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How To limit your legal costs

Helpful tips for your legal consultation and beyond

  1. Keep phone conversations short and to the point. To help you stay on point, you might want to prepare a list of items to go over with your attorney prior to the call.
  2. Generally follow your lawyer’s advice to get your money’s worth. Since you are paying for this advice, you might as well follow it. Keep in mind that your attorney is very experienced and has seen many variations of your case. While it is probably your first experience with this particular type of legal matter.
  3. If you question the advice of your attorney and/or do not agree with it , discuss it with him so that he might explain to you the reasoning behind the advice. Do not simply disregard your attorney’s advice or take actions that are contrary to his advice. Your attorney has likely foreseen future problems that are not obvious to you.
  4. Always tell your attorney the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Do so even if you think it might hurt your case. The truth will surface at some point and it’s better if he knows it ahead of time and can prepare for it. Knowing a bad fact ahead of time will allow your attorney to either choose when to bring it up himself to reduce the impact, or be prepared for an explanation in case it is brought up by the other party.
  5. Understand that all attorneys charge for their time spent working on your case. This is common industry practice. Limit the time by following your attorney’s lead in the conversation. Trust that your lawyer knows what information he needs from you. First answer his questions as directly and to-the-point as you can and then add whatever extra relevant facts you think your lawyer needs to have.
  6. Always abide by court orders and agreements negotiated by your attorney with the other party. This will avoid complications during the case, including the possibility that a lawsuit can be brought against you for violating a court order or written agreement. If you have a valid reason to renege, discuss it with your attorney first! It will be easier and cheaper to come up with a solution before hand rather than to do damage control after the fact.
  7. If there is a conflict with your attorney that can not be resolved between the two of you, bring it to management’s attention so that they can intervene and either resolve the conflict or assign another attorney to your case. This way, you won’t have to go to another law firm and waste money bringing a new group up to speed.
  8. Promptly review invoices and call immediately with any questions regarding your bill. Pay your bills promptly to avoid interest and/or late fees, or even interruption and suspension of your legal services.