Top 3 tips to reduce legal fees in commercial disputes

1️⃣ Be organised.

I can't stress this enough. Saving your lawyer time, saves you money.

Don't wait for your lawyer to ask you for documents.
Be organised and provide them with all the documents related to the case.

1. Gather any pertinent emails and other relevant documentation.
2. Name documents in a manner that makes sense.
3. Provide them to your lawyer in an accessible, organised way.

Note: Be thorough, but please don't give your lawyer the entire contents of your inbox!

2️⃣ Time management

Meet deadlines and respond to your lawyer's questions as soon as you can.

The Singapore Court process requires multiple submissions of documents and other evidence (such as screenshots, financial records, forms, personal information, statements, emails, video and voice recordings). Some of these documents are provided by you and others have to be drafted by your lawyer. Even a simple case, lasting just one year might involve documents totalling 1000's of pages whereas the more complex cases run into the 100,000's.

Failing to meet deadlines will incur various fees (such as your lawyer's application to court for an extension and costs payable to the other side). Last minute work might also result in higher charges such as having to find a commissioner willing to witness the signing of documents after hours. Your own lawyer might even have a higher rate for after hours work.

If you are able to respond immediately after meetings, everything will still be fresh in the lawyer's mind. If you respond 3 weeks later, your lawyer will have been helping other clients in the meantime. This means they will have to relook at your file to refresh their memory and you might incur extra time and cost.

3️⃣ Streamline communication

Agree within your organisation on one authorised representative to deal with your lawyer.

Many a times cost increase is due to the lawyer receiving different sets of instructions from different representatives of a company, sometimes creating confusion or duplicitous evidence. Time is wasted sifting through unnecessary information.

(Of course if you have any internal disagreements and need legal advice on such discussions, please do ask... but that is another topic!)