- Get an estimate of your expected legal fees in advance prior to engaging your lawyer.
- Have it confirmed in writing.
- Read your terms of services document (sometimes called retainer or engagement letter). This sets out the basis on which a lawyer charges for his or her time.
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions about legal costs. It’s important that you know how you’re being charged, and the circumstances in which your fees may exceed the estimate you have been given. If your lawyer won’t freely discuss his or her fees and how they charge then you should go to another lawyer. Every lawyer should be up front about their costs.
How should I go about comparing costs between lawyers?
- Hourly rate is important but is not the only consideration.
- If a lawyer who has a low hourly rate does many hours of work on your file at that low rate, the overall cost can still be higher than for a lawyer who charges a higher hourly rate but spends less hours to finalise your matter.
- The number of hours a lawyers spends working on your matter will vary according to the efficiency of their work practices, their experience and the type of approach they take to resolving your matter.
- Will the more routine work on your file be done by a para-legal or clerk at a cheaper rate wherever that is possible?
- There will often be a certain amount of work to be done on any particular matter which does not require legal skill. Such work can be done by law clerks or para-legal staff who charge a lower hourly rate than lawyers.
- Northside Lawyers uses clerks or para-legals to do such work and charges that work to you at their lower hourly.
- Bill Morris may be able to do better with this.
What does Northside Lawyers do to keep your legal costs down?
- What if one lawyer offers a fixed fee?
Bill Morris to write this –
- How do the fixed fee arrangements work? What are the advantages for the client?
- Are there any disadvantages for a client in having a fixed fee arrangement.
- Do we offer fixed fees and when? Should they ask us about it?
- Consider the experience that your lawyer has with your particular type of matter.
- An experienced lawyer will be in a better position to identify the most cost effective way of achieving your desired outcome, thereby keeping your legal fees down.
- An experienced lawyer ….what else?
- Bill Morris to write this.
How does “No Win, No Fee” work?
Estimates of legal costs: What are they? How reliable are they?