Costs, fees and funding

Will the barrister tell me what the fees are in advance?

When I am instructed on your case, I like to keep everything as simple as possible. The worst thing in the world is when a client turns to me and says, (after a piece of work has been done) “ oh, I wasn’t expecting you to do that.” Or “ I wasn’t expecting to have to pay for that service.”

I often find that the easiest way to run a case, and to organise a case for someone, is to break it down into manageable sections, and come to an agreement with them before any work is done, about what work is actually being done , and what that work will cost.

Organising in advance like that will mean that no one is surprised by any fees. So everything and all the work done is arranged good time prior to the work being done, and for a fixed fee that won’t catch you by surprise.

Well, of course, one of the other benefits is that if you do come to someone and you don’t know whether you have got a case, most people, most barristers I shall say who do Public Access work and are Public Access qualified will sit down and give you a free consultation at the beginning just to access whether you’ve got a case and give you the initial advice. In many occurrences and instances, people will come to a barrister, say “ Do I have a case?” and after looking at it, examining it, they may not have a case. It is one of the first steps in any event. If you are on the fence about whether or not to bring a case, why not use the 15 minutes, half an hour, even an hour of discussions just to see whether that is the case, you can continue with that.