The main reasons our clients retain us over law firms include:-
- Recommendations and referrals from our past and current happy clients to the family members and friends
- Our client friendly fee model or fee structure and our commitment to keep the legal costs as low as possible in every matter, every time
- Our reputation in the legal profession
- Our unwavering commitment to always put our client’s first, to be strong advocates and to take cases to trial whenever necessary but only when absolutely necessary
The owners of vbr Lawyers started the firm in 2017.
Since that time, we have not increased our hourly rates in almost 8 years. Many of our competitors increase their hourly rates every year.
We have a low overhead structure. We don’t have expensive marketing campaigns which all helps to pass on these savings to our clients.
At vbr Lawyers, we feel it is very important to provide a happy, safe and supportive work environment for our staff. We enjoy very little staff turnover so that our clients can have the consistency and continuity of speaking to the same support staff and professional staff from start to finish.
Our clients never have the experience of having two or three or four different lawyers introduced to handle their matter during the course of any claim.
Our client friendly fee model/structure provides certain advantages to our clients compared with what is offered by other law firms. For example, we have an industry leading 30% fee cap on professional costs which is particularly helpful to clients with more modest claims. Our 30% fee cap does not mean that we charge or take 30% of the value of any claim whether the case is small, moderate or large. The 30% fee cap provides certainty and a better ‘in hand’ outcome to our clients who have smaller claims so that their ‘in hand’ figure is not eroded by the legal costs.
We do not charge a 25% uplift on our professional costs which many of our competitors do which is permitted by the Legal Profession Act 2007 if the law firm is acting on a speculative or ‘No Win – No Fee’ basis. For example, if the case is large and complex and the professional costs are say $100,000.00 then the client’s ultimate bill with other firms may or will be as high as $125,000.00. An extra $25,000.00.
We do not have all of our administrative or support staff on hourly rates. This can clock up a lot of additional costs to any claim or final bill for a client. Our administrative staff and legal secretaries are not billed out to our clients on an hourly rate or basis. Many of our competitors do this. We don’t.
Being a strong advocate does not mean that we are super aggressive. We have the experience, talent and track record of taking cases to court or to trial when necessary but only when absolutely necessary. Our opponents know and understand that we prepare our cases thoroughly, carefully and we are strong advocates for our clients and what is in their best interests. They know that we will advise our clients to press on and even to trial if they do not make reasonable and sensible offers to settle.
Some of our competitors settle everything and early. We don’t but we will if the figures are right and only if the result is one that we can justify and recommend to our clients.
