How we work — and when we’re not the right firm
Most law firm websites claim to do everything for everyone. This page does the opposite. Neo Legal is built for a specific band of work — complex financial-services regulation, digital assets, cross-border structuring and private wealth — run by senior counsel only, priced as fixed or staged fees wherever scope allows. For everything else, we will tell you who to call instead. Clients keep coming back precisely because the first answer is sometimes “not us,” and occasionally “don’t do this at all.”
What we’re first-choice for
Three pillars, deliberately narrow. Financial-services regulation and licensing across every UAE regulator — VARA, DFSA, FSRA, CBUAE and the CMA — from feasibility through application to supervision. Digital assets — exchange and VASP programmes, token structuring, custody and tokenisation. Private wealth — family offices and UHNW structuring in DIFC and ADGM, including the Digital Wealth Family Office programme where traditional and digital assets meet. Around those pillars sit the corridors we run daily: UAE–Australia through Cornwalls, and UAE–Asia through the China Desk.
What we’ll send elsewhere
Mega-scale, multi-continent mandates where the board wants a global platform — we’d rather be the strategic architect working alongside one than pretend to be one. Bet-the-company contentious litigation — that belongs with a dedicated disputes powerhouse, while we hold the regulatory and structural strategy. Complex US, UK or EU tax as the main event — that needs a global tax engine, and we coordinate with them rather than improvise. And simple, routine, price-driven work — a senior-only model is the wrong tool, and charging you senior rates for it would be the wrong advice. Saying this out loud costs us small mandates and wins us the right ones.
The senior-only model
No pyramid. The partner or counsel you meet on the first call runs the file, drafts the advice and fronts the regulator. This is why the firm stays deliberately compact — a fifteen-strong bench of partners and specialists — and why clients in the “complex but not mega-cap” band consistently find the model better value than a global firm’s leverage machine: you pay for judgement, not for the training of the people doing the photocopying.
Fees: agreed, not discovered
Licensing programmes, structures and defined projects are quoted as fixed fees or staged milestones before work starts — the way our proposals have always been written. Where genuine uncertainty makes fixed pricing dishonest, we say so, cap what can be capped, and re-scope at defined gates rather than letting the meter run. And the feasibility answer comes first: if the licence is not achievable, the structure not defensible, or the transaction not worth its costs, you will hear that in week one — it is the cheapest advice we give and the reason clients trust the rest of it.
The ecosystem, named
As the UAE practice of Cornwalls (est. 1891), Australian law runs in-house to the group. Beyond it, we maintain a deliberately short list of partners: global tax platforms for US/UK/EU-driven matters, specialist disputes counsel for major contentious work, licensed Emirati advocates for onshore court advocacy, and VARA-licensed custodians and corporate-service providers we have vetted on real files. One strategy, one point of accountability, several sets of hands where the matter genuinely needs them.
Working with Neo Legal — frequently asked questions
Not sure if we’re the right firm?
Ask. The fit conversation costs nothing and is honest by design — if the answer is a global platform, a disputes shop or “do nothing,” that is what Neo Legal will tell you.
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