A renewal invoice the finance director queries
Your pricing is per fee earner, because that is how law firms budget for software. At renewal, the firm's finance director queries the invoice. You counted everyone with an account. They count partners, associates and solicitors doing chargeable work. In between are trainees, paralegals, legal secretaries who use your product to prepare documents for fee earners, a consultant who works two days a week, and three people on maternity leave.
The account manager and the finance director go back and forth by email. You settle on a number that nobody can explain, and next year the same argument starts again with a different head count.
Why fee earner counts are slippery
In a law firm, fee earner is a working term, not a fixed category. Firms use it differently for billing targets, for their practice management system, and for supplier contracts. Your product adds a third definition: anyone with a login.
- Trainees and paralegals record time but may not be treated as fee earners for software budgets.
- Secretaries and assistants use the product on behalf of fee earners, sometimes more than the fee earners do.
- Part-time staff, consultants and people on leave hold accounts but use them little.
- Leavers are not removed promptly, so counts drift upward.
- The contract says per fee earner without defining it.
What seat disputes cost
Every dispute costs goodwill with the finance director, who is often the person deciding whether to renew. Settlements that nobody can explain lead to discounts that become the new baseline. Meanwhile firms sometimes limit access to avoid paying for seats, so support staff who would make heavy use of your product are left out, which reduces its value to the firm.
Your own revenue reporting suffers too. If seat counts are negotiated rather than measured, you cannot forecast renewals or see whether a firm is growing its use of your product.
How we build seat counting firms can check
What we build turns the seat definition into something the product knows about and can report on.
- Seat types that reflect how firms work: for example, full fee earner seats, support seats for secretaries and assistants, and occasional-use seats, each with rules you set commercially.
- Role information pulled from the firm's practice management system or identity directory, such as job title or fee earner flag, so seat type is suggested rather than guessed.
- Usage measured per user, so a seat that has not been used for a period is visible, and a user on leave can be suspended without losing their settings.
- Leaver handling through the firm's Microsoft Entra ID or a directory sync, so departed staff stop counting when they leave.
- A monthly seat statement for the firm's administrator: users by seat type, changes since last month, and inactive accounts, with the option to reclassify or suspend.
- A sync from seat counts to your billing tool, such as Stripe or Chargebee, applying your contract's rules on true-ups.
| Person | Suggested seat type | Based on |
|---|---|---|
| Partner or associate | Fee earner | Fee earner flag in practice management system |
| Trainee or paralegal | Your commercial rule | Job title from directory |
| Legal secretary | Support | Job title and usage pattern |
| Consultant two days a week | Fee earner or occasional | Your rule and actual usage |
| On leave | Suspended | Admin action, settings kept |
How you define and price each seat type is a commercial decision for you. What we build makes that definition explicit, visible and consistently applied.
Renewal with a statement on file
Twelve monthly statements have already gone to the firm's administrator. They reclassified a handful of users along the way and suspended two people on leave. At renewal, the finance director sees the same numbers they have been seeing all year. The conversation is about adding a new practice group, not about who counts. Secretaries have their own seat type at a lower price, so the firm gives them access instead of holding them back.
Is seat counting causing friction?
- Your contract says per fee earner without a definition.
- Renewals involve arguments about head count.
- Leavers remain on your seat count for months.
- Firms keep support staff off your product to save seats.
- You cannot show a firm how many of its seats were actually used.