Our results over time reflect our expertise.
We achieve our results due to our knowledge of the law, our experts, many of who have worked with us for many years and our determination to go the extra mile to support you and your child.
We currently have 57 years of experience within SEN – as parents, LA officers, working for law firms, charities, and government bodies. That expertise is available to you to support your child in the next stage of their education journey.
We accept cases across England and Wales. Parents often ask whether we have worked with “X” LA before. It does not matter. All LAs work to the same legal process and accordingly the system is the same. The LA policy tends to set a higher burden of evidence on the child to access support than required by law and so we tend to ignore LA policies.
You do not need to physically visit us, although we will be delighted if you chose to do so. All our work is done electronically.
We are happy to attend any meeting using Teams/Zoom. We are also happy to attend in person, but at additional cost for which we will supply a separate cost estimate.
We will give clear unambiguous advice. We will interpret education and law speak so that you understand the options before you such that you can make an informed decision how you wish to proceed.
The SEN legal world is a small world. Solicitors and barristers and us all use the same experts. The difference is what you pay for the legal advice/ case management. Our charge rate of £130 ph +VAT for case work and £160 ph plus VAT for Tribunal attendance and external meetings is highly competitive, probably half a solicitor’s hourly rate and when viewed against our success ratios we would ask why you should want to pay more?
As a firm of Advocates we do not have the same overheads as a law firm and our costs structure reflects that.
We bill monthly for the work that we have actually done for you that month.
We invoice monthly in arrears. We ask for £1000 deposit against the final bill. We do not ask for the full fees upfront.
We do not operate a fixed fee as that could well prove more expensive to you.. In fixed fee cases it would be normal for a 30% uplift in the fees to cover unexpected events. We don’t think that would be fair to you.
By settling 86 % of cases before getting to the doors of the Tribunal we are able to reduce costs to you and ensure that your child is able to get access to the right educational setting faster and at less emotional and financial cost to you.
We start our process by conducting an Initial Case Review. This is a fixed fee of £450 inc VAT. We ask for all the information you have on your child to review and comment on. This helps us to shape the case and give accurate advice. We think this saves you money in the long run. Other firms will charge at the full rate hourly rate for doing this work.