Ways To Determine If Estate Litigation Attorney’s Fees Are Reasonable

Posted by leslierickson on March 2nd, 2020

The local and statewide business methods and practices can make a significant impact on the fees asked by an estate planning or litigation lawyer for handling a specific matter, but their level of experience and expertise will also count in. So, how should one be able to gauge a particular type of and know the fees asked by an estate litigation attorney in Houston is reasonable enough for the type of job? Let’s try to find some answers to this question and also, make you comfortable with the standard rules and fee-setting structure in the next part of the post.

The first few meetings

Many of the estate planning/litigation attorneys won’t ask for a fee for the first few meetings, however, this by no means applies as a universal rule. Don't get startled if the attorney asks for a small fee for sitting down with you for the very first time. It can in any of the ways. These attorneys are in this business to earn a living, and if they are spending quality time spent with you, that means they are taking away time from billable hours that he/she would otherwise spend on other big clients. Having said that, this is also his/her opportunity to convince you on retaining their services and to get into some kind of understanding of what your matter involves. The first meetings will also determine how many hours they will need to dedicate on your case and what are the odds of winning the case.

Standard hourly rate

A flat fee is a part of the attorney's general hourly rate and how many hours he/she thinks needs to be invested for your case to get resolved. You have to ask for their standard hourly rate is, and know about how much you'll be charged for taking services of other attorneys and paralegals in the industry. This will give you a fair amount of idea on the time required to solve your case in general. If the attorney quotes you a k flat fee and charges at 0 for an hour, he/she expects that their firm will spend not less than 20 hours or more than 25 hours on your case. The basic rule is that the higher the hourly rate, the more expertise/experience the attorney has. All those hours might seem too much for you, but the attorney needs to have a clear idea of the time it will take to meet with you, answer your queries, design your estate plan, and to review your plan along with you.

Make note of these two important points while you are looking estate litigation or any other Houston TX business lawyer.

Author: The author is a blogger and the article is about estate lawyer finding tips.