe account. The wording of the quote is yours, in full, and nothing is added to it.
What it costs, what to bring, how you charge
Identification, timescales, how an hourly rate is recorded, what happens between the first meeting and the engagement letter. These are answered once on the page and then they are answered at midnight, without anybody in the office being asked again.
What the page does not do is say anything about how a matter will end, and there is no wording anywhere in it that suggests otherwise.
How the matter list can be set out
You write the names, the bases and the figures. What follows is the structure: every entry states how it is charged, so nobody has to ask.
Disbursements and VAT can be carried as their own lines, and any entry can hold a note in your own wording about what is and is not covered.
Questions firms put to us before signing up
Yes, and that is how most firms set it up. The initial meeting is a fixed price on the page. Everything after it is hourly, fixed or quoted, listed separately, so no figure is implied for work nobody has looked at yet.
No. There is no wording of that kind anywhere in the product, and none is generated. The pages describe your charging, your matter types and your process for making an appointment, and stop there.
Each entry states its own basis on the line, so a visitor reading the list sees which is which without having to work it out. Entries can also be grouped by matter type, with the bases side by side inside each group.
The form collects contact details and a short description of the matter, nothing more, and you set the wording that sits above it and in the acknowledgement. Nothing is answered automatically and no reply leaves the office without a fee earner sending it.
The existing site can be imported, so your text, your people and your matter types come across as they are. You then edit any page by clicking the pencil icon on it, and nothing changes until you save it.
Plans run from £49 to £199 a month plus VAT. All of them include the site on your own domain, SSL, hosting, nightly backups and support in English. SMS reminders are a prepaid add-on.
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Set up the firm's site
Describe the firm and the work it takes on, or point at the site you have now. The builder produces a first version with your matter types, the charging basis on each, and a form for requesting an initial meeting. Every word of it is yours to change on the page.
The site runs on your own domain, with SSL, hosting and nightly backups in every plan. From £49 to £199 a month, excluding VAT.