Templates, an online platform, a high-street solicitor, an HR firm or Buzz Legal: what each costs, what each is good at, and where we are not the answer.
You need a contract looked at, and the choice in front of you is a £30 template, a platform that assembles one from a questionnaire, or a solicitor at the £200–£350 +VAT an hour commonly quoted for this work, with nobody able to say yet how many hours it will be. The answer that decides most of it comes first: if the matter is reserved or already contentious — a claim, a court date, conveyancing, probate — you need a regulated firm and nothing on this page changes that. If it is neither, a fixed price against a written scope beats an hourly meter, and a Buzz Legal contract review is from £249 +VAT, roughly what an hour of that hourly rate buys.
The trade-off deserves stating in the same breath. Work carried out by AD Solicitors carries the full SRA framework: the compensation fund, compulsory professional indemnity arrangements and a route to the Legal Ombudsman. Work we carry out ourselves does not. That is a real difference and it is set out in full below rather than buried. This guide covers five routes, what each is good at, where each falls down, and where we are not the answer.
A contract review is £249 +VAT, marked-up copy back in 5 working days. See what is included.
Under the Legal Services Act 2007, six activities are reserved to authorised firms: exercising a right of audience, the conduct of litigation, reserved instrument activities covering most conveyancing, probate activities, notarial activities and the administration of oaths. Buzz Legal does none of them. Everything outside those six is non-reserved, which means anyone may do it and the only real question is whether they are any good at it.
So ask two things about the job on your desk. Is it reserved? And is it contentious — solicitors instructed on the other side, a claim threatened, proceedings issued, a tribunal date? A yes to either sends you to a regulated firm, and for Buzz Legal clients that is AD Solicitors (authorised and regulated by the SRA, no. 8011228). A no opens up all five options below, and then it is a question of what the document is carrying and how much hand-holding you want.
The cheapest route, and for genuinely low-stakes standard paperwork it is a reasonable one. Anyone who tells you never to touch a template is overselling.
It works when the arrangement is simple and low-value, both sides are relaxed, and you are confident enough to spot a clause that plainly does not match your deal. It falls down because a template is written for an average situation that is not yours, and because it cannot ask you a question. The expensive mistakes are almost never in the words that are there; they are in the words that are missing — the payment trigger, the liability cap, the auto-renewal, the IP clause that leaves you licensing rather than owning. And when the other side pushes back on clause 14, there is nobody to ring.
A clear step up from a raw template. You answer a questionnaire, the platform assembles a document, and some services add on-demand access to a solicitor for an extra fee. For high-volume standardised paperwork this is genuinely good value.
It works when your situation maps neatly onto the questions asked and you are comfortable being the one who decides whether the output is right. It falls down because the questionnaire only knows what it thought to ask. Sit outside its script and it will still hand you a confident, tidy-looking document that quietly misses the point. The optional legal review is usually priced per interaction, so the more the document matters, the more it costs — and you are still the one steering.
The right answer for a whole category of work, and the only answer for some of it. A regulated firm carries compulsory professional indemnity insurance, sits under SRA oversight, gives you access to the compensation fund and the Legal Ombudsman, and can act for you when a matter becomes contentious or has to go to court.
It works when the matter is contentious, high-value or complex, when the work is reserved, or when you want someone who can both advise and represent you under full professional cover. Where it falls down is the everyday paperwork: hourly billing, formality, and a lead time that does not suit a two-paragraph question. The real cost is not the rate, it is that plenty of owners stop asking altogether because it feels like too much fuss for a small job — which is exactly how small jobs become big problems.
If your problem is people — hiring, contracts of employment, handbooks, disciplinaries, the daily drip of staff questions — an HR-support firm is built around precisely that, and many bundle templates with a telephone advice line.
It works when your needs are overwhelmingly employment-focused and you want documents kept current as the rules change. It falls down the moment you step outside people matters: a supplier contract, your website terms, an NDA, a shareholder question, and you are back to finding someone else. A tribunal claim is contentious work that belongs with a regulated firm, not an advice line.
We sit in the gap the other four leave: the non-reserved legal work that actually runs a business, done by a person who knows your business, at a price agreed in writing before anything starts. Contracts read and marked up, terms and conditions drafted, NDAs and supplier agreements, employment documents, handbooks and policies, shareholder agreements, debt chasing and getting a dispute organised before it becomes proceedings.
The published fixed fees, all +VAT: contract review from £249, terms and conditions package from £695, employment starter pack from £895, shareholder agreement from £1,250, HR policies and staff handbook from £1,495. If the work is continuous rather than one-off, subscriptions run at £49 +VAT a month for Legal Foundations, £249 for Business Legal — which includes up to three contract reviews a month — and £499 for Virtual HR Manager on a 12-month agreement. Set any of those against £200–£350 +VAT an hour and the arithmetic makes itself.
Where we are not the answer: anything contentious or heading for court. We say so and route it to AD Solicitors rather than pressing on with work that belongs elsewhere. A dispute that is already live when you approach us goes straight there.
Anything AD Solicitors handles carries the full SRA framework, because they are a regulated firm. Work Buzz Legal carries out itself sits outside it, and three specific protections are the difference. They are worth naming rather than glossing over.
If the stakes make those three protections worth paying for, that is a legitimate reason to instruct a solicitor for the whole matter, and we would rather tell you that than win the work.
Three questions, in order. Is it reserved or already contentious? Is it a defined one-off job or a steady stream of questions — the first suits a fixed fee, the second a subscription? And how much is the document actually carrying: a £500 supplier deal, or the contract behind a third of your revenue? Match the spend to the exposure rather than to habit.
If you already know which box you are in, go straight to the price: fixed-fee work for a defined job, subscriptions if it is a steady stream. If you do not know — which is the most common position — send the thing itself through the enquiry form: the document, whether anything has been signed, any deadline already running, whether anyone else is involved, and one line on what you want to happen.
The initial legal review is a free call, and its first job is to tell you which side of the reserved and contentious line your matter falls on. That answer is useful whichever of the five routes you end up taking, including the four that are not us.
Buzz Legal is a legal services firm and AD Solicitors is the authorised firm alongside it, a division that follows the Legal Services Act 2007. Non-reserved work in England and Wales is ours — contracts, terms, policies, employment documents, shareholder agreements, debt chasing and dispute preparation. Six activities are reserved to authorised firms and we do none of them: conducting litigation, rights of audience, reserved instrument activities covering most conveyancing, probate, notarial activities and administering oaths. Where a matter is reserved or has become contentious it goes to AD Solicitors, authorised and regulated by the SRA (no. 8011228). Robert Festenstein is a solicitor, and he acts on reserved matters through AD Solicitors rather than as part of Buzz Legal Ltd.
Because a template cannot ask a question, and the question is where the value sits. A template does not know that you sell to consumers as well as businesses, that your largest customer's contract has a change-of-control clause, or that the freelancer who built your product never signed an assignment. It also gives you nobody to call when the other side pushes back on clause 14. For genuinely low-stakes, standard paperwork a good template is fine, and we will tell you so rather than sell you something. Where there is real money or real risk in the document, someone reading it against your business is worth more than the words.
For the work we do, yes, and here are the numbers rather than the adjectives. A contract review starts at £249 +VAT; the hourly rates commonly quoted for this kind of work run from £200 to £350 +VAT, which buys between roughly 45 minutes and an hour and a quarter. Ongoing cover starts at £49 +VAT a month and Business Legal is £249 +VAT. The reason is not that corners get cut: we do not carry the cost of SRA regulation, we do not handle client money, and we quote a fixed price against a written scope rather than running a meter. Reserved and contentious work needs a regulated firm, and that is priced separately through AD Solicitors.
Three specific protections, and they are worth naming rather than glossing over. No SRA compensation fund for our own work. No compulsory solicitors' professional indemnity arrangements. And no route to the Legal Ombudsman for complaints about our work — those go through our own complaints procedure, which aims to acknowledge a complaint within five working days and to give a substantive response within twenty working days, with a review by a senior person who was not involved if that does not settle it. Anything AD Solicitors handles carries the full regulatory framework. If the stakes make those protections worth paying for, we would rather tell you that than win the work.
They do different jobs. A helpline attached to an insurance policy is useful for a quick general steer and usually costs nothing extra, but it is advice down a phone from someone who has never seen your documents and will not be there next month. It does not draft your terms, review the contract in front of you, or know your business. The overlap is small: use the helpline for a general question and a drafting service for documents. What a helpline will not do is tell you that the contract you are about to sign has an indemnity sitting outside the liability cap.
It moves to AD Solicitors (SRA no. 8011228), and we tell you the moment we think the line has been crossed rather than pressing on with work that belongs elsewhere. The line is contentiousness: solicitors instructed on the other side, a claim threatened, or proceedings issued. Before that point the preparation is ours and it is genuinely useful — triage, chronology, evidence, letter before action, negotiation — and it settles a fair proportion of matters without proceedings. Where it does not, the prepared file transfers, so the regulated work starts from a position rather than from scratch. A dispute already live when you approach us goes straight to AD Solicitors.
Ask three questions in order. Is the work reserved, or already contentious? If yes, you need a regulated firm and nothing else will do. Is this a one-off, defined job or a steady stream of questions? A defined job suits a fixed fee; a steady stream suits a subscription. And how much does the document actually carry — is this a £500 supplier deal or the contract that carries a third of your revenue? Match the spend to the exposure. The honest position is that no single option wins every time, and anyone who tells you otherwise is describing their own pricing model rather than your problem.
Leave your email and we will come back to you with what a review would involve and what it would cost — agreed in writing before anything starts. Reserved work goes to AD Solicitors, authorised and regulated by the SRA (no. 8011228).
Tell us what has happened and what you want to happen about it. We will come back with what the job involves, who carries it out and what it costs, in writing, before you commit to anything.
