What is a client care letter?

What a client care letter is

A client care letter arrives at the start of a matter, usually with a longer document called the terms of business. Between them they are the contract: what the firm will do, who will do it, what it costs, and what happens when either side wants out.

The letter is specific to you. It names the solicitor handling the work and the person supervising them, describes what you have asked the firm to do, and sets out the price. The terms of business are the firm’s standard conditions, and they cover the things nobody thinks about at the start: interest on money held for you, how long the file is kept, what happens to it if you leave, data protection, and the firm’s lien over papers if a bill is unpaid.

Both bind you. Firms ask for a signature, and continuing to give instructions after the letter arrives can amount to acceptance in any event, so the moment to read it is when it lands.

What the SRA Code requires it to contain

The SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors sets client information duties that shape the letter. Clients must be told:

• Their right to complain to the firm about its services and its charges.
• How to complain and to whom, which is why the letter names a complaints partner or client relations manager.
• Any right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman, and when that right applies.
• Which services are regulated by an approved regulator, including where the firm or a separate business it runs provides services that are not.

Where a complaint has not been resolved, the firm must also give the name and website of an approved alternative dispute resolution body competent to deal with it.

Two things follow for a reader. First, the complaints section is not boilerplate, it is a regulatory requirement, and a letter that omits it is a signal about the firm. Second, the letter is where the complaint deadlines become concrete, because the Ombudsman’s clock runs from a final response that this document tells you how to ask for.

Four things to check before signing

1. Who does the work, and at what rate. The letter should name a person and a grade, not a department. If it gives a rate per hour, check whether a partner rate has been applied to work a paralegal will do. If the matter is one of the six services covered by the SRA Transparency Rules, the firm has already published its price and the people who do that work on its website, so the letter and the website should agree.

2. What the estimate excludes. Disbursements are the ones that bite: search fees, court fees, land registry fees, counsel’s fees, expert reports, VAT. An estimate of £1,200 that excludes £600 of disbursements is not an estimate of £1,200.

3. When the price can change. Look for the trigger and the notice. A good letter says what would make the work cost more, and commits to telling you before that work begins. A weak one says costs are subject to change without saying by whom or when you find out.

4. What happens if you stop. You can change solicitors at any point, but the letter sets out what you owe for work done and whether the firm can hold the file until the bill is paid. That clause is easy to accept at the start and expensive to discover halfway through.

The terms of business clauses that matter

None of these is unusual and none is unfair on its face. They are simply the terms that decide the argument if there is one, and reading them at the start costs nothing.

What a good client care letter looks like

A well-written client care letter is short, in plain English, and specific. It names a person, a rate, a scope and a number. It says what it does not include. It gives a complaints route with names and addresses, and it explains the Ombudsman without burying it.

A poor one runs to twelve pages of standard terms, gives a range so wide it commits to nothing, and names no one. That is not a reason to walk away on its own, but it is a reason to ask the four questions above before you sign, and to compare the answer with the firm’s published price.

If you are still choosing between firms, the letter is the last thing to arrive and the first thing that is actually enforceable, so ask for a draft. A firm that will send one before you commit is telling you something useful, and it fits the same checks worth running before you instruct anyone.

Client care letters in Scotland and Northern Ireland

The document does the same job across the UK under a different rulebook. Scottish firms send terms of business under the Law Society of Scotland’s practice rules, and the complaints route they must set out is the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission rather than the Legal Ombudsman. Northern Irish firms work to the Law Society of Northern Ireland’s rules, and their letters name that Society as the complaints route. The four checks above apply unchanged in all three jurisdictions.