Fees | Spires Legal

Fees

How we charge

We charge for the work we do in a number of ways:

1.1
You pay us a fixed amount

1.2
You pay us according to time spent and we provide an estimate of the likely amount of our fees

1.3
You pay us only if your matter is successful based on time spent at our usual rates or on court fixed rates

1.4
You pay us only if your matter is successful based on a percentage of any award in your favour

1.5
You pay a discounted rate and a higher rate only if your matter is successful

1.6
Other funding sources such as legal expense insurance, trade union membership or crowd funding

There are three main elements to the legal costs of dispute resolution and commercial work:
our charges;
expenses we must pay out of your behalf;
costs that you may have to pay another party.

Our hourly rates for dispute resolution vary between £125 and £450 depending on the fee earner dealing with your matter.
The exact number of hours it will take depends on the circumstances of your case, such as:
- Complexity;
- Whether court proceedings are necessary;

We reserve the right to increase the hourly rates if the work done is particularly complex or urgent, or the nature of your instructions require us to work outside normal office hours. If this happens, we will notify you in advance and agree an appropriate rate.
We will review our hourly rates on a periodic basis. This is usually done each January. We will give you advance notice of any change to our hourly rates.
Our charges do not include VAT, which we will add to your bill at the prevailing rate.

We charge a fixed price where the work is defined and we will agree this with you in advance. In some instances where a third party is contributing toward your legal costs, such as an employer, we will agree to limit our chares to that amount.
If a matter or transaction does not reach a conclusion, we reserve the right to charge for the work done, using our normal charging basis of between £125 and £350 plus VAT per hour. This applies even where a fixed rate has been agreed for the whole matter.
Our charges do not include VAT, which we will add to your bill at the prevailing rate.

We may be able to offer a no-win-no-fee agreement. Before doing so, we will assess the viability of your case.
If we enter into a no-win-no-fee agreement with you, you may still be liable to pay some or all of:
- our charges and expenses if you win;
- your opponent’s legal fees if you lose;
- in some instances we may offer a discounted rate if you lose and a higher rate if you win;
- in some instances we may offer to limit our charges to a percentage of any award made in your favour.

These may be deducted from any compensation you receive and/or payable separately. We will advise you about this in more detail before entering into a no-win-no-fee agreement, including whether you have or can buy insurance to protect you against these risks.

Disputes can vary in time scales depending on many factors. If any complications of this or any other nature arise the matter will take a little longer. We will advise you if and when this occurs.
Most matters of this nature involve the following key stages:
- Initial review of relevant papers and background information and advice on merits and process – we usually allow 2 weeks for this stage;
- Pre-action court process, which usually involves a letter of claim setting out the key aspects of the claim, a letter of response outlining areas of agreement and disagreement, a period of taking stock and some form of alternative dispute resolution process such as settlement negotiations or mediation – we usually allow 3 months for this stage;
- The court process, which usually involves preparing and filing a claim, reviewing any defence and advising upon this, preparing for and attending preliminary hearings, disclosure of documents, preparation of witness statements, preparation for and attendance at trial – this stage can vary depending on the complexity of the case and the court or tribunal where it will be heard. We usually allow 6-18 months for this stage.

Our team

Our team has decades of experience delivering high-quality work in all matters relating to dispute resolution, commercial work and employment.

For further details of our team members who may work on your matter, please click here. Regardless of who works on your matter, they will be supervised by our principal, Mr Arj Arul.

Complaints

We want to give you the best possible service. However, if at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service we have provided you should inform us immediately so we can do our best to resolve the problem.

In the first instance it may be helpful to contact the person who is working on your case to discuss your concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues. If you would like to make a formal complaint, then you can read our full complaints procedure here. Making a complaint will not affect how we handle your case.

What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint

The Legal Ombudsman can help you if we are unable to resolve your complaint ourselves. They will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your case.

Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:

Within six months of receiving our final response to your complaint and
No more than one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about; or
No more than one year from the date when you should reasonably have known that there was cause for complaint.

For more information contact the Legal Ombudsman.

by post at PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH;

by telephone: 0300 555 0333;

by email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk; or

website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

What to do if you are unhappy with our behaviour

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.

For more information contact the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

by post at The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN;

by telephone : 0370 606 255;

website: www.sra.org.uk

Regulatory information

Spires Legal Limited is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). Our SRA registration number is 654177.

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