Why we work fixed-fee, and what it changes for the owners we represent.

A note on incentives, and on pretending otherwise.

Most M&A legal fees in Australia are billed hourly. They have been, basically, forever. Well, since the 1960s, which is a kind of forever.

We bill fixed-fee. Agreed before any work begins. Documented in writing. Unchanged through close.

We have built our entire firm around this single structural decision. We think it is the single most important thing in determining whether the firm and the client are actually pulling in the same direction.

Here is the case for it.

The problem with hourly billing.

Hourly billing transfers the risk of complexity, scope creep, and opposing-counsel difficulty entirely to the client. When buyer’s counsel rewrites four warranty clauses three weeks before close, hourly billing turns that into a windfall for the firm. When diligence extends, the firm earns more. When the SPA needs five rounds of redraft instead of two, same.

There’s no suggestion hourly firms intentionally drag out deals. Almost none do. But structure rewards behaviour. Even highly ethical practitioners working inside a misaligned incentive structure produce subtly different outcomes than they would inside a better-aligned one.

The deeper problem is the absence of certainty. Firms quote by “estimate” or “indication.” An estimate is not a price. An $80,000 to $120,000 indication is, in practice, a bill that could land anywhere. Sometimes at $180,000 or $250,000. By the time it lands, the work is done.

What fixed-fee changes.

A fixed fee, properly structured, removes the incentive misalignments. The firm is paid the same whether the deal takes eight weeks or twelve. Whether buyer’s counsel is reasonable or relentless. The only incentive that remains is to produce the best outcome possible in the time the deal requires.

It also creates a discipline. A fixed fee only works if we have a clear, accurate understanding of the deal before we quote. That means a real conversation upfront. Real diligence on our side about what the engagement requires. A price that reflects the actual work.

The pre-thinking is on us. The certainty is yours.

What it does not change.

Fixed-fee does not mean low fee. We’re not the cheapest option in any market we operate in. We typically sit in the middle of the range hourly firms ultimately bill. The difference is that the number is set before work starts and doesn’t move.

It also doesn’t mean we’re inflexible about scope. If the deal genuinely changes (a new jurisdiction, a buyer substituted, a transaction restructured) the fee is reopened transparently. What we don’t do is allow fees to creep upward because diligence took an extra week.

Why this is the only work we do.

The firm works only on owner-led exits up to $20M, only on a fixed-fee basis, across Australia, the US, and the UK.

The narrowness is the precondition for the model. Fixed fees are quotable accurately because we’ve done hundreds of deals in this exact bracket. Try to do this across every deal size, every transaction type, every client profile, and the model collapses. Fixed-fee turns into a guess. Guesses hedge upward.

Specialisation is what makes the price honest. The price is what makes the alignment real. The alignment is what produces work of the kind we’d want done for ourselves.

That’s the case for fixed fee. And, in large part, the case for our firm.