How do I create a proposal?

After clearing conflicts and agreeing to participate, you'll see the Proposal section at the top of the request. The proposal due date is shown above.

Click the Create New Proposal button to be directed to the Draft Proposal screen.

A proposal has up to three sections. Which sections appear depends on the request type:

1. Proposal Summary
2. Pricing
3. Questions

Proposal Summary

This can act as a cover letter to your proposal and can include anything that you think is helpful for the client to know. Use it for your relationship with the client, your strategic approach, or a summary of high-level assumptions.

Pricing

Enter fees at up to three levels: the total price, items (one per phase of the matter), and sub-items (the activities within a phase). The levels you see depend on the client’s pricing structure.

Depending on the matter, the overall price field can be either a manual Total Price field (to allow for greater flexibility) or Comparison Value (which leverages auto-sum functionality). What’s the difference between Total Price and Comparison Value? explains the differences.

This example uses Total Price:

This example uses Comparison Value:

For the total price, items, and sub-items, the client's pricing preference (e.g. fixed fee, capped fee, budget estimate) is shown.

You may choose to deviate from the client's fee preference by clicking on the Pricing dropdown menu, if the client has not locked this type.

You can also add your own sub-items within a phase/item. This provides granularity on the cost drivers within the scope of work.

If a firm will not or cannot provide pricing for an item for any reason, you can toggle the Excluded from Scope button.

Questions

The nature of the Questions section varies depending on the matter and the client. This is your opportunity to showcase qualitative strengths like your skill, team, experience and strategy.

Submitting the Proposal

Once you've filled out all sections, you can Submit your proposal.

The Submit button lives in two places: the top right of the navigation bar and the bottom right of the drafting page. You'll need to confirm the action by clicking Submit again in the popup.

You'll find the newly submitted proposal under the Proposals section of the request. Until the deadline passes, you can edit your proposal.

You can also withdraw your proposal.