The problem
Before advice starts, the client needs your terms of business and any fee agreement. Posting or emailing PDFs that must be printed, signed and scanned back takes about 15 minutes a client in sending, chasing and filing: at 15 new clients a month, 225 minutes, almost 4 hours.
What the AI does
Legalesign is an e-signature service built for legal documents: you send a document for signing, track who has signed and keep an audit log. Solo Basic is $13£10€12A$19C$19 a month plus VAT with fair use of 20 documents. The case handler sends your firm's own terms and fee agreement as one document when the client books, and the adviser checks it is signed before advice starts. Legalesign carries your wording; the content of your terms and disclosures is your FCA responsibility, so your compliance support signs them off.
A worked example
A two-adviser brokerage in Swindon takes on about 15 new clients a month and sends terms of business and fee agreements as PDFs. They combine both into one document and send it through Legalesign Solo Basic, run by the case handler.
Before
15 clients a month at 15 minutes each to send, chase and file: 225 minutes
After
15 clients a month at 4 minutes each: 60 minutes, with an audit log on every file
What it's worth
About $92£69€82A$132C$130 a month saved, against a $13£10€12A$19C$19 cost. That is 165 minutes, 2.75 hours a month, valued at $33£25€30A$48C$47 an hour. Solo Basic is $13£10€12A$19C$19 a month plus VAT ($16£12€14A$23C$23 with VAT) with fair use of 20 documents, enough for 15 clients; Team plans for several users are $20£15€18A$29C$28 a user a month.
How to set it up
- Have your compliance support confirm your current terms of business and fee agreement.
- Combine them into one document and upload it to Legalesign as a template with signature and date fields.
- Send it when the client books their first appointment, and check it is signed before advice starts.
- Talk the client through your fees and how you are paid in the first meeting, and note that you did.
- File the signed document and audit log in the CRM case record.
What goes wrong
- A signature doesn't show the client understood your fees. Under Consumer Duty, explaining them clearly is still the adviser's job.
- Solo Basic's fair use is 20 documents a month; sending terms and fees separately doubles the count.
- Legalesign's page is inconsistent about reminders on the lower plans, so test whether they work before relying on them.