Terms of Business

1. Status and Regulation

Human Law is the trading name of Justin Patten, an independent sole practitioner solicitor authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA Number: 657838). These terms apply to all out-of-court dispute diagnostics, procedural milestone services, and advisory dispute resolution services delivered by Human Law.

2. Scope of Service & Practice Boundaries

Human Law operates as an out-of-court dispute resolution practice. We are retained to advise on, manage, and execute finite procedural milestones and statutory levers designed to resolve estate deadlocks without court litigation. The operational boundaries of our services include:

• No Conduct of Court Litigation: We do not act as your solicitor on the court record in legal proceedings and we do not conduct contested Part 7 or Part 57 court trials. Document or application preparation does not include issuing proceedings, filing documents as solicitor on the record, accepting service, conducting litigation, or representing the client at a court hearing unless expressly agreed in writing within Human Law’s regulatory permissions and scope. If formal court proceedings become necessary, we can organize the relevant materials for a clean handover to an independent litigation solicitor.
• No Acceptance of Court Service: We do not accept formal court service on your behalf. Formal court process must be served directly on you or your designated litigation solicitors on the record.
• No Routine Probate Administration or Conveyancing: We do not undertake uncontested probate grant applications, ongoing asset collection, estate distribution accounting, or property conveyancing. Our service addresses discrete contentious bottlenecks and returns the matter to you or your transactional probate solicitors.
• No Detailed Forensic Accounting: We do not perform line-by-line historic bank tracing, forensic book reconciliations, or detailed fraud investigations.

3. Fees, Milestones & Payment Terms

We work on a staged, fixed-fee basis. The applicable fixed fee, scope, assumptions, exclusions, and completion point are confirmed in the engagement documentation for each instruction. Published indicative prices may be viewed on our Pricing page. Where the engagement documentation conflicts with general website information, the engagement documentation prevails.

The following core principles govern our fee architecture across all instructions:

• Staged Authorisation: Work is divided into distinct procedural stages. You instruct and fund one defined stage at a time. No subsequent milestone is undertaken without your prior written approval.
• Stage 01 Fee Credit: The £400 Stage 01 professional fee is credited once against the professional fee for the first subsequently instructed Zone 1 or Zone 2 milestone, provided that milestone is instructed within 14 days after delivery of the Stage 01 Action Plan. The credit is not redeemable for cash, cannot be applied more than once, and does not apply to disbursements or third-party costs.
• Payment in Advance: Fixed fees are invoiced and payable in full prior to work commencing on the relevant milestone. VAT is charged at the prevailing UK statutory rate. Human Law does not hold client money or maintain a client account.
• Disbursements and Third-Party Costs: Fixed fees cover Human Law’s professional charges for the agreed scope only. Registry fees, court fees, process server charges, independent counsel, mediators, expert valuations, and other third-party costs are excluded unless expressly stated in the written scope. No material third-party cost will be incurred without your prior approval.
• No Waiting Charges: We do not charge recurring monthly retainers or file-holding fees during dormant periods while awaiting a Probate Registry response, third-party disclosures, or counterparty correspondence.
• Additional Scope Modules: Each milestone includes a defined document review allowance and correspondence scope. If unusually extensive documentation or additional strategic correspondence is required outside the agreed scope, additional fixed-fee modules (such as Document Expansion or Additional Analysis and Response Modules) will be quoted and agreed in writing before that additional work is undertaken.

4. Document Review Parameters

To ensure procedural certainty and rapid diagnostic review, Stage 01 audits review core primary documents (up to 20 pages). A primary document is an operative legal or factual record directly defining or obstructing the estate administration:

5. Consumer Cancellation Rights (Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013)

Where an instruction is entered into with an individual acting for purposes wholly or mainly outside their trade, business, craft, or profession (a consumer) via online or distance communication, the consumer has the statutory right to cancel the contract within 14 calendar days from the date the contract is entered into without giving any reason.

To exercise this right, you must inform Human Law of your decision to cancel by a clear written statement before the 14-day cancellation period expires.

If you expressly request Human Law to begin providing services during the statutory 14-day cancellation period, you acknowledge that you retain the right to cancel until the service is fully completed, but you must pay an amount proportionate to the services performed up to the time cancellation is communicated. If the requested service (such as a Stage 01 Factual Audit) is fully performed within the cancellation period following your express request, your statutory right to cancel is lost.

6. Termination of Engagement

Either party may terminate the engagement at any time by written notice. The client remains responsible for authorized work performed and properly incurred third-party disbursements up to the point of termination. Any advance payment relating to work not performed will be dealt with in accordance with the engagement terms and applicable professional standards. Human Law may cease acting for good reason on reasonable notice (for example, where an irreconcilable conflict of interest arises, instructions are withheld, agreed stage fees remain unpaid, or our assessment indicates that the dispute requires contested court litigation).

7. Client Responsibilities

Clients retain operational authority as Personal Representatives or fiduciaries. You are responsible for ensuring that all factual disclosures and documents provided to Human Law are accurate and complete. Following procedural unblocking or the completion of our agreed milestone, clients or their ongoing transactional solicitors remain responsible for general estate asset collection, final estate accounting, tax submissions, and distribution.

8. Complaints, Data Protection & Regulatory Compliance

Human Law is committed to delivering high professional standards. If you are dissatisfied with our service or charges, please raise your concerns under our internal complaints procedure. If a complaint remains unresolved after eight weeks, you may have the right to refer the matter to the independent Legal Ombudsman.

Full disclosures regarding data protection compliance under UK GDPR and professional indemnity insurance (PII) coverage are detailed on our Regulatory Notice Page.

9. Governing Law

These terms and all engagements with Human Law are governed exclusively by the laws of England and Wales, subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.