Aren’t all legal consultations free?
Nope! Not anymore!
When I first started out as an attorney, I held legal consultations for free. After all, I thought, isn’t that what everyone does? It used to be that way, but, today, a majority of attorneys charge for legal consultations, even though they’re not giving out legal advice.
A legal consultation is that first visit with an attorney when you explain to them what your legal problem is. At the point when you call their office, you may not even be sure if you really need a lawyer. That’s part of the problem! You don’t have enough information to know if you actually need legal help. Other times, you may feel certain that you need an attorney but you don’t know how to prepare for that first meeting so you can present your case in the best light.
At a legal consultation, there are two main objectives. The attorney wants to hear your side of the story so that they can decide whether or not to take on the case, and you want to explain your legal problem to the attorney so you can get some basic information and decide for yourself whether this attorney is going to be the best one to help you. Unfortunately, many times, the “best” attorney for you is simply the one whose office answers the phone or returns your call!
During a legal consultation, a few things might happen without you even knowing it. The first thing that happens is that the attorney becomes bound to confidentiality. That means that the attorney cannot tell anyone else anything that you discuss at the meeting. Even if the attorney does not take your case, they have to keep everything you talked about a secret. The other thing that happens is that the attorney develops a conflict of interest with anyone else involved in that specific legal issue. For example, if you set up a legal consultation about a divorce and meet with an attorney, that attorney would be disqualified from later talking to your spouse about the divorce. If they called up that attorney and tried to schedule a consultation, the lawyer would have to say, “I’m sorry, but I have a conflict of interest” because they had already met with you.
These are two reasons why most legal consultations are no longer free. Attorneys started to realize that their time and energy was too valuable to give away for nothing! Every consultation requires that they listen to more secrets and miss out on future clients. On top of that, there are a variety of other reasons attorneys decided it was wiser to charge for consultations, and, now, it is rare to find a private attorney who will meet with you for free.
As a result, you might have to pay hundreds of dollars just to meet with a lawyer. And, they’ll only give you basic information, because, at the consultation, you probably won’t get any actual advice! Before an attorney gives you advice specific to your situation (and creates an attorney-client relationship) they will:
- Tell you they can’t take you as a client, in which case you’ve spent $$$ for nothing; OR
- Tell you they need to research your issue further and will get back to you, in which case you may feel like you wasted your time; OR
- Tell you that they will represent you but, first, you need to give them a couple thousand dollars in a “retainer” fee before they can do anything further, in which case you may feel worried that you’ve gotten in over your head.
Online Legal Tutorials provides you the information you need so you can determine whether you need an attorney or not, and, if you do, how to best prepare for that meeting so you can make the most of your time and money, because YOUR time and YOUR money are valuable, too!
