Why Fixed Fees Win (Most Of The Time)
Fixed fees aren't always right. They're right more often than the profession admits.
The legal profession spent decades convincing itself that hourly billing was both fair and inevitable. It is neither. For most of the work consultant solicitors do, a properly-scoped fixed fee produces a better outcome — for the client, for the lawyer, and for the relationship between them.
What hourly billing actually does
Hourly billing aligns the lawyer's incentives with inefficiency. The longer a matter takes, the more the lawyer earns. Every client knows this, and every client distrusts it, even when it's not warranted. The conversation about the bill is therefore the conversation about whether the lawyer ran up time unnecessarily, and that conversation poisons the relationship.
What fixed fees do
They flip the incentive. Now the lawyer is paid for the outcome, not the time. Efficiency rewards the lawyer. Scope discipline rewards the lawyer. Reusing precedents and tooling rewards the lawyer. The client knows what they're paying from day one and can budget accordingly. The bill conversation is removed entirely. Trust improves.
When fixed fees work
Anything where the scope can be defined at the start with reasonable confidence: drafting work, contract reviews, routine commercial transactions, EMI schemes, basic corporate work, will drafting, lease reviews, employment policies, settlement agreements, undisputed probate. The list is much longer than most lawyers admit.
When they don't
Litigation, complex disputes, anything where the other side controls the workload, anything where the scope is genuinely unknowable. For these matters, charging time is honest. But even here, the better practice is hybrid: a fixed fee for defined phases (initial advice, pre-action letter, application, hearing prep), with hourly billing only for the genuinely unpredictable parts.
The conversation with the client
Clients prefer fixed fees almost universally. They know what they're paying. They can authorise it without going to their finance director three times. They feel the lawyer is confident enough in their work to commit. The most common reason consultants don't offer them is fear of being wrong on the scope. The fix for that is better scoping, not retreating to time-and-line.