Hollingsworths: How We Charge For Our Work

At Hollingsworths, for most litigation and commercial matters, it is not possible to give an exact estimate of the likely costs. It is therefore our normal policy to charge on an hourly basis for our work.  We explain below how this usually works but feel free to ask for more information if we can help explain how our pricing works. We aim to be transparent with our charges and pricing.

We charge for advising you, attending meetings, telephone calls, attending Court hearings, traveling and waiting, considering documents, dealing with correspondence, drafting and all other work involved in your case. Short letters that we write and receive, emails that we write and receive, and short telephone calls that we make and receive will be charged as units of one tenth of an hour.  Longer letters and calls will be charged in accordance with actual time spent.

Where possible, we will provide cost estimates of the matter or project that you ask us to work upon, although this may be on a stage by stage basis since some matters can last longer than others.

Our standard hourly rates are set out below and we will advise you upon instructing us who the person is who will be looking after you and their hourly rate. These rates will be “plus VAT” at the providing rate, currently 20% (as at 1 January 2019).

Director: £220.00 to £250.00

Associate Solicitor/Senior Consultant: £195.00

Assistant Solicitor/Legal Executive: £180.00

Trainee Solicitor/Legal Assistant: £120.00

In respect of any out of pocket expenses that we may incur on your behalf (these are called disbursements), these will be charged separately. We endeavour to make you aware of any disbursements in advance of them being incurred and it may be necessary to ask you for payment on account of disbursements.

At some stage, we may need to instruct Counsel on your behalf to draft some of the formal documents, to advise or to appear at a Court hearing. Counsel may also be required to advise on specialist areas. Also, we may need to engage an expert witness to act for you. Counsel’s fees and the fees of any expert witness will be at your additional expense.  We will discuss with you the appointment of Counsel or expert witnesses before engaging them

For some of our work, we may be able to agree a fixed fee with you. For example, for our debt recovery work, we usually charge a standard fee for writing to the debtor which will also include a conditional or damaged based fee element that is dependent upon success.

We are content to provide to our clients fee estimates before you instruct us to undertake any work so that you are aware of the charges that you will incur at the earliest stage.

All legal services are provided strictly subject to our Terms of Business which are available upon request.