Whether you are in-house corporate counsel working with us on a multi-million dollar commercial case, or a struggling spouse in a family law matter, you have a great deal of control over the cost of retaining counsel. Here are a few “tricks” we’ve seen over the decades of representing clients of all types in south Florida.
- Gather the Relevant Documents. This is probably the most important rule for saving money.
- At the beginning of the representation. Experience tells us that whether the case involves ten thousand dollars or ten million dollars, there are generally fewer than ten documents that are considered important documents (contracts, letters, emails, handwritten notes, photographs, etc.) Go ahead and put those together before our first meeting. Very often a prospective client thinks he has a document that means something, only to find out that it means something . . . else. These “top documents” will greatly assist the attorney’s initial review and evaluation.
- After we have been retained and have started on the case. In this next phase, it is important to start to gather ALL of the other documents. You may have to get them from your attic, your storage room, your business partners, your bank, etc. and that will take some time. The documents we will probably need are not only those that you think are relevant, but also those that the other side may see as even “reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” If that legal standard sounds very broad, that’s because it is!
- Most everything in litigation today is being transmitted and recorded electronically. For the vast majority of documents, that means Adobe Acrobat (“.pdf”) formats. If you can provide us with your documents already in Acrobat format, you could save a lot of money. Whatever you send us will be OCR’d and optimized, so you can save money doing that ahead of time as well. If you use a logical naming convention for your file names, all the better.
- While not necessarily a money-saver, do understand that you need to place all possibly relevant documents on a “litigation hold.” We will discuss this later, but for now, simply understand that it is not a good idea to have to explain to a judge that you had documents when the litigation started by you lost or destroyed them.
- Distill and Organize the Relevant Facts. It is probably easier for you just to make an appointment to come in to our offices and “tell us the story” – and we are happy to have you do that if you like – but you can really save significant fees by writing down the relevant facts in a logical order (usually chronologically). It doesn’t have to be fancy and it doesn’t have to be perfect: Just make a bullet point list of what you think are the most important facts. Try to go in chronological order and be as specific as you can be with regard to dates, spellings, and the sources of the “facts.” Some cases can be put on a page or two if done succinctly. If you are referencing documents, be specific as to pages or sections that are important (and of course, consistent to Rule 1 above, any referenced documents should also be produced to us). We will certainly be asking questions later – and we may uncover some facts which are very relevant to lawyers that were not obviously so to our clients – but this makes for a great head-start.
- Define your Goals. Would it surprise you to hear that many times prospective clients are not even sure what they want? In fairness, it really does take legal training and experience to know what the available remedies are in many cases. Still, forget about that and just take some time to consider what you really want: Your money back? A new [whatever]? A release from certain contractual obligations? Money damages for [make a list]? Now is a good time to define your goals for prospective litigation. This can have a direct savings effect on your case since we will both be focusing on what is really important.
- Answer Your Lawyer Fully, Completely, and On Time. This may surprise you, but with some clients, we spend a lot of extra time just getting answers or documents. This extra time translates into client dollars on your invoice. For example, in a Family Law case, there are specific categories of certain types of documents that must be produced to the other side. There is a time limit by which these documents must be produced. When we provide this list and the due date to our clients, some will inevitably take that as a “suggestion” instead of a requirement. Of the twenty requested items, they will provide eleven. This then starts a series of follow-ups leading to more and more charges on a bill. Gathering documents is no fun – we understand. Paying lawyers to make you do it, however, just costs you money.
No two cases are the same, so your requirements may differ from another’s. Likewise, we are always looking for ways to save our clients money so we may from time to time make suggestion to help you. If you can remember these four rules, though, we’re sure you will be well on your way to controlling your legal expenses.
–M. Glenn Curran, III, Esquire
