Geary: Selling services to way clients want to buy them
A fast-growing law firm has launched a subscription service for SMEs that focuses solely on fixing hourly rates.
Clients of EMW who sign up to Certitude for a year will be billed a flat £250 an hour, subject to a minimum number of hours, irrespective of which level of lawyer or department they use.
The rate for hours spent over the subscription level is £290.
For a quarterly package, the rates are £290 and £320 respectively, and for a monthly subscription £320 and £350.
The subscription starts at a minimum of five hours a month but clients can specify the number and, in the case of quarterly or annual subscriptions, roll over unused hours to the following month – but not beyond the end of the period.
Managing partner James Geary said he drew on his five years as a general counsel to design Certitude.
“When I worked in-house it frustrated me when I spoke to external law firms about getting legal advice and legal services for a variety of areas across the business,” he said.
“There was no central, simple way to work with a firm. I would have to speak to three different people, with three different files, and three different invoices.
“When I asked ‘why not just have one?’ I was told the systems didn’t allow it. I thought why not sell legal services in a way that clients want to buy them. The limitations of internal systems shouldn’t be the concern of our clients, and it shouldn’t hold those client back.”
Subscription models are nothing new in the law but Mr Geary argued that Certitude was more flexible, given that it covered the whole firm.
Mr Geary built Certitude around an hourly rate because he rejects the idea that the traditional billing method was dead. He said 50% of EMW’s clients choose to be on an hourly rate.
He said the problem for start-ups and small businesses was not how the hourly billing model worked but how unpredictable legal fees could be.
“Most clients don’t push back on paying for legal advice. What they push back on is not knowing what the fee is going to be, and feeling like the meter is ticking every time they pick up the phone.
“I hear a lot of small businesses say ‘we didn’t call because we didn’t know what it would cost.’ The unpredictability makes people hesitate.”
The most recent small business legal needs research, published by the Legal Services Board in 2021, showed that a third had at least one legal issue in the previous 12 months and only a quarter sought professional help with it.
EMW works with start-ups and small businesses across the Midlands and the South East, from its offices in Milton Keynes, Northampton, Watford, London and Brighton.
Following a merger with SP Law last year, EMW turns over £50m a year.