A client care letter is the letter you send at the start of a retainer setting out what you will do, what it will cost, who is responsible, and what the client can do if something goes wrong. The letter itself is not prescribed anywhere. The information in it is.
That distinction explains why two firms can send very different looking letters and both be right, and why a letter can look thorough and still miss something a regulator will ask about. This is a practical guide to what has to be in one. It is market commentary and a compliance overview, not legal advice.
What the rules actually require
Four things, and they are worth stating precisely.
The best possible information about price. Not a rate card. The requirement is the best possible information about how the matter will be priced and the likely overall cost, and it applies at the point of engagement and as the matter progresses. An opening estimate that is quietly overtaken does not discharge it. A written update before the bill arrives does.
The right to complain, in writing. The client must be told, in writing, that they can complain about your service and about your charges, how to complain, and to whom. Charges are the half most often left out.
The Legal Ombudsman, and when it can be used. The client must be told they can take an unresolved complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, given the timeframe, and given the contact details.
Whether and how your services are regulated. Which activities you carry out as an authorised person, and what regulatory protections apply. If part of a retainer sits outside your authorisation, that is exactly where saying so matters.
The time limits most letters get wrong
The Legal Ombudsman's time limits changed on 1 April 2023, and a great many client care letters still print the old ones.
The limits now are one year from the act or omission complained about, or one year from the client realising there was a concern, and six months from your final written response. They used to be six years and three years. A letter still quoting six years is telling clients they have far longer than they do.
There is a second point that matters more than it looks. That six-month limit only binds if your final response says the right things. It applies where the response prominently tells the client that the Legal Ombudsman is available, gives its full contact details, and warns that the complaint must be referred within six months. Leave any of those out and the complaint can be brought later.
So the wording is not only for the client care letter and the complaints procedure. It belongs in the final response letter itself, which is the document that actually depends on it.
What a good letter does that a compliant one might not
Meeting the rules is the floor. A few additions cost nothing and prevent most of the arguments.
Say what is not included. Scope disputes usually start with an assumption nobody wrote down. A short list of what falls outside the retainer, for example tax advice or advice on the commercial merits, is worth more than another paragraph on what is inside.
Give a ceiling, not just an estimate. "We will not exceed this figure without speaking to you first" is a sentence clients remember and it is easy to honour.
Warn about bank details fraud. The common fraud is an email that appears to come from you saying your account has changed. Telling the client plainly that your details will never change, and that they should telephone a number they already have before sending money, gives them something concrete to check against. This is the single most useful paragraph in the whole letter.
Name a complaints contact who is not the fee earner. Clients who are unhappy with the person handling their matter will not raise it with that person.
Keeping it true as the matter moves
The obligation about costs is continuing, and that is where most firms drift. The letter is accurate the day it goes out and slowly stops being accurate.
Two habits fix it. Update the estimate in writing when the picture changes rather than at the next bill. And keep the letter with the matter rather than in a separate folder, so the person doing the work can see what the client was told.
Writford keeps the retainer and the costs information on the same record as the time recording and the billing, which is the point: the estimate and the figures that will test it are not in two systems.
Our free legal template library includes a client care letter, terms of business and a complaints procedure drafted to the requirements above, with the current Legal Ombudsman limits rather than the pre-2023 ones. They are meant to be adopted together, because each refers to the others.
For the client money side of the same relationship, our guide to SRA accounts rules software covers what a firm has to be able to show about money it holds.