Halstead & Rowe Counsel at Law
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Independent legal practice

Clear advice written in the margin of your decision.

Halstead & Rowe is a small practice for people and owner-led businesses who want the law explained before it is argued. Every engagement begins with a scope you can read in one sitting.

Request a consultation See what we handle
  • Plain-language advice
  • Fixed-scope engagements
  • Written next steps
Tall shelves of bound legal volumes in a quiet reference library, viewed down the aisle.
The reading room Research first, correspondence second. Advice that cites its reasoning is advice you can act on without us in the room.

Practice areas

Six kinds of matter we take on

If your question sits outside these areas we will say so at the first exchange and point you toward a practice that handles it. No engagement begins on a maybe.

  • 01

    Commercial contracts

    Drafting and reviewing the agreements a small business actually signs, with the risky clauses marked up in ordinary language.

    • Supplier and client terms
    • Service and licensing agreements
    • Renewal and exit clauses
  • 02

    Property & leases

    Residential and small commercial transactions, including lease negotiation where the standard form does not fit the premises.

    • Purchase and sale review
    • Commercial lease terms
    • Boundary and access questions
  • 03

    Employment

    Advice for employers writing their first policies and for individuals reading a document they have been asked to sign quickly.

    • Contracts and handbooks
    • Restructures and exits
    • Settlement review
  • 04

    Wills & estates

    Straightforward succession planning, drafted so that the people who will one day read it can follow it without a lawyer beside them.

    • Wills and codicils
    • Powers of attorney
    • Estate administration
  • 05

    Dispute resolution

    Measured correspondence, negotiation and mediation first. Where proceedings are unavoidable we prepare for them properly.

    • Pre-action correspondence
    • Negotiation and mediation
    • Litigation preparation
  • 06

    Second opinions

    A fixed-scope review of advice you already hold, for when a document reads well but something in it is still unsettling you.

    • Document read-through
    • Risk summary in writing
    • Options and likely costs

How the work runs

Four steps, and you can stop after any of them

The process is deliberately slow at the start. Most of the value in a legal matter is created before anything is filed, sent or signed.

  1. First conversation

    Half an hour to describe the situation in your own words. We listen for what the legal question actually is, which is often not the question you arrived with.

  2. Written scope

    Before any substantive work starts you receive a short note setting out what we will do, what it will cost, what we will not do, and what we need from you.

  3. The work itself

    Research, drafting or correspondence, with one named point of contact throughout. You are copied on everything that leaves the office in your name.

  4. Close and handover

    A closing note in plain language: what changed, what to keep on file, what to diarise, and the point at which it would be sensible to speak again.

A pen resting on an open notebook beside a laptop, with handwritten notes in the margin of the page.
Notes you get to keep Every stage produces something readable — a scope, a mark-up, a closing note — rather than a file you cannot open without us.
Portrait of a lawyer in a dark suit and open collar standing against a plain wall.
Ellis Rowe, principal — Halstead & Rowe

The counsel

One lawyer reading your file from start to finish

Halstead & Rowe was opened to practise a narrower kind of law: fewer matters, each one read properly. Ellis Rowe takes on the work personally, which sets a natural limit on how many files the practice carries at once and is the reason the diary is honest about availability.

The approach is unglamorous. Read the documents twice. Find out what the client is actually trying to protect. Write the advice so that it survives being read six months later by someone who has forgotten the conversation. Where a matter needs a specialist — tax, immigration, complex litigation — it is referred out early rather than late.

Admitted to practise and bound by the professional conduct rules of the jurisdiction in which the practice is registered. Professional indemnity cover is in place and the current certificate is provided with every engagement letter.

Practice form
Sole principal, no volume caseload
Working language
Plain English, on request in writing
Fee basis
Fixed scope, agreed in advance
Meetings
In person or by video call

Before you write

The five questions we are asked first

Nothing here is legal advice on your situation — it is how this practice works, so you can decide whether to make contact at all.

How are your fees set?
Most matters are quoted as a fixed scope after the first conversation, so you approve a figure before work begins. Where a matter genuinely cannot be scoped in advance — a live dispute, for instance — you are told that plainly and given a stage-by-stage estimate instead, with a check-in before each stage.
Is the first conversation chargeable?
No. The first half-hour exists so both of us can decide whether this is the right practice for the matter. If it is not, you will leave that conversation with a clearer description of your problem and a sense of who should handle it.
What should I bring or send in advance?
Whatever documents already exist — the contract, the letter, the lease, the will, the correspondence thread — and a short note of the dates that matter. You do not need to organise it. Reading disorganised material is part of the job.
Is what I send confidential?
Enquiries are treated as confidential and are reviewed only by the practice. Full legal professional privilege attaches once an engagement is in place, so please keep highly sensitive detail out of a first web enquiry and raise it in the conversation instead.
Do you work with clients remotely?
Yes. Documents can be exchanged electronically and meetings held by video call, subject to the identity verification every practice is required to carry out. Some steps — certain signings and witnessing — still need to happen in person, and you will be told which ones early.

Request a consultation

Describe the situation in a few lines

You will have a reply from the practice within two working days, either with a time for the first conversation or with a referral if the matter is outside what we handle.

  • No obligation and no charge for the first conversation.
  • Keep the description general — detail belongs in the meeting.
  • If a limitation date is close, say so in the first line.
  • Prefer email? Write to the clerk address in the footer instead.

Sending an enquiry does not create a lawyer–client relationship. That begins only when a written engagement is agreed.