UNDERSTANDING THE FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY YOU ARE UNDERTAKING

Attorneys can charge for their services in several different ways.  The most popular fee arrangements include hourly fees, flat fees, and contingent fees.

Hourly fees mean your attorney will charge you by the hour, there is usually a minimum billable time.  It is fairly standard to bill see an attorney bill minimums in increments of 0.10 (6 minutes), or 0.167 (10 minutes), or 0.250 (15 minutes), or 0.333 (20 minutes) .  So even if you only speak to your attorney for a few moments, or it only takes your attorney a few moments to read and reply to your email/text, you will be billed for the preset minimum amount of time.  Most attorneys will round up if you are more than halfway to the next minimum increment, while others try to balance when they do this and when they round down.  This should all be in your representation agreement, if it is not you should ask for it to be. 

You want to know the hourly fee for all work done (by attorney, paralegal, and support staff as applicable) and the minimum increments and if there is a firm policy regarding rounding.  Costs can add up fast, so it is important you be very mindful of this if you are concerned about your bill.

Flat fees mean the attorney will give you a cost for a particular service, and then let you know what other fees you might incur. Attorneys determine their fees based on estimated calculations of how long it will take to complete a task, the benefit of this is that most attorneys will also speak to you as needed during the process without an additional charge.  I prefer billing this way because I don’t want clients to worry about the costs involved and not contact me for fear of the bill.  However, I expect certain things from my clients which I make very clear upfront such as timely response, not needing to ask for something twenty times, and the client doing as asked in general in a timely manner.

In cases of hourly billing, I prefer attorneys who will let you know what they worked on during this time.  I personally do not require a ton of detail, but I want to see on the bill what they did in the time they are billing for.  Most ethical regulations do require a certain level of explanation for billing.

Be sure you also are aware how often bills are sent, is it on a specific schedule based on time, or perhaps when you reach a certain amount.  In cases where you are paying a retainer, this is even more important to know because a lot of clients presume if they do not see a bill for 3 months, they are still working off their retainer, when that may not be the case.  It is also important to know in what amounts future retainers will be due, or if at some point you move to a pure pay as you go bill, and how much time you have to pay after receiving a bill. Again, I prefer clear communications, so I would always “bill” at least monthly so clients could see each month the amount being reduced from his/her retainer.

Contingency fees are when an Attorney only gets paid if they secure you a settlement, keep in mind in these cases there are usually lots of other fees taken off the top first.  As always the key is to be informed upfront so nothing is a surprise.

Other fees an attorney may charge include a wide range of third-party fees such as postage, printing fees, and experts/consultants, again this should be in your representation agreement.

It is very important that you, as the Client, fully understand what your fees are for your attorney, and what other fees you are responsible for, how you will be billed, and what is being done on your behalf. If you do not understand these things, ask!  And keep asking until you understand.