Principles of Cooperation with a Law Firm and billing for legal services
The principles of cooperation with a law firm and payment for its services are not at all obvious. This is because providing legal services is a very specific type of service that is difficult to capture in simple, general rules. For instance, clients’ legal problems can sometimes be extremely complicated and non-obvious. Therefore, we would like to present here a few general guidelines based on our experience that may be helpful for those seeking legal support.
How We Bill for Our Support
As a rule, we price and bill our work using the hourly rate adopted by the Law Firm and the time required for the assignment. However, this is not always the case, as with some legal work, the key factors are the degree of complexity, legal risk, potential liability of the law firm, or the deadline for completing the assignment.
Taking the above principles into account, we adapt the form of cooperation to the type of assignment and the client’s expectations. Based on our experience, the following models of cooperation can be distinguished:
One-time Legal Consultations
This type of legal service is most appropriate when the client has a specific issue they would like to discuss or verify their existing knowledge or solution.
Legal Opinion/Recommendation
This form of legal counsel applies to situations where the client’s situation and related questions are more complex and consequently require more work from us. We are usually able to price such an assignment at a fixed amount.
Legal Consultation for one hour
A very common form of legal advice is a one-hour legal consultation. Such a consultation, contrary to appearances, allows for clarification of many legal doubts or determination of whether and which legal issues require further analysis. It is often the case that such a consultation leads the client to conclude that their previous assumptions were mistaken, and for various reasons, it does not make sense to invest more time and money in the plans that brought them to our law firm. Or it may be necessary to significantly modify them.
We provide one-hour consultations both in-person and online.
Project Support
This type of legal advice works best for more complex assignments such as establishing a company, purchasing real estate (where it may be necessary to examine the property’s status, participate in negotiations over the agreement, etc.), preparing a specialized legal opinion, or representation in court cases.
In this type of engagement, we are usually able to provide compensation for a given project or project stage as a fixed fee, e.g., „20 hours of work” or as an estimate, i.e., „approximately 20 hours of work.” In this way, both parties have control over the working time. After reaching the agreed work limit, we decide together with the client about further work and its pricing based on previously adopted transparent cooperation assumptions and results achieved so far.
Ongoing Support/Permanent Legal Services
This type of support involves establishing a long-term relationship with the client. The client then has quick access to the law firm’s team of lawyers who know their business and needs for their legal matters. The law firm, on the other hand, has secured a stable, long-term relationship with the client. This form of cooperation works best for clients who value stable and long-term business relationships and attach high importance to the legal security of their actions.
Usually, such ongoing legal support is framed in the form of a contract where a certain minimum/fixed number of hours is allocated for service in a given month (e.g., 10 or 20 hours). It is the result of our experience and the client’s assessment of how much legal support they will need.
Legal Support for Expansion into Foreign Markets
A particular example of such projects where permanent legal services are necessary is expansion into foreign markets. This is because such activities – entering a new market, that is, another country with a different legal system and a different legal culture – is by definition a long-term, time-consuming process fraught with significant risk. Moreover, with this type of project, it is not enough to look at the client’s activities from one legal perspective – foreign or domestic – but from both perspectives. All this requires time and well-coordinated cooperation between the client and a team of advisors from different countries, which is why, in our experience, stable, ongoing legal support works best for this type of project.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
Attorney Paweł Osiński