A Complete Back Office package is easy to describe in general terms and harder to picture in practice until the scope is written down.
What does it typically include?
Litigation support, drafting, disclosure and document review, and administration, run as a firm’s legal operations function rather than a single task at a time, scoped and priced in writing before work begins, starting from £3,000 a month on our Pricing page.
Why does scoping matter more here than for a single service?
A back office arrangement touches more of a firm’s day to day operation, so both sides benefit from a clear written scope of exactly what falls inside the fixed monthly fee, an approach consistent with our article on fixed fee versus hourly billing.
How does this differ from a single dedicated paralegal?
Breadth. A back office arrangement covers the range of recurring work a firm generates, not one task type in isolation, structured around the supervision model on our How It Works page.
What specific tasks fall inside a typical Complete Back Office scope?
Chronologies, disclosure and document review, first-draft correspondence and pleadings, court filing preparation, diary and case file administration, and routine AML checks during onboarding spikes. Our litigation support, drafting support, and disclosure review articles each cover one slice of what typically sits inside this package.
The point of the Complete Back Office isn’t a different type of work from the smaller packages; it’s the breadth of tasks running simultaneously under one fixed monthly fee rather than scoped and priced separately each time.
What’s deliberately left outside the scope?
Anything requiring the firm’s own regulated judgement: giving legal advice, signing off pleadings, appearing at hearings, and any task where an authorised individual’s professional responsibility can’t be delegated. The back office supports that work; it doesn’t replace the fee earner’s role in directing and approving it, consistent with the supervision principle on our How It Works page.
Getting this boundary right in writing avoids any ambiguity later about who’s responsible for what.
How is the exact scope agreed before work starts?
In writing, task by task, before the monthly fee is set. A firm describes its recurring workload, we map it against the Complete Back Office package starting at £3,000 a month, and both sides sign off on what’s included before the first task begins. That upfront scoping is exactly what our fixed fee versus hourly billing article recommends for any fixed-fee arrangement.
A vague scope is where fixed-fee arrangements run into trouble; a written one, agreed at the outset, is what keeps this package working smoothly month to month.
How does this compare with running an equivalent in-house operations team?
Recruiting a paralegal, an administrative assistant, and covering AML checks in-house means multiple salaries, multiple recruitment cycles, and multiple management relationships, set out fully in our cost comparison article. A Complete Back Office arrangement delivers the same range of functions under one fixed monthly number and one point of contact.
That consolidation is often the biggest practical advantage over building the equivalent capability internally, piece by piece.
Can the scope change once the arrangement is running?
Yes, through the same scope conversation used to set it up initially, not a silent expansion of work absorbed without discussion. Firms scaling from a smaller package toward a full back office, or the reverse, should expect the same written-scope discipline to apply at every stage. Talk it through on our contact page before assuming a change is included automatically.
How much reporting or check-in does a firm get on this arrangement?
A regular cadence, agreed at the outset, rather than radio silence between invoices. Most firms find a short monthly check-in sufficient once the arrangement has settled, covering what’s been delivered and flagging anything that needs adjusting. That visibility is part of what keeps a fixed-fee arrangement accountable over time.
Firms that skip this check-in early on sometimes find scope drift creeps in unnoticed, which is exactly why we recommend building it into the relationship from month one.
Does the team composition stay fixed, or does it flex with workload?
The core dedicated team stays consistent, since continuity is most of the value, but the specific mix of tasks it handles in any given week flexes with what the firm actually needs that month. A quiet month on filing but a busy one on research doesn’t require renegotiating the arrangement; it’s absorbed within the agreed scope.
That flexibility within a fixed scope is different from scope creep. The former is expected; the latter is exactly what a written scope exists to prevent.
What does a typical week look like for a firm running this package?
Instructions reviewed each morning across whichever tasks are live that week, draft work returned against agreed turnaround times, and anything needing the fee earner’s judgement flagged rather than actioned independently. It’s the same daily rhythm covered in our day-to-day article, just spread across a wider range of task types than a single dedicated paralegal would handle.
The breadth is the difference; the underlying supervision and workflow discipline stays identical.
Is this package suitable for a firm with only two or three fee earners?
Often especially so. A small firm generating a full spread of recurring back-office work, disclosure, drafting, filing, administration, benefits from consolidating it under one arrangement rather than trying to build each function separately in-house on a limited headcount. Our provider selection guide covers what to check before committing to a package at this scale.
Does this package suit a firm running multiple practice areas at once?
Yes, and it’s often where the breadth pays off most. A firm running litigation, private client, and employment matters simultaneously generates a wide spread of recurring tasks across all three, and a single back-office arrangement can flex across that mix rather than needing a separate scoped package for each practice area.
The dedicated team learns the conventions of each practice area it touches, the same continuity benefit covered in our day-to-day article, just applied more broadly.
What happens if the firm’s workload genuinely outgrows the package?
That’s a scope and pricing conversation, addressed directly rather than absorbed silently into unpaid overflow. A firm whose recurring workload has grown substantially since the arrangement started should expect the monthly fee to be revisited to reflect that, the same annual-review discipline covered in our article on fixed-fee billing.
Growth is a good problem, and it’s one a written scope handles cleanly rather than letting it become a source of friction.
How does confidentiality and access work across this broader scope?
The same matter-limited access principle applies, just extended across more of a firm’s files than a single dedicated paralegal would touch. The engagement’s data processing agreement covers the full scope of access, deletion, and international transfer terms regardless of how many task types run under the arrangement.
Breadth of scope doesn’t mean looser controls. If anything, a wider-reaching arrangement deserves closer attention to how access is structured, not less.
Where should a firm start if this package sounds like the right fit?
With a plain list of what’s currently eating into a fee earner’s week, disclosure, drafting, filing, admin, or all four. Our contact page is the fastest way to turn that list into a scoped Complete Back Office arrangement, priced before anything is agreed.
Most firms are surprised how much of a full-time function that list already adds up to once it’s written down in one place.
What’s the honest downside of committing to a package this broad?
Less flexibility to switch providers task by task, since the whole back office is running through one dedicated arrangement rather than several separate vendors. That’s a fair trade for most firms given the consistency it buys, but it’s worth naming rather than glossing over: consolidating this much of a firm’s operations means the relationship itself matters more.
That’s exactly why the trial-matter approach matters even more before committing to this size of arrangement than it does for a single paralegal.
Start small if there’s any doubt, then scale up once the fit is proven on a genuine matter.
Want to see what a Complete Back Office would look like for your firm?
We’ll assign a dedicated paralegal to your matter for 7 days, no charge, so you can see the standard of work before deciding anything.
Confidential · No obligation · Typically a 20-minute call
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a Complete Back Office package suitable for a firm with only one or two fee earners?
Yes, it is scoped to the firm’s actual caseload and operational needs, not a fixed size, and often suits smaller firms carrying a broad mix of work.
Does the fee change if workload varies from month to month?
The fee is fixed once scope is agreed. Significant, sustained changes in workload would prompt a scope conversation rather than a mid-month adjustment.
Can a firm start with a smaller package and move to Complete Back Office later?
Yes, firms commonly start with a Single Paralegal or Team of Three package and move up as the working relationship and caseload develop.
