Fixed Fees

Fixed fees are available for divorce, dissolution of civil partnerships, preparing parental responsibility agreements, preparing Living Together Agreements, Pre-Marital Agreements, and Pre-Civil Partnership Agreements. Please contact Elizabeth Hodder or Julie McDonald and they will be pleased to quote a fixed fee for you based on the particular circumstances of your case.

Sometimes, when fixed fees are not appropriate, our family solicitors charge on the basis of the time they spend dealing with a client’s case. Predicting with absolute accuracy the amount of time the lawyer will spend dealing with a case, which is after all a one-off with unique facts, is a very imprecise science. We provide our clients with estimates of our likely fees, and regular updates, as the case progresses.

Payment Options

We recognise that clients going through divorce, separation or relationship breakdown experience financial strains. We offer a number of ways to address the payment of legal fees as the case is ongoing, for example by instalments to help spread the cost. For more information, please contact Elizabeth Hodder or Julie McDonald.

Tips for Reducing Costs

1. Agree a Policy for Correspondence

We do not send unnecessary correspondence e.g. bare acknowledgements of every piece of correspondence we receive.

We do send drafts of all substantive proposed responses to correspondence, to our clients to approve.

2. Avoid sending us an email and then telephoning to check we have received it or asking for a response before we have had time to prepare one.

3. Agree a policy of how often you should receive updates and whether you require “no news to report” updates periodically.

4. Respond promptly to requests for information and documents which will save us having to chase for them. Please also ensure you provide all full responses rather than partial ones.

5. Do not allow emotions to get in the way.

6. Avoid using your solicitor as a counsellor. The hourly rate of a divorce counsellor is likely to be much less than that of your solicitor.

7. 7. Be realistic about timescales; we will tell you how long it is likely to take your case to be concluded. We cannot influence how quickly the Courts (or our opposite numbers) work.

Do not expect others to work as fast in your case as we do!