Playbook, law firm
Costs estimates, and why one cannot begin in a chat window
The fee page answers how a firm charges. This is the next question, and it is a different animal: somebody with a real problem wants to know what the whole thing will come to. The honest answer is that nobody knows yet, because the variable is not the price of the work but how much of it the other side will cause. An assistant can explain that convincingly, and it can explain how the firm produces an estimate, which is more than most firms tell anyone before the first meeting.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for quotes and estimates holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- A costs estimate in a regulated firm is a written document with continuing duties attached, including telling the client when it needs revising, so it is not a figure anybody produces conversationally.
- The uncertainty is not in the rates, which are known, but in the volume of work, and that turns on how the other side behaves, which nobody can forecast from a first message.
- Scoping needs facts, and taking facts is precisely what this trade's boundary forbids in a widget, so the estimate and the privilege problem collide here harder than in any other pair.
- On transactional work the third party costs travelling with the estimate can exceed the firm's own charge, so an estimate that omits them is not a partial answer, it is a misleading one.
How it arrives
- can you give me an estimate for probate
- what would the whole thing cost from start to finish
- how much would you charge to draft a shareholders agreement
- will you tell me if the costs go over the estimate
- is the estimate binding or can it change
- can we agree a fixed fee for the whole matter instead
What has to be indexed for this to work
| How your firm produces and revises a costs estimate | When it is given, what it is based on, what triggers a revision, and how the client is told. Prospective clients assume an estimate is either a quote or a guess, and describing the actual process is what makes the wait for one acceptable. |
|---|---|
| The standard assumptions your estimates rest on | A cooperative other side, documents provided in a usable state, no additional parties, no contested application. Publishing the assumptions lets the assistant explain what makes a matter cost more without applying any of it to the person asking. |
| The disbursement schedule for each work type | Court fees, search fees, agents' fees, expert reports, and who pays them and when. These are the part of an estimate a client did not expect, and they are entirely factual, which makes them ideal material for the assistant to set out early. |
| What the scoping call covers and what it costs | How long it runs, whether it is chargeable, what the firm needs to know to price the work, and what the client receives afterwards. Somebody deciding whether to book is really asking whether it is a consultation or a sales call. |
The reply
We give a written costs estimate after we have scoped the matter, not before, because the total depends far more on how much work a matter generates than on our rates. The estimate sets out the assumptions it rests on and we tell you if anything happens that changes it. Court fees, search fees and any expert's report are listed on top of our own charge so nothing arrives unannounced. If you tell me the type of work and leave your details, we will arrange the scoping call.
It reframes the question from what does it cost to what determines the cost, which is genuinely informative rather than evasive. Naming the assumptions and the revision duty tells the visitor the estimate is a real commitment rather than a number to be moved later, which is the objection behind the question. It closes with a concrete step rather than an apology.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor gives any detail of their matter in order to get it priced, including the amount at stake, the other side's identity, or the stage proceedings have reached.
I should not take the details of your matter here, and I cannot price it from them anyway. The estimate comes out of a scoping call with a solicitor, so leave your name, email and the type of work and we will get that booked.
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 an estimate is fixed, or use the words quote and estimate as though they meant the same thing.
- Never build a total by multiplying a published hourly rate by a guessed number of hours.
- Never say what a matter like this usually comes to, on the basis of a description typed into the chat.
- Never leave disbursements out of a cost answer because the visitor only asked about fees.
Questions
- Is there any way to give a number without a scoping call?
- Only where you already publish one, as a fixed fee for a defined piece of work under stated assumptions. That is a published fact and the assistant can repeat it. Anything derived from what the visitor described is a scoped estimate produced by something that cannot scope.
- Clients say the estimate is the reason they went elsewhere. Does this help?
- It helps with the version of that where the firm never explained how estimates work. Indexing the process, the assumptions and the disbursement schedule means somebody comparing firms at eleven at night gets a straight answer about your approach, which is often what they were actually comparing.
- Can it explain a cost estimate that has already been sent to a client?
- No. That is a document on a live matter, it may have been revised, and the assistant has no access to the file. It should say so and route the client to the fee earner handling it.
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 quotes and estimates in generalWhat has to be known before a number is possible, how the scoping step works, and how to answer without stonewalling or inventing a figure.
- The first appointment at a law firm, explained in advanceIdentification, source of funds, whether the first meeting is chargeable and what actually happens in it, answered before anybody has to ring.
- Routing a complaint into the firm's own procedure, quicklyA published complaints route, the response period attached to it and the ombudsman step, handed over without the assistant defending the firm.
- The line where a legal enquiry stops being a conversationPrivilege does not attach to a widget and a wrong steer can cost a claim. The trigger is anybody describing their own legal situation.
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.