How to Keep Your Legal Fees Under Control

Your Case Bundle contains relevant case papers, including emails, letters and documents. If you put one together we won’t have to! It will also help you when you instruct us about your case:

• Find and review the relevant case correspondence and documents
• File them in date order with the oldest document on top, so that the contents read like a book.
• Do not write on any of your original case documents; keep them clean and comment free! Always write on a copy – never the original.
• Make sure you search your computer for all relevant emails to you and sent by you; it’s amazing how many emails are sent and get forgotten but later prove to be relevant.
• Create an index of your case documents.
• Keep a copy of your case documents, particularly if you have a home scanner. This creates a useful back-up or copy of your case documents.

What is a relevant document depends on the details of your case. To help make sure your Case Bundle contains what is required click here for our Document Checklist.

Once completed, your Case Bundle can be given to us as part of your initial instructions to us. This will help us locate relevant case documents quickly.

As your case progresses it pays to keep a separate Case File of all correspondence and documents so you (or us) can quickly find what you are looking for.

Your file would include correspondence sent between us and you and your employer.

If you prepare a chronology of key events it can be a real time (and cost) saver when you instruct us about your case. It helps make sure your instructions accurately tell us what happened and when.

A chronology is simply a list or table of important events in date order. Your chronology should include relevant meetings, telephone calls, emails, letters and documents.

An example chronology is here.

A blank chronology template for you to fill in is here.

Take care to tell us about your case and your instructions. Time and legal fees can be wasted if your instructions are not accurate. This is why spending your time putting together your Case Bundle and chronology is time well spent.

You can save time and make sure you give us the right information we need to advise you about your case by using our online forms. They are easy to use and you can save them at any point to return to them later. Once completed you can email the form to us and print out a copy for future reference.

You can use our online Settlement Agreement Form to give us details about any compromise or settlement agreement your employer wants you to sign.

Our online Instruct Form can be used for any other type of employment law problem you would like us to help you with.

We will always discuss our fees with you and work to agreed cost budgets. Make sure you agree with what we are going to do for the agreed budget.

If your case requires a witness statement, or perhaps a letter or other document, you may save legal costs by preparing a first draft. This isn’t always the most cost effective way to proceed. We will be happy to discuss with you what you will need to include in your draft and how to go about preparing it.

Each time you speak to your solicitor about your case you are generally charged for the call. It is more cost effective if you keep a list of comments or questions which can then be discussed during a single meeting or telephone consultation. It can be helpful to send your list to us in advance of the meeting or call. This list can then be used as a checklist to help us make sure we discuss everything with you.

When reading our advice emails or letters take time to digest what we are saying; don’t be too quick to pick up the phone or fire off an email with your immediate comment or question. Make a list of all your comments or questions so we can deal with them when we next talk or write to you. This will avoid the need to have several phone calls or reply to several emails when one would have done the trick.

As your case develops it is important you know what you want to achieve. We will discuss this when you first instruct us. Your objectives may change over time. If they do you must let us know as this may have a bearing on how much work we need to do for you and therefore how much your legal fees will be.

Don’t keep us in the dark! Tell us about any developments with your case or changes to your instructions. This makes sure we take into account all relevant issues throughout your case and don’t make false assumptions which impact upon your legal costs.

Never be slow to tell us if you are unhappy or unsure about any aspect of your case or the work we are doing for you. Don’t let a concern fester; we will do our best to resolve any problem or uncertainty.