A small practice, one file at a time
Property, business agreements, employment and estates. You get a written scope and a fee basis before any work starts, and the person you speak to is the person who runs your file.
Practice areas
Each lane below lists the work actually handled here. If your question is in the list, the first call will be useful. If it is not, I will say so and point you toward someone who does that work daily.
01 Property & Land
Residential and small commercial transfers, plus the awkward questions that surface mid-sale: a boundary that does not match the title plan, a shared driveway with no written right of way, a lease with a repairing clause nobody read.
02 Business & Contracts
For owner-run businesses: setting the company up properly, agreeing terms between founders, and drafting the contracts you will rely on when a client or supplier stops being reasonable. Plain drafting, no clause padding.
03 Employment
Employers get documents and a process that holds up. Employees get a straight read on what has happened and what it is worth. I act for one side in any given matter and will tell you immediately if a conflict exists.
04 Wills & Estates
Wills drafted around how a family actually works, powers of attorney put in place before they are urgent, and estate administration handled at a pace that does not add pressure to a difficult month.
How a matter proceeds
Every file here follows the same route. Dates move; the order does not.
Twenty minutes, no charge. You describe the matter, I tell you whether it is work I can take and what the realistic shape of it is.
Within two working daysA written note of what is included, what is excluded, the fee basis and who to contact. Nothing billable begins before you return it.
Before any work startsWe assemble documents, correspondence and dates in one place. Most delays in a matter trace back to this stage being rushed.
First one to three weeksMost matters resolve in correspondence. If yours needs a formal step, you see the cost and the odds in writing before it is taken.
Varies by matterSigned documents, a closing summary in plain language, and your file indexed so a future adviser can pick it up without starting again.
On completion
Fees & engagement
Which basis suits depends on how predictable the work is. I will recommend one and explain why the others fit less well for your matter.
For defined pieces of work: a will, a contract, a transfer, a set of employment documents. One figure, agreed in advance, unchanged unless the scope itself changes in writing.
For matters with natural phases. Each stage carries its own price and its own decision point, so you can stop, pause or continue with the full picture in front of you.
For genuinely unpredictable work such as a live dispute. Time is recorded in six-minute units against a cap that cannot be exceeded without your written agreement.
Who does the work
I spent the first part of my career in a large firm, on files I rarely saw from start to finish. This practice is the correction: a deliberately small caseload, taken on only where I can give it proper attention, with no handing down to someone you have never met.
Most of the work arrives from past clients and from other advisers — accountants, surveyors, estate agents — who send the matters that need reading rather than processing. That mix keeps the practice honest about what it is good at.
Documents before opinions. I would rather spend the first hour reading your contract, title or correspondence than talking around it, because the answer is usually in there and finding it early is what keeps costs down.
Before you enquire
Written out properly, because the answers usually decide whether a call is worth your time.
You send a short description of the matter through the form. I read it before we speak, then call at an agreed time for about twenty minutes. The purpose is to establish whether this is work I can take, what it is likely to involve and what it is likely to cost. There is no charge and no obligation at the end of it.
Yes. After the first call you receive a scope and fee letter setting out the basis — fixed, staged or hourly with a cap — along with any third-party costs such as search or filing fees. No billable work begins until you have returned it. If the scope later needs to change, that change is agreed in writing first.
I will. The caseload is kept small for exactly this reason. Administrative support handles scheduling and document assembly, but the legal work, the correspondence and the advice come from me. If I am away, the letter names who to contact and what they can and cannot decide.
Whatever already exists on paper or on screen: the contract, lease, title documents, will, employment contract or correspondence. Also a rough timeline of what happened and when — dates matter more than most people expect, particularly where a deadline or limitation period may apply.
If you have very little, come anyway. Part of the early work is identifying what is missing and where to request it.
Drafting work — a will, a contract, a set of employment documents — is normally a matter of weeks. Transactions depend on the other side and on searches. Disputes depend on whether the other party engages; most resolve in correspondence, and those that do not follow the timetable of the forum rather than mine. You get an expected range in the fee letter and a revised one whenever the picture changes.
Often, yes. It works best when the existing file can be transferred in full, so my first step is reviewing what has been done rather than repeating it. I will be candid if a transfer part-way through would cost you more than it saves — sometimes the right advice is to finish where you are.
Most of it can. Instructions, advice and drafts work perfectly well by video, telephone and secure email. A small number of steps — certain signings and identity checks — need to happen in person or through a prescribed process, and I will flag those at the start so they do not arrive as a surprise.
On a staged basis you pay only for the stages reached. On an hourly basis you pay only for time recorded, well below the cap. On a fixed fee the price stands, because the figure was set for the outcome rather than the hours — and an early settlement is usually the outcome we were aiming at.
Enquire
A few lines is enough. Please do not send original documents at this stage.