Let’s face it: divorce can be expensive. When deciding whether to divorce, having an idea as to the overall costs is an essential bit of information. Ask your attorney for an estimate. While subject to change based upon how your case unfolds, an experienced attorney should be able to offer some projections. In an effort to assist clients in minimizing their legal fees I have compiled these helpful tips.
Controlling your Legal Fees
The divorce process may be the first time you have worked with an attorney on an hourly basis. It is our goal to provide you with the highest quality legal services in the most cost-effective manner possible. The following suggestions are offered to assist you in controlling your legal fees.
Allow Us To Assign Work To Staff Members
The delegation of work to staff members (such as a paraprofessional or an associate attorney) will result in cost effective legal fees. Through our experience, we know which tasks can be delegated without a decrease in the quality of the services. If it is your preference for a shareholder or senior attorney to handle all aspects of your case, we will accommodate you; but, you may be paying for services which could be provided at a much lower billing rate by a staff person or associate attorney.
Organize Your Phone Calls and Emails
For clients who have not previously worked with attorneys on an hourly billing basis it is sometimes a shock to learn that they will be billed for each telephone conversation. In addition, the billing rate is usually in excess of the actual time spent on the call. The reason that the billed time may exceed the actual time spent on the call is because we are often required to review the file prior to the call, prepare a memo of the call or otherwise take some action subsequent to the call. Therefore, we suggest that you combine as many questions as possible into one call, that you organize your questions by writing them down before you call and that you write down our answers to your questions so that you do not have to call again with the same questions. This will help us to give you better service, and the charges for your phone calls will be minimized.
Returning Phone Calls
We try very hard to make ourselves accessible to our clients, and to return every phone call on the day on which it is received. In addition, our secretaries are usually available to take your calls and we have a voice mail system on which you may leave a message. We retrieve our calls from voice mail on a regular and frequent basis when we are out of the office, in court, during evenings or even over the weekends and will return your call as soon as possible. We ask that you reply to us as soon as possible. Much time is often wasted playing “telephone tag” with you.
Information Gathering and Preparation
During the course of your case, a great deal of information will have to be gathered such as financial records, employment verification, and similar documentation. Some clients are very cooperative in obtaining and organizing information. Other clients do not want to be bothered or they give us the materials in a “shopping bag” leaving us the task of sorting and indexing all the material. We are certainly willing to provide that service to you, but it is not an effective or economical use of your attorney’s time. We encourage you to work on your own to gather and organize as much information as possible. The review and analysis time, and correspondingly your billings, will be reduced considerably.
Think Before You Act or React
It is inevitable that you will have strong emotional reactions to various things that will happen in the process of your divorce. We urge you to think before you act, and to not create confrontations situations which may require expensive legal intervention. It is important to be proactive and not reactive. Examples of such conduct range from an act of domestic violence to stubborn failures to comply with court orders, to failure to return or pick up the children at regularly scheduled visitation time, to inflammatory comments and even threats. In many cases, thousands of dollars can be spent in legal fees addressing or responding to impulsive, angry or ill-conceived actions or reactions. Therefore, please think and respond maturely; speak to us if you are unsure of a course of action or seriousness of a spouse’s remarks.
Understanding the Role of Your Attorney
Clients will have often questions which go beyond legal issues and overlap into financial, child related and behavioral questions. We are trained and have experience as lawyers not as financial planners, child psychologists or counselors. Very often clients will want to discuss these issues with us when they can be discussed much more productively with a competent professional trained in the appropriate field. We will be happy to refer you to the professional best suited to help you.
Review Your Legal Bills
We will, without exception, send you a monthly billing for the work that has been performed I the preceding month. Each attorney personally reviews his or her own billing, and takes care to avoid or correct any errors which may occur in the billing before the bills are mailed to you. However, errors do occur. Please review each bill upon receipt, and contact us if you have any questions. If you discover charges which have been misdirected to your account or are inaccurate, let us know immediately so that they can be corrected and the final bill is accurate and complete. Do not hold onto your concerns until the conclusion of your case. If you do not raise concerns as the bills are provided to you, we will assume you accept the charges.
Pay Your Bills Promptly
The fee agreement which you have entered into with us imposes a service charge on unpaid billings. These service charges can significantly increase your total billings. To avoid these additional charges, please pay your bills promptly and in accordance with the fee agreement. Your failure to pay your bills promptly may cause the Firm to withdraw as your attorney. If you have any questions about the fee agreement or the billing, please do not hesitate to let us know. We value our relationship with you and appreciate the chance to represent you in this case.
