Fixed- fee model to expand on the web
STRONG competition in the legal market is set to intensify with a Townsville law firm expanding its fixed- fee pricing model into webbased pricing for family and criminal law.
Strategic Lawyers has announced the move as it hopes to soon make its pricing available through an app to appeal to younger people using smart phones.
“We want to give clients the capacity to order services and get those services through an app,” Strategic’s principal solicitor Justin Ireland said.
“Our aim is to be a firm of the fu- ture and to get there first.”
The number of legal firms is growing quickly as thousands of graduates and experienced lawyers look to start their own businesses.
The digital revolution is also causing big change providing services such as legal auction sites where people can post their issues and lawyers can bid for work.
Mr Ireland said they provided fixed prices in 2011 setting out the work required to resolve a legal issue and how much it would cost.
It differed from the traditional time- based billing where lawyers recorded the time spent on a file, usually in six- minute blocks.
“One of the biggest problems with this ( time- based) system was there wasn’t very much transparency around how people’s bills were put together,” Mr Ireland said.
“The other issue was it meant no one was competing on price – because it wasn’t possible to find out how much people were charging.
“We believe we’ve made a difference to the industry with fixed- pricing – because it lets people take their quote to other firms and ensure there is competition on prices.”
Mr Ireland said they were now moving to quote prices on their website.
This overcame the need for clients to come in and detail their matter to get a quote.
“Having the prices on the website means this can all be done a lot more quickly and we’re expecting many firms around town will now follow suit,” Mr Ireland said.
Evan Sarinas of Sarinas Legal said they had also been providing fixed pricing since 2011 and that many smaller firms were moving to this kind of model.
“We don’t want to be tied to a time recording regime where you are a slave to the administrative side of law,” Mr Sarinas said.
“We want to be focused on the actual work.”