ABS diary | Fair and competitive fees

Nowadays my predominant role in our practice is management but  I have been doing a fair amount of fee earning in the past year, mostly in the probate department. For management purposes this has been invaluable, particularly from the point of view of fees management.  

We offer fixed fee services for wills, LPAs, domestic conveyancing and some probate work. We have determined our fees so that we charge what we believe is a fair price and we know that we are very competitive.  We all know that these are lean times and with the new entrants into the legal market offering cut-price fees and access to legal services via the internet it is very tempting to streamline fees even further.

Time costs

Being a fee earner myself has made me realise the amount of time involved in giving a proper service to our clients and for a solicitor time is money, so in some areas of work we have decided that, although we want to remain competitive, we would be compromising our work ethos if we did not increase our fixed fees. If our fees are kept at the level they are we cannot reasonably afford to offer the same service to our clients. So, not only would we be compromising the service we give, we would be compromising the advice we give our clients. From a management perspective I can see that being competitive brings a lot of clients through the door. However, if the volume of clients means they are not getting the same standard of service, the clients and the firm will be put at risk.

This in turn has confirmed my initial thoughts when asked how I felt about the introduction of ABSs and the inevitable competition from the likes of the Co-op. I have always believed that our sort of practice will not only survive but sustain and develop.

The impact of ABSs will depend on the locality of your practice and your client base. We have been on the high street for a very long time and we understand the balance between fair pricing and good service, we understand our clients, what they need from us and that the majority of them agree that cheapest is quite often not best. We also have the luxury of being able to take a view with regards to fees so as to take into account individual circumstances.

Business credibility

Interestingly, we have recently been approached by two local firms of accountants who want to recommend John Welch and Stammers to their clients. This is not on a referral basis, they are not even asking us to recommend our clients to them. These firms feel that as their recommendations will reflect on them, they want to recommend a tried and tested practice, proving further that to some, service outweighs cost. I think that this is not only due to the longevity and local knowledge of our practice but also due to the publicity we have received regarding our ABS status which I feel has helped with our credibility, both with clients and local businesses. It further proves that traditional can work alongside modern.

In some areas of law it is prudent to take a view with regards to profit. Take the drafting of wills for instance. I will spend an average of 45 minutes to an hour with a client taking will instructions, talking through family details and history, financial circumstances, whether tax planning is required and specific wishes. Then there is the time and costs involved to prepare, draft and engross the wills. Most firms see wills as a loss leader: once you have prepared someones will, particularly if you then store their will and other documents, you often become their family solicitor and they come to you for all the other areas of legal services they require, as does their family and so on.

We do not make any profit from wills but it is a great opportunity to introduce the client to our firm and give them confidence in the services we are able to provide. This service could almost be viewed as a marketing tool as quite often such clients go on to recommend us to others.

But whichever way you look at fees and quality of service, you should not compromise one for the other.