It pays to be clear and upfront with clients about legal fees

This article was first published in The Scotsman on 29 July 2024

Legal services come with inherent tensions. Consumers are often hoping that their solicitor can restore certainty to their lives, starting with reassurances about the likely outcome of their legal transaction, how long it will take and what it will cost.

Solicitors, however, are trying to achieve a good balance between offering a quality service and running a viable business. They know that the course for many legal transactions is paved with unexpected turns.

That tension can lead to confusion and misunderstandings about costs which, if not resolved, can lead to complaints. Talking about money can be difficult, but having a conversation up-front about costs can help to avoid those issues further down the line. That goes for both the law firm setting out its stall for business and for the consumer looking to solve their legal problem at an affordable cost.

Research earlier this year by Consumer Scotland showed that price is only one factor influencing consumer choice. For legal services the most important considerations also included reputation, previous experience, specialism in the issue at hand, the presence of local or convenient offices and speed of delivery.

However, the same research also showed that the majority of consumers see legal services as expensive. Choosing the right provider for your issue and being confident in the price you’ll be charged is crucial.

Which is why it’s so important that consumers can see upfront what the price for a transaction might be. Or, if the final cost is hard to predict at the outset, that they know how it will be calculated and that they’ll be kept informed and involved in decisions that affect that cost.

Some legal services may follow standardised processes that lend themselves well to fixed fees. This is often the case in residential conveyancing, for example. However, other services are often less predictable and the course the transaction takes will depend on decisions along the way, for example, by both sides of a dispute. But it’s no less important to the consumer that they know what the costs are likely to be and what might influence them.

We recently published a report looking at the issues we see in complaints about law firms relating to costs and fees. At the heart of many was communication – firms who didn’t offer clear enough information about pricing, and consumers who didn’t understand the way costs would be calculated. In a service based on trust between the solicitor and their client, an unexpected fee or an unclear bill can really undermine consumer confidence.

And despite guidance on price transparency published three years ago by the Law Society of Scotland, there is still minimal information available to help consumers to consider or compare costs before they choose a provider.

Greater transparency about pricing and costs builds trust because it increases credibility and accountability. Better-informed consumers will be more confident in using legal services and will have more reasonable expectations of costs. That can only lead to more satisfied customers and fewer complaints; an outcome we all want to see.

We think it pays to be clear.