Terms of Business
These Terms of Business set out the basis upon which Human Law provides specialist legal advisory and diagnostic services. By instructing us following an initial screening review and activating Stage 01 or Stage 02 engagement, you agree to be legally bound by these terms.
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 strategic legal advice, risk modeling, and conflict diagnostics performed by Human Law.
2. Our Legal Advisory Architecture
Human Law operates strictly as a specialist legal advisory firm. This means we are retained for finite, fixed-fee diagnostic modules and strategic analysis to resolve estate deadlocks outside of court. The absolute boundaries of our services include the following strict rules:
- No Conduct of Litigation: We do not act as your solicitor on record in court proceedings. We do not draft active litigation pleadings, issue applications, or manage court timetables.
- No Service of Documents: We do not accept formal service of court notices, processing papers, or legal actions on your behalf. All documents must continue to be served directly on you or your designated contentious law firm.
- No General Estate Administration: We do not process routine non-contested probate registry filings, calculate estate ledgers, or perform asset distributions and property conveyancing.
Our role is to analyze conflict parameters and deliver structured blueprints so that acting fiduciaries, lay fiduciaries, and their transactional teams can resolve standstills outside of court channels.
3. Fixed-Fee Modular Charging Structure
We do not use hourly billing, variable metrics, or open-ended retainers. Our services are delivered across discrete modular stages, with prices determined strictly by the gross asset tier of the estate under administration:
- Entry Portal — Estate Deadlock Scan: Free preliminary online screening and diagnostic evaluation. Completing the scan does not establish a formal solicitor-client retainer.
- Stage 01 — Diagnostic & Financial Audit (£400 + VAT): Clinical legal triage, factual analysis (up to 20 primary pages), and a 30-minute solicitor strategy session. 100% of the Stage 01 fee (£400 + VAT) applies directly toward Stage 02 if instructed within 14 days.
- Stage 02 — Structural Clarity Report™ (£2,500 – £6,500 + VAT): Value-bracketed fixed-fee forensic analysis of up to 100 load-bearing primary evidence pages to filter emotional noise and isolate the core legal bottleneck freezing administration. Includes formal file opening, compulsory identity verification, AML screening, multi-party conflict checks, and a dedicated 45-minute milestone strategy session.
- Stage 03 — Unbundled Implementation Options (£1,200 – £16,000 + VAT): Flexible execution options (Option A Self-Service Pack at £1,200 + VAT, Option B Assisted Pack at £2,400 + VAT, or Option C Turnkey Pack at £5,800 – £16,000 + VAT) providing out-of-court execution roadmaps, decision-support templates, ready-to-file registry forms, bespoke or standard communication scripts, and partner hand-off packets. Stage 03 is entirely optional as over 60% of standstills resolve at Stage 02.
- Direct Statutory Interventions & Stage 02 Bypass Menu: Where Stage 01 identifies a single specific bottleneck (e.g., single silent caveat, non-responsive co-executor, or record holdout), clients may bypass Stage 02 entirely to deploy a targeted statutory intervention (Formal Warning to Caveator at £750 + VAT, Bespoke Holdout Intervention at £950 + VAT, Executor Citation at £1,250 + VAT, or Probate Registry Summons at £1,500 + VAT).
- Supplementary Strategy Sessions: Active mandate clients may add optional 45-minute strategic implementation reviews at a fixed fee of £650 + VAT per session.
Consolidated Fee Schedule
| Estate Value Tier | Entry Level | Stage 01 (Audit + Call) | Stage 02 (Clarity Report) | Stage 03 Options | Full Resolution Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under £1M | FREE (£0) | £400 + VAT | £2,500 – £3,500 | £1,200 – £5,800 | £3,700 – £9,300 + VAT |
| £1M – £3M | FREE (£0) | £400 + VAT | £3,500 – £4,500 | £2,400 – £9,500 | £5,900 – £14,500 + VAT |
| £3M – £5M+ | FREE (£0) | £400 + VAT | £4,500 – £6,500 | £2,400 – £16,000 | £6,900 – £22,500 + VAT |
All modular stage fees must be settled in full prior to the activation of work within that respective stage block. VAT is calculated at the standard prevailing UK rate.
4. Document Ingestion Rules & Page Limits
To maintain strict fixed-fee transparency and rapid turnarounds, Stage 02 analysis includes up to 100 primary evidence pages. A primary document is a legal or factual record that directly creates, modifies, or freezes the legal dispute—the primary evidence an adjudicator examines first.
- Core Legal Instruments: Latest executed Will, Codicils, or Trust Deeds.
- Registry & Statutory Filings: Probate Registry caveats, warnings, or appearances.
- Key Legal Correspondence: Formal position letters from solicitors or executors.
- Capacity Evidence: Primary GP notes, medical summaries, or formal capacity reports.
- Financial Ledgers: Line-by-line bank statements, utility bills, or routine accounting entries.
- Informal Messaging: Emotional family messaging threads or casual email chains.
- Duplicate Drafts: Superseded or unsigned draft wills (unless directly challenged).
Clients whose bundles exceed the limit may follow our portal checklist to self-curate their top 100 pages at no extra charge, or opt for an Extended Document Module (£450 + VAT per additional 50 pages) to have our team sort and index the bundle.
5. Termination and Cut-off Boundaries
Because our work is modular, either party may terminate the engagement at the conclusion of any completed stage with immediate effect. Human Law reserves the right to decline progression to a subsequent stage if our diagnostics indicate that the file conflict has passed the threshold or requires adversarial court litigation representation.
6. Client Responsibilities
As an advisory client, you retain full operational responsibility for your estate file. You must ensure all factual information provided to us via our intake grids is completely accurate. You are responsible for executing the steps outlined in our Stage 03 Execution Packs or handing them to your routine transactional lawyers for asset wrap-up.
7. Complaints, Data Protection & Professional Indemnity Coverage
Human Law is committed to high professional standards. If you are ever dissatisfied with our service, please let us know so we can address your concerns under our internal complaints procedure. If a complaint remains unresolved after eight weeks, you have the right to escalate the matter to the independent Legal Ombudsman.
Address: PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ | Tel: 0300 555 0333 | Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk | Web: legalombudsman.org.uk
Full disclosures regarding our data protection compliance under UK GDPR and our mandatory professional indemnity insurance (PII) coverage records are hosted directly on our Regulatory Notice Page, which forms an integral part of our operational risk management framework.
8. Governing Law
These terms and all contractual relationships arising under the Human Law framework are governed exclusively by the laws of England and Wales, and subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.