Fees

How we calculate our fees

How we calculate our fees is set out in our Client Care Letter. Our fees for our services in your legal matter are calculated either on the basis of time spent or on a fixed, capped basis and may be staged, as set out in our Client Care Letter we sent you.

Fees on a time spent basis

If our fees are calculated on a ‘time spent basis’:

General basis
Unless otherwise agreed with you and confirmed in writing (e.g. when a fixed fee is agreed), we shall charge our fees on the basis of the time spent by us in your matter (‘time-spent basis’). This applies to all works carried out in your matter, including correspondence and conferences with you and others, perusing documents and working on papers, drafting and/or preparing correspondence, forms, applications, bundles, grounds, witness statements, skeleton arguments, contracts, deeds etc., preparation of any costs calculations, preparation for hearing, mediation and negotiation, attendance at court and time spent travelling to and from court in relation to your matter.
Six-minute units
We calculate our time spent for your matter in ‘six-minute units’ (an hour is broken down into ten units, each of six minutes) and charge it at the ‘hourly rate’ for the person doing the work. Where a task (such as writing a short or standard letter or email or making a phone call) takes less than six minutes of a person's time, the time spent is rounded up to six minutes.
Three-minute half-unit
Generally, the time spent for considering routine incoming letters, emails and texts are counted and charged together with the time spent for responding to the incoming correspondence. However, when no such response is provided, with regard to the routine incoming correspondence that takes up to three minutes of our time to consider, we charge a half-unit (i.e. one twentieth of the applicable hourly rate).

Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are

Dr. Sonia Khan

Standard hourly rate

Our current standard hourly rates are as follows:

Experience and/or status of the fees earner	Grade	Hourly rate
Solicitors and legal executives with over 8 years’ experience	A	£312
Solicitors and legal executives with over 4 years’ experience	B	£256
Other solicitors or legal executives and fee earners of equivalent experience	C	£204
Trainee solicitors, paralegals and other fee earners	D	£143

Applicable hourly rate: Our standard hourly rate (as set out above) shall apply, unless otherwise specified. We charge a higher rate for cases involving high value, complexity, exceptional urgency or conditional fee agreement. When a higher rate is applicable, we shall notify you in advance.

Increases in hourly rates: We may increase our hourly rates, for example at the start of a new year. We may also increase our rates if your instructions change, for example if the matter we are working on for you becomes more urgent. We shall give you advance notice of any such increases.

Estimates are not binding: Any estimate of our charges (fees, disbursements and expenses) for dealing with your matter or reaching a certain stage in it, as well as estimates or automated quotes provided on our website, are not binding. We may update estimates as a matter progresses, and you must pay all our charges, even if they exceed any estimate.

Fixed and capped fees

If we have agreed a fixed or capped fee with you, it will be specified in our Client Care Letter. In the event of an agreed fixed fee or capped fee:

(a) Changes in assumptions

If the assumptions on which the fixed or capped fee are based (as set out in our Client Care Letter) change or prove incorrect, we may increase our fixed or capped fee, or switch to charging you on a time-spent basis. If we switch to charging on a time-spent basis, we will provide you with an estimate of our fees to complete the matter.

(b) What we can charge if you terminate your instructions or we stop acting for you

If you terminate your instructions (other than because we are at fault), we can charge you the full fixed fee or capped fee (as applicable) unless you are an individual who is not instructing us in connection with your business (i.e. you are a “consumer”), in which case, we will charge you on a time-spent basis for the work we have done prior to termination (provided this is less than the agreed fixed or capped fee). The same rules apply if we stop acting for you with reasonable grounds to do so (e.g. if you have broken our agreement by not giving us timely instructions or paying our invoices on time, if the solicitor-client relationship of trust and confidence has broken down, if we discover a conflict of interest to the extent that proceeding with it would otherwise be contrary to legal or regulatory duties, if the risk profile for your case has significantly changed or if you experience an insolvency event).

Disbursements, expenses and VAT

All hourly rates, estimates, fixed, capped or staged fees we quote are exclusive of the following, which you must pay in addition to:

(a) Disbursements

We may instruct third parties (such as barristers, experts, surveyors, architects, translators, interpreters, enforcement agents, enquiry agents, estate agents, process servers) to provide services to you or we may pay official fees or carry out searches for you. You will be responsible for these associated charges and costs (these are called “disbursements”). Our Client Care Letter to you may contain an estimate of such disbursements.

(b) Expenses

In addition to our fees, we shall charge you for our expenses which may include the costs of travel, document production (scanning, photocopying, binding), posting and packaging, payment transfers and support staff overtime.

(c) VAT on our fees

We are not VAT registered at this moment. If, and when, this changes, we shall duly inform you and thereafter, a 20% VAT shall be applicable on our fees as well, barring exempt cases (e.g. if you are making an immigration application and you reside outside the UK or the EU).

(d) VAT on expenses and disbursements

A 20% VAT may apply on expenses and disbursements.

Fees

How we calculate our fees

Fees on a time spent basis

General basis

Six-minute units

Three-minute half-unit