Before you instruct anyone

Yes, for most matters. Fees are agreed in writing before any work begins, and they can be spread across installments tied to the stages of the case rather than paid as a single sum. The engagement letter records the amount and the date of each installment, so the office never invoices anything that was not agreed in advance.

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Before any work starts, inside a written scope that states what the engagement covers and what it does not. A fee changes only if the matter itself changes — a new claim, an added respondent, an appeal that was outside the original scope — and then only by a written amendment you approve before that work is done.

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Advocacy, drafting and running the file are the fee. Court fees, experts' fees, translation and authentication are disbursements — paid to third parties, passed on at what they actually cost, itemised line by line, with nothing added on top.

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Originals remain yours, and the office holds them only for as long as the matter actually requires. Copies live in a file that is opened only by the lawyers conducting it. Nothing leaves the office except what is filed with a court, served on a counterparty, or sent to you — and you are told before it goes.

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The lawyers conducting the matter and the staff supporting them, and nobody else. Access follows the file rather than a person's seniority: a lawyer does not open a file they are not working on merely because they are a lawyer.

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Your originals are returned to you. The office keeps what professional obligation requires it to keep, for as long as it is required to keep it, and destroys the rest. If you want your originals back before then, they are yours whenever you ask.

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No. Professional privilege covers the matter and its facts, and before that it covers the fact that you are a client of this office at all. Your case is not named to the press, to another client, or as an illustration of anything, unless you permit it in writing.

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Files are held on access-controlled systems, devices are locked and encrypted, and case material is not carried on personal accounts. Anything you send over WhatsApp is moved into the file and taken out of the thread — a consumer messaging app is not where a case file lives.

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Client identification and a conflicts check, both completed before instructions are accepted. The office is professionally required to do this, but its real purpose is to protect you: without it your file could end up sitting alongside your opponent's in the same practice.

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Nothing is handed over on a request. Only an order from a competent authority is answered, only to the extent the law actually compels, and you are told about it unless the office is forbidden from telling you.

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