The Hartwell Approach to Legal Guidance
Our methodology isn't complicated: listen carefully, explain clearly, and handle matters properly. Three straightforward principles that guide everything we do.
Return HomeWhy We Work This Way
Legal matters often feel more complicated than they need to be. Lawyers use jargon that obscures rather than clarifies. Documents contain provisions clients don't understand. Advice feels theoretical rather than practical.
We established our practice with a different philosophy: legal guidance should make sense to the people receiving it. This doesn't mean oversimplifying complex matters, but it does mean explaining them in language you can actually understand.
Our approach developed from observing that most people don't need the most sophisticated legal solution—they need the right solution for their circumstances, explained clearly enough that they can make informed decisions.
This means starting with your situation rather than with legal theory. Understanding what you're trying to accomplish before suggesting how to accomplish it. Explaining trade-offs rather than making recommendations you're expected to accept on faith.
How We Approach Each Matter
Understand Your Situation
We begin by listening to what you're trying to accomplish and why. Not launching into legal explanations, but understanding your actual circumstances and concerns. This shapes everything that follows.
Explain Your Options
We discuss what approaches are available and the practical implications of each. Not recommending what we think is optimal, but explaining trade-offs so you can make informed choices about your own affairs.
Prepare Documents Carefully
Once you've decided how to proceed, we draft documents that accurately reflect your intentions. Clear language where possible, precise legal terminology where necessary, always reviewed with you before finalising.
Execute Properly
We ensure everything is properly witnessed, executed, and stored. Provide copies and guidance on what to do if circumstances change. Make ourselves available for future questions without pressure to instruct us again.
Personalisation in Practice
This framework adapts to each situation. A straightforward will might move through these stages in one meeting. Complex business formation requires multiple discussions. Dispute resolution might need several rounds of correspondence. The principles remain consistent—the application varies based on your needs.
Professional Standards and Oversight
We operate within a framework of professional regulation that exists to protect clients. This isn't bureaucratic compliance—it's reassurance that we meet established standards and are accountable for our work.
Our Professional Framework
- Law Society of Scotland membership: Subject to their professional standards and disciplinary procedures
- Professional indemnity insurance: Coverage for errors, providing financial protection for clients
- Continuing professional development: Regular training to maintain knowledge of legal developments
- Client account regulations: Strict controls on handling client funds
- Ethical guidelines: Professional conduct rules governing client relationships
These standards aren't marketing points—they're baseline requirements for legal practice in Scotland. We mention them because they provide reassurance that our work meets established professional criteria and that you have recourse if something goes wrong.
Where Conventional Legal Service Often Disappoints
Many people find legal services frustrating not because lawyers are incompetent, but because conventional practice prioritises things that don't always serve clients well.
The Traditional Approach
- • Hourly billing creates incentive for complexity
- • Technical jargon signals expertise but obscures meaning
- • Clients expected to accept advice without full understanding
- • Communication feels formal and distancing
- • Focus on theoretical best solutions over practical fit
Our Alternative
- ✓ Fixed pricing removes perverse incentives
- ✓ Plain language as default, technical terms where necessary
- ✓ Clients make informed decisions about their own affairs
- ✓ Straightforward communication that respects intelligence
- ✓ Solutions appropriate to actual circumstances
This isn't criticism of other lawyers—many work within systems they didn't create. But it explains why we've chosen to operate differently and why clients often find our approach refreshing.
What Makes Our Practice Different
Transparent Pricing
Fixed fees quoted upfront for most services. No clock-watching, no surprise bills, no incentive to complicate matters unnecessarily.
Plain Communication
Correspondence and documents written to be understood, not to impress. Technical terminology where legally necessary, clear explanation where it's not.
Client Autonomy
We explain options and implications rather than prescribing solutions. You make informed decisions about your own legal affairs, not defer to our judgment.
Realistic Timeframes
Clear expectations about how long things take. We don't promise impossibly fast service, but we do respond promptly and keep matters moving.
Proper Documentation
Everything prepared carefully and reviewed with you before finalising. Copies provided, storage arranged, guidance given on future needs.
Ongoing Accessibility
Available for future questions without pressure to instruct us again. Circumstances change, and we're here when you need guidance rather than disappearing after billing.
How We Measure Success
Legal work isn't the sort where success lends itself to dramatic metrics. You can't measure the value of a properly prepared will until it's needed, which might be decades away. Business formation pays off through problems that never arise.
Still, we track certain indicators that suggest we're serving clients well:
Client Understanding
Can clients explain what they've arranged and why? If they can't, we haven't done our job properly regardless of how good the legal work is.
Referral Rate
About 68% of new clients come through recommendations from existing clients. People recommend services they found genuinely helpful.
Return Clients
When clients need further legal work, do they return? Approximately 73% do, suggesting they found the experience satisfactory.
Complaints Record
Formal complaints to professional bodies over 18 years: three, all resolved satisfactorily. Not perfection, but suggesting consistent service.
Document Accuracy
Wills that need correction after signing due to our error: fewer than 2%. Business formations requiring remedial work: fewer than 4%.
Dispute Resolution
Commercial disputes resolved without court proceedings: 89%. Suggests our measured approach helps parties find practical solutions.
These aren't headline-grabbing statistics, but they indicate consistent work and satisfied clients. Which is really what legal practice should be about.
Why Clients Choose Our Approach
Our practice has operated in Edinburgh since 2007, focusing on non-criminal legal matters where clear guidance makes a genuine difference. Over these years, certain patterns have emerged about what clients value and why they recommend us to others.
People appreciate straightforward pricing. Knowing exactly what something costs before committing removes a major source of anxiety. Fixed fees mean we have no incentive to complicate matters or drag them out—we're paid the same whether we take five hours or fifteen.
They value being treated as intelligent adults capable of making their own decisions. We explain options and implications clearly, but we don't presume to know what's right for your circumstances better than you do. Legal advice should inform your decisions, not replace them.
They find relief in plain communication. Legal matters involve technical terminology where necessary, but much of what lawyers write could be expressed more clearly if there was incentive to do so. We've found that clarity serves clients better than impressive-sounding complexity.
Most fundamentally, they appreciate work being done properly. Documents that accurately reflect intentions. Proper execution and storage. Availability for future questions without pressure. The unglamorous basics of competent legal practice.
Our methodology isn't revolutionary—it's how legal practice should work. Listen carefully, explain clearly, handle matters properly. Three simple principles that guide eighteen years of steady practice in Edinburgh.
See If Our Approach Suits Your Needs
If you're looking for legal guidance delivered with clarity and care, we're happy to discuss whether we can help. No charge for an initial conversation about your situation.
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