Legal on a monthly retainer

Ask the question. The clock isn't running.

Most companies get into legal trouble by not asking. A retainer exists so the small question — the one that never feels worth a phone call at an hourly rate — gets asked on the day it occurs to you, which is while it is still small.

What's included What not to use us for

Three tiers, priced per month

Starter

$600/month

Up to 4 hours a month
Questions by phone and email
Contracts sent to you, reviewed
Your standard terms drafted once

Ask about Starter

Growing

$1,400/month

Up to 10 hours a month
Everything in Starter
Employment questions — the most-used part
A named solicitor who learns the business
A monthly note on what's coming

Ask about Growing

Embedded

$3,200/month

Up to 25 hours a month
Everything in Growing
We attend your management meeting
Policy and process work included
Priority on anything time-critical

Ask about Embedded

Hours don't roll over, and we would rather you heard that from us than worked it out from a spreadsheet. If you use less than half of yours two months running, we ring you and move you down a tier — a retainer nobody uses gets cancelled, and deserves to be.

What's inside the retainer, and what isn't

A question by phone or email — Included. However small, and however often
A contract somebody has sent you — Included, up to your hours
Your own standard terms — Drafted once, then reviewed once a year
Employment questions — Included — and this is what most retainers actually get used for
A live dispute — Quoted separately, always. A tail nobody can size doesn't belong in a fixed fee
A transaction or a funding round — Quoted separately, with the fee agreed before anything starts
Anything in another country — Quoted, and often referred. We say when we are not the right firm

Every line above appears in the engagement letter in the same words. If a piece of work looks like it is crossing from the first group into the second, you hear about it before it does — never on the invoice.

What not to use a lawyer for

A standard NDA

Keep one good template and reuse it. Most of the NDAs we're sent don't need a solicitor — they need somebody to read the term and the definition of confidential information.

A question for your accountant

Tax treatment, payroll, dividends. We'll tell you it isn't ours rather than bill you for the time it took to find that out.

A decision, as opposed to a risk

We can tell you what the risk is and roughly how big. Whether to take it is a commercial judgement and it belongs to you — a lawyer who makes it for you is doing your job badly and their own worse.

How it works day to day

One person, not a rota

A named solicitor who learns how your business actually works, with a second briefed as backup so nothing waits on somebody's holiday.

Answered the same day

Everything is answered or acknowledged with a time by the end of the working day. "I'll look at this properly on Thursday" is an answer.

A monthly note

What we did, what it used out of your hours, and what is coming down the road that you haven't thought about yet.

Conflicts checked in a day

If we can't act for you because of somebody we already act for, you hear it within one working day and you pay nothing at all.

★★★★★

“The change wasn't the advice — it was that people started asking. Three problems got solved as emails that would otherwise have become arguments.”

Ravi P.

Ops director, 40 staff

★★★★★

“They told us our NDA was fine and to stop sending it to them. That is the moment I believed the rest of it.”

Hannah O.

Founder

Start with the question you've been putting off

The first conversation is free and ends with either a tier or a reason a retainer isn't right for you yet. Both of those are useful.

Ask about a retainer

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