There’s a huge difference between big firms and small. The ones I worked with would charge a trainee at £600 per hour and the only time you got anything done was when you worked with the really smart person. Who was really smart. But small scale law is surprisingly low profit, especially when compared to that.
We all make mistakes. In my experience whether they scan or not won’t affect the number of mistakes. It’s no arbiter of quality.
There are some proper amateurs and rogue Solicitors about and some real quality professionals.
I wonder how much it would cost to get a Magic Circle partner to take personal ownership of your conveyancing. I doubt you could get it done for less than £10k, probably several times that.
When I went to a few solicitors regarding POA for my Dad and a simple question about wills the difference was astonishing. Resonable size practice in bed with Age Concern (they were the ones referred) qouted £1200, the firm we got to do a very good job and were recommmended by a family friend charged £600.
I didn’t bother getting a quote from the third after the numpty (sorry family law specialist) said to me, “… it is quite straightforward to amend a will, it is called a … erm ,erm”
Me “A codicil?”
Them “Ah yes that is it”
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Bless them, it must be a vocation then?
(Or they’re just not very efficient at running a business).
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Unbelievable. Still, we can rest secure in the knowledge that Ms. Hoare will undoubtedly be whelping out a replacement as soon as she can.
I didn’t say they weren’t profitable, just not very profitable.There’s a difference between an owner paying himself a salary and having a sufficiently profitable business to be able to spend tens of thousands buying IT or upgrading the office (to become more efficient). They pay themselves and there’s not much left over for development.
They could become more profitable (efficient) by sacking all the support staff but they don’t want to turn into the sort of business where you speak to someone in Bangalore or worse are on hold or can’t get through.
My last two firms were top 100 firms, one a Mayfair firm and the other one was at one point sold for £30 million. Both have had or are having tough times. Likewise, high street firms are having difficulties.
I’m not sure what businesses are truly profitable these days. A lot of businesses seem to operate on wafer thin margins. There are very few areas where it is easy to make money.
Inadvertent nail on head.
Multinationals. Tradesmen. (Holiday companies also ought to be doing all right out of the latter.)
VB
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Yup, Coca-cola, McDonalds, Nestle, Unilver, Google, Facebook, Amazon. How depressing.
Yeah, a bloke running a high street practice might, if he’s lucky, pay himself £70k. Outrageous!
A lot are probably only paying themselves £50k. You can earn £40k as a ticket inspector on the Valleys line. (a paralegal I used to work with left to become a ticket inspector). He’s now training to be a driver. Best move he could have made, he’d never have earned over £30k at the law firm (he was probably on £25k).
So why do so many people study law then, if it’s not going to give them a living?
It’s probably the (reasonable?) inference that a profession that relies so much on paperwork and records, might want to invest a little into it. Shocking, I know.
You’ll have to help me out then with the ball park overhead cost assumptions, because I’m having a hell of a time trying to reconcile solicitors fees with the lack of ability to make a decent profit, and the kinds of salaries (not including dividends I assume?) that you’re quoting.
The chap I mentioned didn’t have a law degree and was never going to qualify as a Solicitor.
Because people don’t tell them the truth. Because it’s an interesting subject. Because they watch Suits. Because Universities charge how ever many thousands and need fresh recruits every year. They come out and can’t get a training contract (depsite Unis having told them it’ll be easy).
Like most things there are too many people doing it which reduces opportunities / earnings.
In fairness, what other career is a better prospect these days? At least there is a recognised career path at the end of it. Plus you get to work with generally decent people and not in some call centre type environment.
But, I wouldn’t want my son to do it.
Large firms of solicitors have high charge rates and they make a fortune. Small ones may have fairly high charge rates, but if so they don’t charge many hours per day. It’s the same with accountants.
There are always exceptions. A small accountant with a strong client base can make £3-400k in fees with only an admin person and an assistant if they are good, but they will be working long hours.
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Adam is right.
Where’s the profit in charging £650 for a typical conveyance taking months to complete and hours of work?
Where’s the profit in a simple will costing £200 which will take you a minimum 2 hours to complete, probably more.
This is the bread and butter of most firms (magic circle excluded).
I agree with the logic, its the same in consulting.
I’m still struggling to reconcile the numbers that you have quoted though. I guess what I’m after is a simple worked example of your average high st practice, with basic assumptions of fees to revenue and then the costs of doing business.
As much as Adam’s example of £300-400k in fees is an exception, I’ve no context to assess whether your example is just another exception at the other end of the spectrum.
In fact, a bit of forward thinking would suggest that as rents/sqft are so high, an efficient electronic document storage could actually be money saving.
I suppose the inertia for an profession steeped in traditional ways of working is very high, although I remember selling a pretty advanced electronic document management system to a solicitors in Lincolnshire over 10 years ago, so it can be done.
If they have electronic storage they would also keep the hard file!
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