You can see most of it in the file before the client says a word. A new charge, an overdrawn loan account, a debtor nobody has chased, shares still in a dead parent's name. We do the legal work underneath those numbers, and we stay out of yours.
An accountant sees a client's affairs before anybody else does. What an accountant rarely sees is whether the legal documents underneath those numbers still work.
A set of accounts can be signed off perfectly while the shareholder agreement sends the shares somewhere the will does not. A director can guarantee a facility that goes straight onto the balance sheet, without anyone having told them what they signed. A debt can sit in the ledger for two years and become uncollectable while everyone waits for the client to chase it.
Clients deal with this themselves now, across several firms, in whatever order it turns up. What we are offering is coordination. You spot it, we do the legal work, and you are told what happened. You keep your own advice, your own engagement letter and your own fees.
The arrangement rests on one undertaking. We are a law firm. We do not do accountancy, tax compliance, audit or financial advice, we will not introduce your client to anyone who does, and the engagement letter says so. If a client asks us a tax question, we tell them to ask you.
Six plans, each one phrased as the question your client is actually asking. You do not have to run all six. Most firms start with one.
Wills, lasting powers of attorney, the shares and business relief, probate. You already hold most of the facts a will needs. The check is whether the will, the nominations and the share register agree with each other, and they usually do not.
Shareholder and partnership agreements, read against the articles, because the two conflict more often than people expect. New shareholders, share transfers, and a way out for an owner who wants one.
What a guarantee covers, whether it is capped, whether it survives a sale. Directors' loans. And where a company is under real pressure, what the directors' duties are while there are still options.
Terms of business that make a debt collectable, then letters before action, claims and enforcement. Graded first, so the client knows which debts are worth pursuing before anyone spends money on them.
Contracts and handbooks, disciplinaries, redundancies, and settlement agreements including the certification only a solicitor can give. You run the payroll, so you see every exit before it happens.
Heads of terms, due diligence, the disclosure letter and completion. You run the numbers, the structure and the tax; we work to the timetable you and the client have already agreed.
Every one of these is already in a file you hold. None of it needs the client to raise it first.
Usually it is in the numbers before it is in the conversation. You ask what the client wants to make sure happens, and whether it would help to have it looked at properly.
Facts, documents and gaps written down, with what is urgent, what depends on what and who does each piece. It is not advice and it is not charged for on its own.
Your client agrees the scope and the fee in writing before anything starts. The same solicitor throughout, with a direct line for you as well as for them.
A note when we take it on and another when it finishes, so nothing lands on you as a surprise at the next year end.
These go in the engagement. They are the reason the arrangement works at all.
We will not offer your client accountancy, tax compliance, audit, financial planning or investment advice, and we will not introduce them to anyone who does. If they ask us, we tell them to ask you. The engagement says so, so it binds us.
We act on the matter you refer and nothing else. Where we notice something outside it that is worth looking at, we tell you, and you decide whether it goes anywhere.
A short note when we take the matter on, and another when it closes, saying what was done and what the client was advised. Enough for you to pick the conversation up, and never anything covered by privilege that the client has not agreed we can share.
You get a direct line to the solicitor doing the work. Your client is not passed between fee earners, and neither are you.
Your client gets the scope and the fee in writing before we begin. You are never in the position of having sent someone to an open-ended bill.
Reserved legal work comes to AD Solicitors Limited, SRA 8011228. Accountancy, tax compliance, audit and anything you are licensed for yourself, including probate where you hold an ICAEW probate licence, stays with you. Where regulated advice on pensions, investments, protection or mortgages is needed, it goes through an authorised firm and your client is told who they are being introduced to and why. Today that route is Equity & General Financial Services, FCA 474163.
Your client consents to each introduction separately and is told what goes with it, and we share only what we need to start. A referral is never put to them as compulsory, or as a recommendation that has already been made. Each firm engages separately, charges separately and has its own complaints route.
No. We do not offer accountancy, tax compliance, audit or financial planning, and we will not introduce your client to anyone who does. If a client asks us a tax question we tell them to ask you. The engagement says so, so it binds us.
No. Most firms start with one. Legacy and Getting paid are the usual first two, because the trigger for both is something you already produce on a timetable: the year-end meeting, and the aged debtor report.
We tell you, and you decide what happens next. We do not approach your client about work you did not refer. The only exception is where we are professionally obliged to advise the client of something directly affecting the matter we are already acting on.
Any arrangement of that kind has to be agreed in writing and disclosed to the client under the SRA Code of Conduct, so it is a conversation to have openly at the start. Many accountants prefer no fee passing in either direction, which keeps the disclosure simple.
Nothing on its own. The scope and the fee for any legal work that follows are agreed in writing with your client before it starts, so you are never in the position of having sent someone to an open-ended bill. Where the work is a defined piece, it is a fixed fee.
Yes, and earlier is better. Directors' duties change once there is no reasonable prospect of avoiding insolvent liquidation, and what happened before that point gets judged afterwards by a court. Advice taken early is recorded and counts.
Half an hour on what you would refer, what you would not, and how the undertakings are written down.