Fixed-Fee Immigration Lawyers: What Should Your Quote Include?

What should a fixed-fee immigration lawyer's quote include?

A fixed-fee quote should state the scope of work it covers, what it excludes, the government charges paid separately, when each payment falls due, and what happens to the fee if the matter changes. A quote that gives a total and nothing else cannot be compared with any other quote, because the figure alone says nothing about the work behind it.

People ask for a fixed fee for one reason. They want to remove the risk of an open-ended bill. A fixed fee does that only when the work it buys is written down. Two firms can quote a similar amount for the same visa and be offering very different services. One may be quoting to run the matter from the first document to the decision, including the written submission and the evidence. The other may be quoting to check forms the client has already completed and to lodge them. Neither approach is wrong. The client simply cannot tell which one is on offer from the number alone.

A complete fixed-fee quote names each of the following.

• The visa subclass, or the application or review, that the fee relates to.
• Every person the fee covers, including a partner or a dependent child included in the same application.
• The work included at each stage, described as tasks, not as a general promise of assistance.
• The work that is excluded, named specifically rather than left to be inferred.
• The government charges and other third party costs the client pays, and who those amounts are paid to.
• Whether the fee includes GST.
• What happens to the fee if the matter changes, if the client withdraws, or if the application is refused.

The last two points are the ones most often left out of a quote, and they are the two that decide whether a fixed fee is genuinely fixed.

There is a further test that costs nothing to apply. A quote should be capable of being read by someone who is not a lawyer and who does not know the process. If the client cannot work out from the quote what will happen in the matter, in what order, and who is responsible for each step, the quote is not finished. This matters most for applicants whose first language is not English, because a vague scope is far harder to challenge later than a clear one. Anyone comparing firms should read the quotes side by side rather than the websites, and the same discipline applies when choosing a migration lawyer in the first place.

A quote is also not advice, and it should not be treated as a substitute for advice. A lawyer cannot price a matter sensibly without knowing what the matter involves. A partner visa lodged onshore by an applicant who holds a substantive visa is not the same matter as one lodged by an applicant who does not, because Schedule 3 then has to be addressed. A protection visa where the claims are documented is not the same matter as one where they are not. This is why a serious fixed fee normally follows a consultation rather than an enquiry form, and why a firm that quotes a number before it knows the facts is quoting for an assumption. Any firm acting on partner visas will tell the same thing in different words.

Is a fixed fee the same as a costs agreement?

No, a fixed fee is not the same as a costs agreement. The fixed fee is the price. The costs agreement is the contract that binds the law practice to that price and records what the client receives in return. Until a costs agreement is made, a fixed fee quoted in an email or repeated in a consultation is an offer and nothing more.

Legal costs in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia are governed by the Legal Profession Uniform Law. The other states and territories have their own legal profession legislation, which imposes similar obligations. The Uniform Law sets out what a law practice must tell a client about costs and how a costs agreement must be made, and those rules are the reason a client is entitled to ask for the detail set out above.

Section 180 provides that a costs agreement must be written or evidenced in writing. It may consist of a written offer that is accepted in writing, or accepted by other conduct. A fee mentioned in conversation and never reduced to writing does not meet that standard.

Section 174 requires a law practice to disclose the basis on which legal costs will be calculated and to give an estimate of the total legal costs. Section 174(1)(b) requires the practice to tell the client, as soon as practicable, about any significant change to anything it has already disclosed. Section 174(3) requires the practice to take all reasonable steps to satisfy itself that the client has understood the information given and has consented to the proposed course of action and the proposed costs. Those obligations are continuing. They do not end when the client signs.

The consequences of getting this wrong fall on the law practice, not on the client. Under section 178, a failure to disclose means the client is not required to pay the legal costs until they have been assessed, the costs agreement is void, and the failure may amount to unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct. Section 185 provides that certain costs agreements are void, including agreements that contravene the disclosure and conditional costs provisions.

The practical point for a client comparing quotes is simple. The costs agreement governs, not the website, not the brochure, and not what was said in the consultation. Where the two differ, the document controls the relationship. A client who is told that something is included should ask for that inclusion to appear in the costs agreement before signing it.

What is not included in a fixed fee?

A fixed fee covers legal work, and it does not cover money that is paid to someone other than the law practice. The most common misunderstanding in immigration matters is that the quoted fee is the total cost of getting the visa. It is not. The government charges sit on top of it, and they are usually the larger number.

The amounts a client pays in addition to the legal fee normally include the visa application charge payable to the Department of Home Affairs, any second instalment of that charge, the application fee payable to the Administrative Review Tribunal if a review is needed, health examinations, police clearance certificates from Australia and from any country of long residence, biometrics, certified translations of documents not in English, and courier or postage costs. Some matters also require an expert report or a barrister's advice, and neither is part of an ordinary fixed fee.

The visa application charge deserves particular attention, because it is not recoverable if things go wrong. The Department states that it does not usually refund the visa application charge, even if the visa application is refused or withdrawn. That is why an accurate assessment before lodgement is worth more than a discount on legal fees, and why the total outlay on a matter such as a subclass 820 partner visa is driven mostly by the Department's charge rather than by the lawyer's fee.

There is a second category of exclusion that causes more disputes than disbursements do. It is legal work that the client assumed was included and the firm did not price. In immigration matters the usual candidates are these. Responding to a request for further information made by the Department under section 56 of the Migration Act 1958. Attending or preparing the applicant for a protection visa interview. Preparing a submission on a Schedule 3 waiver. Dealing with a change of circumstances that has to be notified during processing. Applying for a further bridging visa. Preparing a request for ministerial intervention. Making a fresh application after a refusal.

Review after a refusal is the largest of these. An application to the Administrative Review Tribunal is a separate matter, with separate work, a separate government fee and a separate fixed fee. A quote for preparing and lodging a visa application does not cover a review unless the quote says so in terms. Any firm that acts on visa refusals prices that work separately, because the work is different work and because the deadline for applying for review is short and strictly applied.

What happens if the matter changes after you accept the quote?

If the matter changes, the fee can change only if the costs agreement allows it and the change is disclosed in writing before the additional work is done. Section 174(1)(b) of the Legal Profession Uniform Law requires a law practice to tell the client as soon as practicable about any significant change to anything already disclosed, and that includes a change to the estimate of total legal costs.

Immigration matters change more often than most clients expect. A dependent child turns eighteen or is added to the application. A relationship breaks down while a partner visa is pending. The Department issues a request for further information that calls for a substantial written response. A sponsorship limitation is identified and a waiver has to be argued. A protection applicant's country situation shifts and new country information has to be addressed, which is routine work in protection visa matters. Any of these adds work that was not in the original scope.

The correct response to a change is not a larger invoice appearing at the end. It is a written variation, given before the work starts, that says what the extra work is, what it will cost and why it falls outside the original scope. A client who receives that notice can accept it, decline it, or ask for a different approach. A client who receives no notice has lost the chance to make that decision, and the failure sits with the practice under the disclosure provisions rather than with the client.

Clients should also understand the reverse position. If the matter turns out to be simpler than expected, a fixed fee normally does not fall. That is the bargain in a fixed fee. The client buys certainty and gives up the chance of paying less than the quoted amount, and the firm carries the risk of the matter being harder than it looked. A quote that is fixed in one direction only is not a fixed fee.

Which questions should you ask before accepting a fixed-fee quote?

The questions worth asking are the ones a vague quote cannot answer. Each of the following should produce a specific answer in writing, and a firm that will not answer one of them in writing has given the client useful information about how the matter will be run.

• Who will do the work, and who supervises it? The answer should name a lawyer, not a department.
• Is the fee per application or per person? A partner visa application that includes a dependent child is not the same scope as one that does not.
• Does the quoted fee include GST?
• What is excluded? A useful quote lists exclusions rather than describing the inclusions in general terms.
• What happens if the Department asks for more information, and is responding to that request inside the fee?
• What happens if the application is refused? Is any part of the fee refundable, and what would a review cost?
• What happens if the client changes lawyers during the matter, and on what terms is the file released?

How My Migration Lawyers quotes a fixed fee

My Migration Lawyers quotes a fixed fee after a consultation, not before one, and the fee and its scope are set out in a written costs agreement before any work on the application begins. The firm is led by Weiwei Zhang, Principal Lawyer, and acts for clients across Australia by video and by email.

The consultation comes first because the price of a matter depends on facts that an enquiry form does not reveal. Whether an applicant holds a substantive visa, whether a previous application has been refused, whether a sponsor has sponsored before, what documents exist and what documents do not, and how much of the history is already on the Department's records all change the work required. The consultation is charged separately from the fee for the matter, and it is the point at which the client is told what application is available and what it will take to make it properly.

The quote that follows the consultation identifies the application, the people it covers and the work included at each stage. It states the work that is not included, so that the client can see the boundary rather than discover it. Government charges are not part of the fee. They are paid by the client, and the firm sets out what they are so the client can budget for the whole matter rather than for the legal component of it.

If the matter changes after the costs agreement is signed, the change is put in writing before the additional work is done, with the reason it falls outside the original scope. Clients are told what the variation covers and what it costs, and the decision on whether to proceed is theirs.

Anyone who wants a matter assessed and a fixed fee quoted for it can request a consultation online. The request form asks for the detail needed to work out what the matter involves, and the firm replies by email. More about the way the firm works, and who acts on its matters, appears on the about page.