How We Charge

How many restaurants do you know that don’t have prices on their Menu? How many shops have you been into lately that price their goods based on how long their salespeople take to serve you?

Imagine walking into an unfamiliar restaurant, sitting down to dinner, ordering your meal, a nice bottle of wine – all the while not knowing what it will end up costing.

You have heard that the food is good, and your friends have said that the restaurant is ‘good value’ – but you are not exactly sure whether your friend’s view of good value matches yours.

So you are sitting there trying to enjoy your meal, watching the staff fuss over you – all the while wondering whether you will have enough capacity left on your AMEX to cover the bill.

The food is good, but your ability to enjoy it is somewhat compromised.

At the end of the meal the waiter comes over and hands you the bill. He politely says that the meal would have cost $160, but he must charge you $220. He says this is because you asked for a further explanation of the specials on the menu, and at one stage they had to go back to the kitchen twice because they were not sure that they had correctly taken down your order.

Not a happy experience?

While many law firms would consider this an acceptable way to charge, we do things differently.

Most matters that we take on are quoted on a fixed price basis. We avoid hourly rates – and do not pass on the risk of staff inexperience, something taking longer than anticipated, or something going wrong.

How do we do this?

First, we only do work that we have a depth of experience and expertise in. Accordingly, we know what our assistance is worth, and we are best able to take (and absorb) the risk of something going wrong, or taking longer than anticipated.

If we take on a project that has unique features, we are happy to take the risk that it takes us a little longer. We do not expect you to pay for us adapting our expertise to a new area.

If something is truly unique and the scope is impossible to determine at the outset, we will provide a quote to properly scope the project, and then provide you with further fixed-price options to take the matter forward.

For more information on how we charge, or to get a quote on some legal work, please call us on 1300 654 590 or email us.

The information contained in this post is current at the date of editing – 7 January 2025.

Our Great Lawyer Guarantee

We want to be part of your team over the long term. We'll achieve this by sticking closely to the following principles:

We'll listen carefully to understand what you want to achieve. Then we'll thoroughly explain our advice and step you through the documents. You can be sure you'll know the full consequences.
Our lawyers work as a team, so someone will always be available to answer your questions, or point you in the right direction. You will also benefit from a range of perspectives and experience.
One of our key goals is to pass on as much knowledge as we can, so you can make your own informed decisions. We want to make you truly independent.
We only do what we're good at. You can be confident that we know what we're doing and won't pass on the cost of our learning.
For advice and documents, we provide a fixed or capped quote so you don’t take price risk. If you're in a dispute, we'll map out the process and costs so you know what to expect.
We're not in this game for our egos. We're in it for a front row seat to witness your success.

We measure our success on how efficiently we have facilitated your objectives, enhanced your relationships, and reduced the level of stress for all involved.