Stoneform Legal
A small advisory practice for founders, property owners and employers who would rather resolve a question properly at the start than argue about it later. Every matter is conducted by the lawyer you meet.
What we take on
The practice is deliberately narrow. If a matter sits outside these lanes we will say so in the first conversation and point you toward someone who handles it properly.
01
Drafting and reviewing the documents a business actually signs: supply and service terms, distribution arrangements, licensing, shareholder and founder agreements. Reviews come back as a marked document plus a short note listing what to negotiate, what to accept and what to refuse.
02
Residential and small commercial transfers, lease drafting and review, servitudes and boundary questions. We handle the title work and the correspondence with the other side, and we tell you at the outset which parts of a transaction are genuinely within your control.
03
Employment contracts, restraint and confidentiality clauses, restructuring advice, and guidance through disciplinary or grievance procedures. Advice is written so a manager can follow it without a lawyer in the room, because that is usually the situation.
04
Demand letters, responses to demands, negotiated settlements and mediation. Most matters that reach us are still capable of being settled, and we will tell you plainly when a dispute is worth pursuing and when the cost of being right exceeds the value of the claim.
How a matter proceeds
Uncertainty about process causes more anxiety than the law itself. This is the sequence every matter follows, from first enquiry to file closure.
Stage 01
A scheduled conversation to establish what has happened, what outcome you want and whether the matter is one we should take. Conflict checks are run before the meeting is confirmed.
You provideA short written summary and the names of anyone else involved
Stage 02
A written engagement letter setting out the work, the fee basis, who will conduct it and how long each part should take. Nothing is billed before you accept it.
You provideSigned engagement letter and identity verification
Stage 03
Drafting, review, correspondence or negotiation, with a progress note at each agreed milestone rather than silence punctuated by invoices.
You provideDocuments, prior correspondence and timely decisions
Stage 04
Final documents, a closing note explaining what was agreed and what obligations now sit with you, and a copy of the file for your records.
You provideConfirmation that the outcome matches what you expected
Engagement and fees
The fee basis is agreed in writing before work begins. Which structure applies depends on how predictable the matter is, not on how much the matter is worth to you.
A single quoted amount for work with a known shape: a contract review, a standard lease, a letter of demand, an employment agreement. The quote includes one round of revisions and the closing note. If the matter changes materially, we re-quote before continuing rather than absorbing it into an hourly rate.
The matter is split into stages with a fixed amount for each, billed as each stage completes. You can stop at the end of any stage without owing for work not yet begun. Most property transfers and negotiated agreements are handled this way.
Used only where the volume of work genuinely cannot be predicted, principally in contested matters. An estimated range and a ceiling are agreed at the outset, and you are told before the ceiling is approached, not after it is passed.
Third-party costs such as deeds office charges, sheriff fees, courier and search costs are never folded into the professional fee. They appear as their own line, with the underlying invoice available on request.
The practice
Stoneform Legal was set up by Marin Ashcombe after a decade in larger firms, on a simple premise: clients are better served when the person who takes the first call is the person who does the work and signs the final letter.
The practice takes a limited number of matters at a time. That limit is the whole point — it is what allows a contract review to come back in days rather than weeks, and it is why some enquiries are declined rather than queued.
Questions clients ask first
Yes. Legal professional privilege attaches to communications made to obtain legal advice, and it applies from the first consultation whether or not you go on to instruct the practice. The only practical limits are the ordinary ones: privilege does not cover a request for help committing an offence, and it does not protect a document simply because it was copied to a lawyer.
A short written timeline of what happened and when, the agreement or document at the centre of the matter, and any correspondence with the other side — including messages and emails you would rather not have sent. Incomplete information is common and workable; edited information is not, because advice built on a partial account usually has to be redone.
Tell us the deadline in your first message, because urgency changes the order of work rather than the process. A letter of demand or an urgent contract review can usually be turned around within a few working days once the conflict check and engagement letter are complete. Where a court deadline is already running, say so immediately — some time limits cannot be extended.
Before accepting a matter we check whether the practice already acts for, or has previously advised, anyone on the other side. Acting where a conflict exists is not permitted, so the check is run before a consultation is confirmed rather than after. It normally takes under a day and needs only the full names of everyone involved.
Yes, and it is a sensible use of a fixed fee. Bring the existing advice and the underlying documents. You will get a written view on whether the reasoning holds, where the risk is greater or smaller than described, and whether a different approach is available. If the first opinion is sound we will tell you that, which is usually the cheapest possible outcome.
For contracts, employment and advisory work, distance makes little difference: consultations are held by video and documents are exchanged electronically with signatures handled the same way. Property matters are more constrained, because certain steps require documents to be signed in person before the right official. We will tell you which steps those are before you engage, not halfway through.
Request a consultation
A few lines is enough to start. You will get a reply within one working day confirming whether the matter suits this practice, what the consultation will cost and the times available.