Does Publishing Fees Cost a Law Firm Work

Pricing transparency is argued against on the grounds that it invites price shopping and gives competitors your position. The case for is that the shopping happens regardless, and a firm absent from the comparison is not excluded from it, only unrepresented when a client searches and other firms are named. Assistants asked how to choose a lawyer raise transparent pricing as a positive signal without being prompted to, which suggests the comparison is already running whether or not a firm participates.

What the objection is really about

The objection is usually not about price shoppers, it is about matters whose scope is genuinely unknowable at the outset. That is a real constraint and it applies to some matter types and not others. A defended litigation matter cannot be priced in advance; an uncontested filing usually can.

Treating both as unpublishable is the error. The firms that say nothing about cost anywhere are protecting the hard cases by silencing the easy ones, and the easy ones are where most enquiries begin.

What can be published even when a number cannot

Where a figure is impossible, the model, the base and the drivers are still publishable and they answer most of the question. Which model a firm uses, and how to present it, is set out separately. Telling a reader that a matter is billed hourly, what the rate covers, and which factors move a matter from the low end to the high end gives them enough to decide whether to call.

What fails is the sentence saying every matter is different. It is true and it is what every competitor writes, so it carries no information and reads as evasion. A page that explains why a matter is hard to price is doing something a range would not.

The comparison a reader is actually running

A reader is rarely optimising for the lowest number. They are trying to establish whether the cost is in the range they can bear at all, and a firm that leaves that unresolved is filtered out early by people who could have afforded it. In an injury matter that question is usually a percentage rather than a rate, and presenting the percentage is the same problem in a different unit.

That is the asymmetry worth understanding. Publishing loses the few who wanted a cheaper firm and were never going to instruct you. Silence loses the many who could not tell whether you were plausible.

Competitors reading your prices

They already know. Firms in the same market and matter type operate within a narrow band, and the band is discoverable from any client who has spoken to two firms. Treating pricing as confidential protects information competitors hold and clients do not, which is the wrong way round.

The genuine competitive risk is a competitor undercutting a published figure, and that is a business risk rather than an information one. A firm competing only on price has a different problem, and withholding the number does not solve it.

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This is one attribute of the firm described in the injury marketing decision fee disclosure sits inside. That practice area sits inside the rest of what a firm has to publish.

Frequently asked questions

Does publishing fees cost a law firm work?

It loses the few who wanted a cheaper firm and were never going to instruct you, and it wins back the many who could not tell whether you were plausible at all. Readers are usually establishing whether the cost is in a range they can bear rather than optimising for the lowest number.

What is the real objection to publishing fees?

Usually not price shoppers but matters whose scope is genuinely unknowable at the outset, which is a real constraint for defended litigation and not for an uncontested filing. The error is treating both as unpublishable, which protects the hard cases by silencing the easy ones where most enquiries begin.

What can be published when a figure is impossible?

The model, the base and the drivers. Telling a reader that a matter is billed hourly, what the rate covers, and which factors move it from the low end to the high end answers most of the question and is enough to decide whether to call.

Is ‘every matter is different’ a useful thing to say?

No. It is true and it is what every competitor writes, so it carries no information and reads as evasion. A page explaining why a matter is hard to price is doing something a range would not.

What about competitors seeing the prices?

They already know. Firms in the same market and matter type operate within a narrow band that is discoverable from any client who has spoken to two firms. Treating pricing as confidential protects information competitors hold and clients do not, which is the wrong way round.

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