What Corporate Legal Counsel Costs

Quick answer

A corporate legal retainer with Vivas & Nobles Law Office comes in two tiers: a Starter tier at ₱15,000 per month for 10 hours of professional time, and a Standard tier at ₱30,000 per month for 20 hours. Standard-tier clients also get a 30% discount on every professional fee outside the retainer — litigation, government proceedings, appearances, special projects, and excess hours.

Most firms will not put these numbers in writing until you ask. We publish them because a business cannot budget around "it depends" — and because every figure below is the same one you would hear in our office.

The two retainer tiers

Starter — ₱15,000 per month, 10 hours of professional time	fees outside the retainer at standard rates
Standard — ₱30,000 per month, 20 hours of professional time	30% off all professional fees outside the retainer

The fee schedule at a glance

Service	Standard rate	Standard-tier rate (30% off)
Excess professional time beyond the monthly hours	₱3,500 per hour	₱2,450 per hour
Litigation acceptance fee (courts, arbitration, DOLE, NLRC, appellate)	starts at ₱75,000 per case	starts at ₱52,500 per case
Pleading fees	₱5,000 to ₱20,000 per pleading	₱3,500 to ₱14,000 per pleading
Appearance fee (hearings, conferences, meetings outside the office)	₱7,000 per appearance	₱4,900 per appearance
Appearances before government agencies and regulatory bodies	₱7,000 per appearance	₱4,900 per appearance
Corporate restructuring	starts at ₱500,000	starts at ₱350,000
Due diligence	starts at ₱100,000	starts at ₱70,000
Intellectual property registration	starts at ₱40,000	starts at ₱28,000
Out-of-pocket expenses (filing, docket, publication, courier, travel)	at cost, with official receipts — no discount, these are not our fees

The monthly retainer

The retainer is the core of the arrangement. The Starter tier is ₱15,000 per month for 10 hours of professional time; the Standard tier is ₱30,000 per month for 20 hours. Those hours go to the day-to-day work a business actually generates — legal advice on decisions before they are made, review and drafting of contracts, employment and compliance questions, and demand letters — the scope described on our Corporate & Retainer Services page.

Professional time beyond the monthly hours is billed at ₱3,500 per hour on the Starter tier and ₱2,450 per hour on the Standard tier. There is no surprise in the transition: the retainer hours are tracked, and you see where they went.

The tiers differ in one other way, and it is the bigger one: Standard-tier clients pay 30% less on every professional fee outside the retainer — the litigation, government-proceeding, appearance, and special-project fees below. If your business expects a dispute, a filing, or a project in the next year, the Standard tier is usually the cheaper tier overall, not the dearer one.

Why a retainer rather than paying case by case? Because the disputes that cost businesses the most are the ones counsel never saw early. Our commentary on what a legal retainer actually covers makes the longer version of that argument.

Litigation and adversarial proceedings

When a matter becomes adversarial — before the regular courts, in arbitration, or before the DOLE, the NLRC, or an appellate court — it is billed as its own case, separately from the retainer. The acceptance fee starts at ₱75,000 per case, depending on complexity. On top of that sit pleading fees of ₱5,000 to ₱20,000 per pleading and an appearance fee of ₱7,000 per hearing. For Standard-tier retainer clients, all three carry the 30% discount: acceptance from ₱52,500, pleadings ₱3,500 to ₱14,000, and ₱4,900 per hearing.

The structure is deliberate: the acceptance fee prices the case as a whole — its theory, its evidence, its risk — while the pleading and appearance fees track the work the case actually generates. A dispute that settles after a strong position paper costs less than one that runs to trial, and the billing follows that reality rather than flattening it.

Where a contract provides for it, arbitration or mediation is often the faster and more private route, and it is billed under this same schedule.

Other government proceedings

Not every proceeding is adversarial. For matters before government agencies and regulatory bodies — the SEC, the BIR, local government units, and similar — the appearance fee is ₱7,000 per appearance, and drafting and pleading fees of ₱5,000 to ₱20,000 apply where documents must be prepared. Standard-tier retainer clients pay ₱4,900 per appearance and ₱3,500 to ₱14,000 per document.

Appearances outside the office

Hearings, conferences, and meetings outside the office are billed at ₱7,000 per appearance — ₱4,900 on the Standard tier. The rate is the same whether the venue is a courtroom, a government agency, or the conference room of a counterparty.

Special projects

Work with a defined beginning and end is priced as a project, not against retainer hours. Corporate restructuring starts at ₱500,000. Due diligence starts at ₱100,000. Intellectual property registration starts at ₱40,000 — our guide to trademark registration with IPOPHL explains what that process involves. The Standard tier's 30% discount applies here too: restructuring from ₱350,000, due diligence from ₱70,000, and IP registration from ₱28,000 — on a single restructuring, the discount alone can exceed a year of retainer fees.

Final fees depend on the scope of work, and we will provide a separate written proposal for each project before engagement. You will know the price before we start, in writing — never after.

Expenses

Filing fees, docket fees, publication costs, courier, travel, and other out-of-pocket expenses are billed at cost and supported by official receipts. These are the government's and third parties' charges, not ours, and the receipts make that auditable — which is also why the Standard tier's 30% discount does not apply to them: there is no professional fee in them to discount. Anyone quoting you a lump sum for "expenses" without receipts behind it should be asked to itemise.

What moves the numbers

Complexity, principally. The ₱75,000 litigation acceptance fee is a starting point; a multi-party commercial dispute or a consolidated appellate case is priced above it, and we will tell you why in specific terms. The project fees move with scope — a due diligence over one target company is not a due diligence over five. What does not move is the structure: every engagement gets the same schedule, and every departure from the starting figures is explained before you commit.

One boundary on the Standard tier's discount, stated plainly so there is no argument later: it applies to matters engaged while the Standard retainer is active. It is a benefit of being a retained client, not a coupon for a single case.

Frequently asked questions

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