[sharkweek]

I clerked at a law office while I was in college -- the lawyers there were happy to offer free 30 minute consultations because the conversion rate of the people that showed up for those was actually pretty high. It was a great way to build trust right off the bat and to ensure it was a good fit for a longer term partnership

[jacques_chester]

Exactly. And for the same reason my lawyer above is giving me a fixed-price on the work he's doing.

(I think he's nuts for quoting fixed-price on anything legal, but I'm hardly going to say no.)

[grabeh]

Surely it depends on the extent to which the time the work will take will change depending on external factors. A fixed fee for a first draft of terms and conditions is very different to a fixed fee for litigating a dispute to trial. I obviously use an exaggerated example to illustrate here but it is fair to say that a fixed fee can simply be a solid estimate of the time a matter will take multiplied by hourly rate (at least that's how we arrived at fixed fee estimates at my old firm).