Playbook, law firm
Office hours are the easy half of this question
Somebody asking when a firm opens usually wants one of three quite different things: whether they can drop identification in, whether the person handling their matter will be reachable today, or what time money has to move on a completion. Only the first is answered by the hours on the contact page. The other two are governed by a court list and by a banking cutoff, and both are more useful to publish than the opening time.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for opening hours holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- A firm can be open all day while the fee earner on a matter is unreachable in a hearing, so the office hours and the availability of the one person a client wants are unrelated facts.
- Completion on a property transaction runs to a banking deadline rather than to the end of the working day, and a transaction that misses it does not simply complete tomorrow at no cost.
- Court offices and the firm keep different hours and different closures, so a client asking about a filing or a hearing time is asking about an institution the firm does not control.
- Reception and the counter where original documents are produced often keep shorter hours than the office itself, which is the detail that sends somebody home with the identification still in their bag.
How it arrives
- what time does your reception open
- is anyone in on a saturday to witness a signature
- my solicitor is in court when will she be back
- what time does the money have to go on completion day
- can i drop my id in at lunchtime
- are you closed between christmas and new year
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Office hours, with the counter hours stated separately | When the building is open, when reception is staffed, and the narrower window in which somebody can produce original documents or have a signature witnessed. One set of hours for all three is wrong at the counter, which is where it costs somebody a journey. |
|---|---|
| Your position on court commitments and call backs | That fee earners are in hearings on some days, who covers when they are, and how quickly a message is returned. This answers the real question behind why has nobody rung me back without discussing any matter at all. |
| Completion day timings for transactional work | The time by which funds must be received for a completion to go through that day, and what happens if they are not. This is the single most consequential time a conveyancing client can be told, and it belongs in writing rather than in a phone call on the morning. |
| Closures, including the days the courts are shut | Bank holidays, the period between the festive days, any local court closures that affect filing. Note them as dated entries so an out of date closure does not sit in the material telling people the wrong thing next year. |
The reply
Reception is open through the working day, but original identification can only be checked at the counter during the shorter window shown on our contact page [1], so it is worth arriving inside that. If you are asking about a fee earner rather than the building, they may be in court for the day, and messages are returned within the period set out in our service standards [2]. For a completion, funds have to reach us by the time stated in our conveyancing information, which is earlier than the office closes.
It separates the building from the person from the transaction, because those are the three things the question can mean and answering only the first is what makes the reply useless. The counter window is put first because getting that wrong wastes a journey. Nothing in it asserts where anybody is today, which the assistant has no way of knowing.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor is asking about a specific person's availability today, or about the timing of a completion or a filing that is already in motion.
I cannot see anybody's diary or anything about a matter in progress. If this is about a completion or a hearing, leave your name, email and the matter reference and I will get it to the team straight away.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say a named fee earner is in, out, in court or available, since the assistant has no sight of where anybody is.
- Never reassure anybody that a completion or a filing will still go through today.
- Never give the counter hours as the office hours, because that is the version that costs somebody a wasted trip with their documents.
- Never state a court's opening or listing times as though the firm set them.
Questions
- Is an hours page really worth indexing for a firm?
- Only in the split form. A single line of opening hours answers a question almost nobody has. The counter window, the position on court days and the completion cutoff are the three facts behind most of the messages that look like an hours question.
- Can it tell a client whether their solicitor is in today?
- No. It has no access to a diary, an attendance record or a court list, and guessing would be worse than silence for a client whose hearing is tomorrow. It states the service standard for returning messages and takes an enquiry.
- Should the completion cutoff really be published?
- It is the fact clients most need and most often learn too late. Publishing it does not commit the firm to completing, it tells a client when their part has to be done, and it gives the assistant something concrete to say at the moment when the alternative is an anxious call.
Keep reading
- Everything for a law firmFee structures, consultation terms and onboarding checks are answerable. Anything applied to a caller's own facts is legal advice.
- Handling opening hours in generalHolidays, seasonal variation, last orders and multiple sites. Keeping one source of truth so the assistant and your map listing agree.
- Getting to the right building on the right dayDepartments sit in different buildings, originals have to be produced in person, and half these messages are really about a hearing venue.
- Reasonable adjustments at a firm, and where they stop being administrativeInterpreters, home visits and large print are arrangements a firm can make. Whether somebody can give instructions is a legal question.
- Cancelling a solicitor, and what the retainer says about itEnding a retainer is not cancelling an appointment. The client care letter sets the terms, work done stays billable, and papers may be held.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.