Straight Fixed or Flat Fees – Haynes and Boone is willing to provide some services for a set fee. This fee could cover a particular matter (e.g., a fixed fee for all work provided on an internal investigation) or a particular service (e.g., a flat fee for consulting services provided on a monthly basis). Fixed fees typically are set for individual matters or for an entire portfolio of matters, and may cover the entire life of a matter or be limited to a specific period of time or a particular task.
Fixed Fee or Pre-Agreed Upon Budget with Collar – Some fixed fee arrangements (and matters with pre-agreed upon budgets) will warrant a “collaring” arrangement. This fee arrangement anticipates engagements in which the amount of effort needed to fulfill our obligation as responsible legal counsel is greater or less than what both we and our client initially thought the effort would require.
Under such a collaring arrangement, Haynes and Boone and the client would agree that if the hourly value of our firm’s lawyer time expended on a matter falls considerably outside the fixed fee (or pre-agreed upon budget), we will share the fee upsides and downsides with each other.
Monthly Access and Advice Retainers – Although this is a variation of the straight fixed fee approach described above, an advice and access retainer has benefits that warrant further explanation. This approach makes sense in situations where a client wishes to be proactive in seeking legal advice to avoid legal exposure, but does not want to pay for expensive legal research every time a potential legal issue arises. This arrangement offers clients ready access to relatively inexpensive legal advice and offers Haynes and Boone the chance to add value to the client. We are able to help distinguish early on between those situations that are easily dealt with and others that, unaddressed, might expose the company to significant liability.
Phase-Based Fees – The firm will estimate a specific fee for each phase of a matter based on the work anticipated for each phase. In litigation, for example, this arrangement might result in a separate fee for each of the following phases:
- Motion to dismiss
- Discovery
- Dispositive motions
- Trial preparation
- Trial
In transactional matters, phases of work might include due diligence, drafting of specific agreements, negotiating the terms and amount of the purchase/sale price, closing activities, etc.
This approach could be implemented in a variety of ways. For example, the arrangement may be based on fixed fees, where Haynes and Boone charges a fixed fee for each matter phase. Another approach that might be taken would require the client to pay an estimated (budgeted) fee for each phase with a rationalization against actual billings at agreed-upon times, e.g., quarterly, annually, or when the matter is concluded.
Fee Caps – For matters in which the scope is understood and well defined beforehand, the firm may agree to cap its fees. Fee caps are determined based upon anticipated fees for the scope of work, and they can be set for the entirety of the matter or for each phase.