Price transparency

At your first meeting, we will provide you with a written explanation about the costs associated with meetings, telephone calls, dealing with emails, preparing letters and formal documents. Any fee notes we send to you will be accompanied by a breakdown of the work carried out on your behalf.

In litigation it is not possible to estimate the cost of your case with any accuracy. We can only give you an indication of the average costs of such litigation. It is vital to bear in mind that any such indication can only ever be what it purports to be, namely an estimate based on the extent of work which it is then at the time of giving the estimate, possible to predict in the average case of this kind. The actual costs for which you will be liable will depend upon many unpredictable factors such as the level of contact and advice you require, the conduct of your opponent, the amount of time we require to be in court on your behalf, new information arising during the course of the litigation which materially alters the nature or extent of the dispute or entirely new areas of dispute on which you require additional advice. It will in any event be based only on the information available at the time. An estimate of costs should never be regarded as a firm quotation unless we specifically advise you to the contrary in writing. Do not hesitate to ask for an interim account, or an estimate of the present costs at any time during the course of the litigation.

If you are successful in the litigation then an element of the costs of the case may be recoverable from a defeated opponent. It should be borne in mind however that any award of expenses granted by the Courts following success are not generous and will never amount to the full costs of your solicitors fees and outlays in an average case. As a consequence, even if you are successful, there will still be a balance due to this firm which cannot be recovered from your opponent. Whilst it is difficult to generalise on average we would expect to recover no more than 70% of the costs of the case in the event of a successful award of expenses. In some instances, particularly those of small value, the expenses recovered from an opponent are minimal. The extent of the extra costs you will require to bear by way of our fees will be dependent in part upon the amount and urgency of the work you require to be carried out and the contact which you have with us. You should not lose sight of the fact that if you are unsuccessful or if you decline to pursue the matter to a conclusion, you may render yourself liable for the costs of your opponent. Similarly the liability is unlikely to be for the total cost of your opponent’s case but nevertheless it may amount to a substantial sum.

Regardless of whether you are successful and have awarded against the opponent an award of expenses you remain liable for the total amount of our fees and outlays. We will endeavour to recover expenses from the opponent but on numerous occasions it can be impossible to do so or is not cost effective to do so. It may cost you more in solicitors’ fees and outlays than the award is worth or the opponent might be without funds or enjoy the benefit of a Legal Aid Certificate. Where an opponent is legal aided he may apply to the Court to have any liability to meet your solicitors expenses modified and this is usually to nil.