A law that reads like a design brief.

Organic Law 5/2024 of 11 November on the Right of Defence was published in Spain’s Official State Gazette on 14 November 2024 and has been in force since 4 December. It was written with citizens in mind, not law firms. That is why it speaks of rights: what a person can expect from whoever defends them.

It does not mention websites once. But anyone designing a law firm’s website can read it almost like a specification, because many of those rights start to matter before the first meeting, while the client is still comparing firms on a phone.

The right to know how much and how.

Article 6.2 recognises the right to be informed simply and accessibly, by the lawyer who takes on the defence, about several matters. Three concern the website directly. Letter d: the general costs of the proceedings and how professional fees are set. Letter e: the consequences of a possible costs order. Letter h: the lawyer’s identity, with their membership number and bar association.

The duty falls on the lawyer, not on the website. But if a firm explains on its website how it calculates fees, what a costs order is and who signs each matter, the client arrives at the first meeting knowing the essentials, and that meeting starts one step further on.

The General Statute of the Spanish Legal Profession already pointed that way. Its Article 48 requires lawyers to give clients their name, tax number, bar association, membership number, professional address and a means of contact, including an electronic one, and to inform them about fees through an engagement letter or equivalent, together with the consequences of a costs order and its approximate amount.

The engagement letter, in writing.

Article 15 of the Act lets anyone ask for the engagement to be put in writing, in an engagement letter or equivalent. It must set out, in understandable terms, the client’s rights, the essential steps, the main consequences of their decision and a prior estimate of fees and costs. If personal data is collected, the letter includes the information required by Article 13 of the General Data Protection Regulation, and that data may only be used for the defence entrusted.

The Code of Conduct of the Spanish legal profession details in Article 15 what must appear when an engagement letter is signed: the purpose, the work included and what is not, the price stated clearly and prominently or, if it cannot be fixed, the basis for calculating it, disbursements, payment dates and what happens if the engagement ends early.

A website does not sign the engagement letter, but it can prepare it. It can explain what it will contain, show an example without real data and collect at booking what is needed for the draft to be ready on the day of the first consultation.

Confidentiality, on screen too.

Article 16 of the Act declares all communications between lawyer and client confidential. The General Statute, where Article 16 regulates online advice, adds two rules that affect design. Clients must know the lawyer’s identity and bar association before the service is provided and, in any case, before being asked for any payment. And confidential communications must be sent encrypted and with a secure electronic signature, whenever the client’s circumstances allow.

The first rule orders the payment page: the name and bar association of whoever will hold the consultation go before the button, not on the receipt. The second calls into question email as the default channel for documents.

What I would put on screen.

• Who handles the matter. Each lawyer with their bar association and membership number, visible before booking and before paying.
• How fees are set. Hourly, by stage or fixed fee, with what each option includes and what it does not.
• What a costs order is. In one sentence: if the court rejects all your claims, you generally also pay the other side’s costs, unless it finds serious doubts of fact or law.
• The cap on those costs. The part corresponding to lawyers may not exceed a third of the value of the claim for each winning litigant, unless the court finds the case was brought recklessly.
• The engagement letter. What it will contain, with an example without real data, and a commitment to send it before work starts.
• A secure channel for documents. An encrypted space to send them, instead of asking for them by email.

What can be automated.

Almost all of the above can be prepared without the lawyer writing more. The engagement letter can be generated from what the client entered when booking, with the type of matter, the fee arrangement and the data protection information already included, and reach the lawyer as a draft to review and sign. An estimator on the website can explain how fees would be calculated in a typical case, always as guidance and never as a quote. And the update on the state of the matter, which the Act also recognises as a right, can come from the practice management software rather than from anyone’s memory.

Run the test on your most recent new client. Did they know, before signing, what the matter would cost them in the best and the worst case? Did they know it in writing, or because someone told them standing in the corridor? And if tomorrow they wanted to know how their matter is going, would they have to call, or would someone have told them already?

The law turns those questions into rights. A well-designed website can turn them into something the client does not have to ask for. In the Orvalle concept, the fee estimator compares Switzerland and Spain and explains, for each country, what losing a case means. If you want to know which parts of your firm’s work can be automated, the Automation Assessment delivers a report with fixed prices within a week.