Can anyone offer some benchmarks for legal costs?

1. standard content agreement template
2. standard commerce template
3. Strategic partnertship agreements

...or average charge per hour...

... or which companies are the best to offer these services. I am currently working with a firm that isn't that experienced in our field, and I am loath to pay them to learn at my expense. Are there some firms that offer a better service for a company that doesn't want to afford corporate rates?

Ashley, Excellent, thanks for the ideas. I will try Firstlaw when their servers are working!

To answer my own question.... My benchmarks on cost are 150-220 per hour for a junior lawyer, 200-350 for a senior.

When starting to scribe a new contract from scratch it normally takes between 4-12 hours all told.

I like your idea of capping. I haven't tried that yet. I've just negotiated down the price from the lawyers' asking price!

I'd welcome any other creative ideas - from anyone - on how to structure payment. Our lawyers are open to suggestion on how they get paid........

On 19:7:55 24 October 2000 ashley wrote:
>Barney - have you tried Firstlaw
>(http://www.firstlaw.co.uk/ )? I haven't (hence the post
>below asking about them...) but it is an intriguing
>proposition. Maybe you could roadtest them with your
>challenge and report back on what you get. On their
>homepage it says,
>
>"FirstLAW is the quick and simple way to access the
>most cost effective and appropriate legal service for your
>business needs and circumstances. Click here for a free
>consultation. "
>
>Give it a click...
>
>P.S. I agree with you - I wouldn't pay for a law firm to
>learn things at my expense, especially when they can then
>tout their e-business expertise based on you as a client.
>An approach I have taken is to agree an acceptable capped
>rate with the solicitors so that however much time they
>spend learning in order to get where I want the documents
>to be, I will only be charged what I think would have been
>fair if they had been experts in the first place. Make
>sense? This helps less if you are in a great hurry of
>course...
>
>A couple of names I have come across for e-business
>solicitors:
>Rakisons http://www.rakisons.co.uk/
>Osborne Clark http://www.osborneclarke.co.uk/
>
>And, of course, I should mention the solicitors who did
>the legal parts behind this site Fairmays -
>http://www.fairmays.co.uk
>
>As for rates, I guess you pay for what you get. As I said,
>agreeing a special discount or capped rate could be a way
>forwards. You essentially trade intellectual capital
>against some of their learning time.
>
>
>On 17:14:7 24 October 2000 Barney wrote:
>>Can anyone offer some benchmarks for legal costs?
>>
>>1. standard content agreement template
>>2. standard commerce template
>>3. Strategic partnertship agreements
>>
>>...or average charge per hour...
>>
>>... or which companies are the best to offer these
>>services. I am currently working with a firm that
>isn't
>>that experienced in our field, and I am loath to pay
>them
>>to learn at my expense. Are there some firms that
>offer a
>>better service for a company that doesn't want to
>afford
>>corporate rates?