It helps to have one person responsible for all standard letters throughout the practice, so that they are all written in house style, using your house font and are consistent.

However, it is still important to involve all departments as they are likely to need to include information which is particular to their own work types. My advice is to develop a standard ‘terms of business’ document, which can be used by all departments, and to have a separate ‘client care letter’, which deals with the client retainer, any special issues applying to the type of work or funding, such as legal aid.

Common headings for terms of business letters could be: responsibilities; quality; complaints; charges and expenses (general information); limitation of liability; financial crime; data protection; email; storage of papers and documents.

Individual client care letters headings could cover: what we will be doing for you; timescale; responsibility for the work; charges and expenses, as relevant to the particular matter or case; information relating to your case – a work type specific section; costs estimates; ending instructions.

It is important to keep terms of business/client care letters as short as possible, so do not be tempted to waste words to take a swipe at external bodies. For example: ‘I am sorry that I have to write this rather formal letter; but this is information the Law Society requires me to give you.’ It is a formal letter because it concerns a contract between the practice and the client and it is actually helpful to both parties to ensure the terms of the contract are clear.

Crime departments need letters which deal with legal aid at the police station, Magistrates Court and the Crown Court. They need to be up to date in relation to means-testing information and any payments clients may be required to make, such as payments towards prosecution costs. In family departments, you usually need a letter for legal help/family help (lower), emergency certificates, means and merits-tested certificates, and non-means and nonmerit-tested work. There is no need to tell the client about the statutory charge in care cases, where it will never apply. Civil work generally requires similar letters to family, but again tailored to any particular fee schemes or work types.

I often carry out internal compliance ‘health checks’ for practices and I am concerned about the number of letters I see which have not been updated since the Legal Ombudsman service started in 2010. Not only is this a breach of the code of conduct, but if a client did manage to make a complaint to the ombudsman, the office would be very unlikely to waive the £400 investigation fee, even if the practice was not found to be at fault.

A sample wording for including in your letters could be as follows: