Would you work for free?

[Bastilee]

My firm has recently got rid of the 30 mins free consultation with a solicitor. It’s now a £20 fixed fee for the first 45 mins. Paid in advance because people regularly don’t bother turning up to these appointments.

The amount of abuse we’ve had since introducing a fixed fee it’s unbelievable. Saying we’re taking valuable advice away from people who want to self represent, but would You work for free?

We regularly get 16 requests a week which was an entire days worth of free work per week. You can’t bill this to anything so it literally is Working for free.

No matter whether it’s free or paid, the underlying concept is still the same - if the advice is wrong you can sue.

The issue is that the solicitor isn’t doing it “for free” unless they’re a sole practitioner. They will still be paid their salary.

The issue is that if this is charged at an hourly rate, people will be shut out of the system all together.

But surely the argument is that this is ‘sales’ time and then your billing rates should cover this time and your actual time.

I own an event agency and me and my staff (and everyone in my industry) regularly works “for free” on proposals etc that we win some we lose some. But our overall day rates are such that we earn enough over the year to cover everyone’s salaries?!

Ditto in almost every industry apart from legal and financial services - very few people are direct ‘fee earners’.

That is a police report and the firm supporting you with pressing charges if needed.

And verbal abuse and violent behaviours should not be acceptable so the firm should have clear rules that you ask the client to leave and leave the client to get help if the request is ignored.

Yes. But the managing partners are incredibly greedy.

We offer 15 minutes free but it is over the phone, and we ring them, if they don’t answer they get a voicemail advising them to rebook - but we will only allow that once

Its interesting how different perceptions are driven by different professions ie solicitors are expected to give free advice whereas an engineer or an architect is unlikely to. Why should there be an expectation for someone who's worked hard to gain experience and knowledge to offer something for nothing.

The only reason there's a "free" half hour is to play the long game workwise.

If people want legal freebies then they should push the government to fund it in some way like CAB paying solicitors for their time or improve/provide funding for community law centres.

The refund if a case is taken on is a good idea.

I was told thst a solicitor needs to generate sbout £80 quid an hour years ago. To cover their salary, office space, bills, admin staff so £20 for 45 minutes seems really cheap as I suspect costs have only gone up over the years.

I’m sure it makes up for all the occasions you’re billing some poor soul £200 for an hours work that’s taken you 10 minutes.

You were never working for free. The free initial interview is a sprat to catch a mackerel designed to atttact business and help you decide whether there would be a profit for your firm in taking on the case. Then if so, sell yourself to the client as the firm that should have their business. You would typically spend the time fact finding to decide if the risk of no win/no fee was worth it, or if legal aid was payable. The 'advice' would generally be limited to yes we'll take it, or no we won't, with a signpost elsewhere if they're lucky. Seems like your firm has not generated enough business through this offer and has withdrawn it. People are objecting because they wrongly believe it offered more than it did.

I guess most people working in scientific research are regularly asked to peer-review papers for free. And don't get any payment for published papers either. The £multi-billion publishing companies get all the profit instead. My colleagues are horrified that I now refuse to review papers unless the publishing company is a charity.

solicitors are expected to give free advice whereas an engineer or an architect is unlikely to
I've never had cause to use an engineer or an architect, but I think it's in the same bracket as a builder, who I do expect to come and spend about half an hour looking at the issue and then either tell me it's not feasible, or it is feasible and these are the likely steps and possible costs and problems.

And how many builders choose to turn down the opportunity to come and quote? Exactly the same situation here. Your builder isn't obliged to in much the same way a solicitor shouldn't be but that people expect them to.🤷‍♀️

No, but I never think well of a builder who won't come and have a look, and I certainly never use them. I can only assume a lot of people feel the same. I guess they make their living from there being enough people in enough need of the work to take a punt on them. And/or repeat business, I suppose.

How much do you think a solicitor actually earns, in the average high street firm we're talking about here?

Exactly. The kind of solicitors who offer 30 mins free advice are high street firms dealing with wills, family law issues, neighbour disputes, employment matters and crime. Not big city firms usually and not the corporate/tax or highly specialised areas which command high salaries.

The average salary for high street solicitors dealing with these more pedestrian issues is around £45k for senior solicitors (those with 6-10 years post qualification experience). It’s not mega bucks

Isn’t the context in the post?

Which is one of the reasons many therapists and providers won't offer them.

Presumably the people who are complaining about it are the ones who would've not turned up if it was free 🙄
I think it's completely reasonable to introduce a small fee to weed out the time wasters.