What changes
When AI takes most of the drafting time out of a matter, hourly billing starts to work against the firm: the more efficient it gets, the less it earns. The New Model prices the outcome and the accountability instead. That means fixed fees for defined pieces of work, such as the accountable signature service and life-event packages, and subscriptions for ongoing support, such as the legal health check.
A household subscription might cover an annual review of wills and lasting powers of attorney, a set number of document checks and a named solicitor to call. A small business version might add contracts, employment documents, intellectual property and early warning on disputes. Dispute prevention fits here too: a retainer that includes monitoring key contracts and a first call when a problem appears is easier to sell, and better for the client, than litigation after the event.
Why it matters now
Clients increasingly expect to know the price before they start. The SRA Transparency Rules already require firms to publish price and service information for certain services, such as residential conveyancing and uncontested probate. Firms that move to clear fixed prices across more of their work find those rules easier to meet, and clear prices make it easier for a client to choose a solicitor over doing it themselves with an AI tool.
Checklist
- Choose five services and set a fixed fee for each, with a written scope and a list of what would trigger an additional charge.
- Design one household and one small business legal health check subscription, priced monthly, and pilot each with 20 existing clients this quarter.
- Review your website against the SRA Transparency Rules, and update published prices whenever fees or scope change.
- Set a capacity target for how many subscription clients each solicitor can support with AI doing the legwork, and review it after the pilot.
- Review profitability per service each quarter, using the time records you started keeping in Move 3.
Illustrative example
A firm offers a household legal health check at £25 a month, or £300 a year, and a small business version at £95 a month, or £1,140 a year. It signs 200 households and 40 businesses in the first year. That’s £60,000 plus £45,600, or £105,600 of recurring annual income. With AI preparing each review, a solicitor spends about 2 hours a year per household and 6 hours per business, which is 400 plus 240, or 640 hours. That works out at £165 of fee income per hour of solicitor time, before counting the new instructions that reviews tend to produce.
Common mistakes
- Setting fixed fees from old hourly records. Price from the time the work takes with AI and from the value of the signature.
- Leaving scope vague. A fixed fee without a clear scope soon turns into unpaid work and a difficult conversation with the client.
- Selling subscriptions with nothing visible in return. Send each subscriber a short annual report of what was checked and what changed.
Coaching your clients
Explain the change to existing clients before it reaches their bill. Many will welcome knowing the cost in advance. Use the annual health check conversation to ask how their own work or business is changing with AI, and whether their contracts, employment terms and intellectual property arrangements still fit the way they now operate.