People arrive at a first appointment with a story and very little else. The story is usually accurate and almost always in the wrong order. What follows is drawn from a conversation with an attorney in general practice, edited for length, on what would make that first hour worth what it costs.
The hour is spent on establishing, not advising
"The thing clients do not see is that most of a first meeting is me building a timeline. Who agreed what, when, and what was written down at the time. I cannot advise on a position until I know what the position is.
"If someone arrives with a folder in date order, we spend fifteen minutes on facts and forty-five on options. If they arrive with a story, we spend the hour on facts and book a second meeting. Same fee, half the value, and it was entirely avoidable."
What to bring
"Everything in writing, in date order, unedited. The contract or the terms, even if you think they are irrelevant. Every email and message thread with the other side, including the ones where you were short-tempered, especially those, because if they exist I would rather see them before the other side quotes them at me.
"Photographs with dates. Invoices and proof of payment. Any notes you made at the time, however rough. A note written the evening of a conversation is evidence. A recollection of that conversation eight months later is considerably weaker, and clients are often surprised by how much weaker.
"And a page at the front saying what you want to happen. Not what you think you are entitled to, what outcome would actually satisfy you. Those are frequently different, and the gap between them is often the whole conversation."
How fees are actually quoted
"Hourly is the default and it is honest, but it makes people anxious because it is open-ended. Ask for an estimate to the next milestone rather than to the end. Nobody can price the end of a dispute at the outset, because the other side has a say in how it goes. Most of us can price getting to the point where we know whether they will settle.
"Flat fees exist for defined pieces of work, a contract review, a demand letter, a will. If your matter is one of those, ask, because many firms will quote and not everyone volunteers it.
"Ask what is not included. Court filing fees, a process server, an expert, records requests. These are costs on top of the hourly rate, and a client who does not know that gets an unpleasant surprise at exactly the wrong moment."
The problems that do not need a lawyer
"A good half of the inquiries I take could be resolved without me, and I tell people so.
"If it is a dispute with a retailer, exhaust their complaint process first, then your state attorney general's consumer division or the Better Business Bureau. Somebody at the Federal Trade Commission has already written that ladder out step by step, in the order it actually works. Free, and usually faster than anything I can do.
"If it is a small debt with clear paperwork, small claims court handles it perfectly well without representation. The forms are designed for people doing it themselves, and the dollar limits cover more than people assume.
"Where you do want advice early rather than late: anything involving your home, anything where a deadline or a statute of limitations is running, anything with a signature on it that you do not fully understand, and any employment matter with a filing window, because those windows are short and they are not forgiving."
When the fee is genuinely out of reach
"Say so, plainly, at the first phone call. Some matters qualify for legal aid, though fewer than people assume. Some firms run fixed-price initial consultations that are cheaper than a full hour. Legal aid societies and law school clinics take certain kinds of case for nothing.
"And a fair number of attorneys will do a single paid hour purely to tell you whether you have a case worth pursuing, with no expectation of taking it on. That is often the best money a client with a limited budget spends. It either gives them a case to fund properly or saves them from spending anything at all."
The mistake that costs the most
"Waiting. People come to me after they have sent four increasingly angry emails and made an offer they cannot withdraw.
"Every one of those is now a document I have to work around. An hour of advice before the first email would have cost a fraction of what it costs to repair the position afterward, and I would have a much better case to work with."