The Fees section of each case file prepares the fee estimate and engagement letter for the client: what you are going to do, by phases, what each thing costs and on what terms. A single document the client signs and returns.
The document comes out with your letterhead, logo and signature, as PDF and Word, and with no trace of JUDLEX: the client reads it and it has to look like your own work.
Before the first one: your rates
In Settings › Fees you set up once what every fee estimate will use:
Rates: your items and what you charge for each. Each item has a billing method (fixed price, hourly, per hearing or appearance, per trip, per unit, percentage of the amount in dispute, or success fee) and says whether VAT applies. An item already in use is not deleted: it is archived.
Templates: the phases of each type of matter and the items in each phase. JUDLEX comes with two examples, with no prices: you set the prices.
Document: VAT, withholding, days of validity, the number prefix and the fixed texts (introduction, payment method, costs notice, terms, data protection and right of withdrawal). The starting texts are neutral: review them and write them the way you would.
Above the tabs you will see whether your signature or logo is missing. A fee estimate cannot be delivered without a signature; the logo is not required, but it is recommended. Both are uploaded in My details; each lawyer's signature, on their record under Lawyers at the firm.
Creating a fee estimate
In the case file's Fees section, New fee estimate. Choose the template it starts from (or a blank one) and how it is presented:
Itemised: each phase with its items, units, price and amount.
Summary: everything that will be done told in one text, phase by phase and skipping none, and only the total price with its taxes. Disbursements go separately.
Today's prices from your rates are copied. Changing the rates later does not touch fee estimates already made.
Editing it
While it is a draft, everything can be changed: the phases and their items, the units, an agreed price for a specific line (it overrides the rates and adjustments do not touch it), if applicable phases (shown separately and not added to the total, like an appeal), phases already done when estimating (left out), disbursements (court fees, court agent, notary; without VAT and separate), the payment plan, VAT, withholding, validity and the texts.
The totals on the right are worked out by JUDLEX with every change: subtotal, VAT, withholding, total fees, disbursements and total to pay. If something does not add up (a payment plan that does not match the total, for example) it says so right there.
Adjusting the price
The Adjust price button raises or lowers the price of that fee estimate without touching your rates, for the client and for the case file, as a percentage or in euros (negative lowers it). The client adjustment comes from their record: it is set when editing the client and copied into each new fee estimate.
By default the adjustment is spread across the items and the client sees the prices already adjusted. If you want the document to show it as a separate line («Discount −10%»), tick the box.
With AI, if you want
Propose the fee estimate with AI prepares, through the case file chat, the whole fee estimate if it is empty, or completes it if it already has something: it adds the missing phases, items and disbursements, marks the phases that the documents show are already done and writes the empty texts. What is already there is not touched. Before anything is sent, the app says what goes out (the fee estimate, the rate card, the templates and the list of steps in the case file, without the documents) and that it is charged to the firm's key.
Prices come from:
the rate card, if the item is in it with a price;
otherwise, an average rate searched for on the internet in the firm's country, with the chat's internet search switched on and a provider that searches. Each search is shown in the chat before it goes out, without the client's name, the parties, the case number or the court, and is charged per search (up to 3, and a few more if the estimate is long, never more than 10);
if no source is useful, an AI estimate.
Anything from the internet or an estimate is a guide: it appears in amber, with its source or the estimate mark, and each figure has to be Confirmed (or changed) before issuing. While any figure is in amber or an item has no price, Issue is switched off and says why. The document never says where a figure came from.
The proposal is applied to the draft straight away, and the chat receipt has Undo as long as nobody saves over it.
From the chat, with the fee estimate open, you can ask for any change: "raise the hearing to €900", "add the appeal", "remove the travel", "raise it by 10%". It is applied at once. A figure you say goes in as it is, as an agreed price; the app checks it is in your message. And it only removes or renames what the message names. On an issued fee estimate, the change goes to a new draft version.
Without AI, summary mode comes out just as complete: JUDLEX writes each phase from its items.
Issuing and delivering it
Issue gives it a number (for example, P-7F3A-2026-001) and fixes it. From then on, to change anything you make a new version with the same number, and the previous one is marked as superseded.
Once issued:
Export PDF and Word saves both in the case file folder, under Fee estimates, with the date and time in the name. Each export is a new file; none is overwritten. The Word file has no signature image: sign it when you print it.
Sign with Autofirma opens the PDF in Autofirma. When you finish, Use the signed PDF saves it with the fee estimate; it is only accepted if it is that same PDF with the signature added.
With the Correspondence and filings extension, Send by email leaves a draft email to the client with the PDF (the signed one, if there is one). You review it and send it from Communications.
Preview shows the document exactly as it comes out.
When the client answers
The client accepts: attach the signed sheet (scanned, photographed or a PDF signed with a certificate). It is kept with the fee estimate and goes into the matter's papers as a paper from the client. If the PDF carries an electronic signature, JUDLEX shows whose name it is in, without checking its validity. Without a sheet, you can record the acceptance by saying how they accepted.
Does not accept: it is marked as rejected, with the reason if there is one.
An issued fee estimate expires when its days of validity pass; if the client accepts it anyway, it can still be recorded.