For founders who just got an engagement letter
Your lawyer sent you a two-page letter.
It decides what every bill after this costs.
Almost nobody reads the engagement letter. It sets the billing increment, the annual rate increase, who gets staffed on your matter, and whether you ever see an estimate. Upload it and we will tell you what to ask them to change — and what to leave alone at your stage.
Quarter hours
A two-minute email bills fifteen minutes
Firms that bill in quarter-hour increments instead of tenths run 15–30% higher on the same work. It is one sentence in the letter and almost nobody negotiates it.
5–8% a year
Rates go up automatically
Most letters let the firm raise rates every January, uncapped, without telling you. Three years of that is a 26% higher rate on the same partner.
No estimate
Nothing to compare the bill against
If the letter does not require a written estimate before work starts, every invoice is simply what it is. This is the cheapest clause to get and the most valuable.
What you get back
- 1
Every clause that costs you money, quoted
We check 29 specific things — the billing increment, block billing, rate increases, staffing, expense markups, conflict waivers, what happens to your files. Each finding quotes the actual text, or tells you the letter is silent, which is usually worse.
- 2
Sorted by whether you can actually win it
A seed-stage founder whose firm is deferring fees has no standing to demand a rate cap. We ask two questions about your leverage and split the findings into what to always ask for, what to push on, and what to leave for your next raise.
- 3
The email to send back
Written and ready. Paste it into your reply to the partner.
- 4
A billing policy to attach
The terms you agreed become an exhibit to the letter. That is what turns a future invoice question from "this looks like padding" into "this violates Section 4(b)".
Already have invoices from this firm?
Once your billing policy is set, we audit incoming invoices against it — block-billed entries, quarter-hour rounding, timekeepers you never approved, expenses the policy rules out — and draft the pushback. That is next; start with the letter.