My Commitment to Transparency and Choice in Pricing

Last week I made an important announcement to our firm's clients (and others interested in working with our firm) in the form of a newly-launched Guide to Services.

For many years, employer clients have been frustrated by the pricing of legal services. This frustration has come about not just from the quantum of fees billed by their lawyers (typically expensive) but also the poor communication from lawyers particularly around expectation management. Lawyers, when asked how much something will cost (an entirely legitimate question and indeed a question that those lawyers themselves would ask any other professional) struggle to provide precise certainty in their answer. In many instances a broad range by way of an "estimate" is provided to the client doing very little for the client (or more specifically the individual within the client organisation) to manage budgets and their co-stakeholders.

It is completely understandable that a client would say to themselves: "how is it that you are an expert in something when you don't know how much it is going to cost?"

For that reason, I decided some months ago that our firm as part of its unwavering commitment to innovation would do something radical (at least within the context of our profession) with a "go-live" date of 1 July 2016: we would develop a comprehensive "Guide to Services" premised on three philosophical pillars:

1. transparency - we will be fully transparent in our pricing; over and above publishing "hourly rates" we would take several further steps and itemise a broad suite of services and quote for each and every one of those services;
2. choice - clients can choose from a modest annual retainer to know that they can call on us "on tap" for critical advice OR a monthly package with a wide range of services included both legal and non-legal OR pick and choose from the broad suite of services available for a fixed fee (which even have choice within them) OR pay for our time based on market-appropriate hourly rates; and
3. breadth - the firm has its four capability areas (Legal Advice and Consulting; Investigations and Dispute Resolution; Strategic HR Consulting; Leadership Development, Coaching & Executive Education) and has always been a holistic provider of strategic people management solutions, not just an old-fashioned law firm (think Charles Dickens novels!) waiting for clients to contact them when things have gone wrong.

Our value proposition has always been clear and PCS is well-recognised as thought leaders in its space. It is exactly that commitment to thought leadership that led me to be one of the (if not the) first-movers in genuine innovation in the pricing of legal services at least in the labour and employment law space.

Unsurprisingly, almost immediately (we only launched the Guide last week) the feedback PCS has received has been exuberant in its enthusiasm across diverse quarters:

• General Counsel (typically with strong commercial, finance or property legal expertise) who are looking for a trusted partner in the labour and employment space with market-leading expertise and acumen but whom they can trust to deal with their colleagues without fear of surprises;
• Senior HR leaders looking for that value-added strategic expertise to round out the skillset of their existing HR teams;
• organisations who might use traditional lawyers for traditional lawyering but want a firm that is commercial and understands the psycho-sociological perspective on people issues at work;
• organisations looking for a firm to be their immediate second-opinion provider,
• small businesses wanting a de facto outsourced HR provider,

and many others.

As every business-owner and entrepreneur does, I want PCS to be successful. That success (given this is not just professional services but personal professional services) will only come from the creation of shared value and this initiative takes shared value creation to a whole new level.

Email me at [email protected] if you want to know more.

Exciting times.