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Many times the fear of the unknown is worse than what actually happens but the fear is there non-the-less. One of
the biggest fears of hiring a lawyer is,"What is this going to cost?" Everyone has heard stories of outrageous
legal fees or have been involved in a legal situation where the bill ended up much higher than anticipated so there is a basis
for that fear. To help eliminate that fear and to better allow you to budget your legal costs, we try to provide our
clients with alternate billing options to the traditional hourly basis. While we believe that our hourly rates
are fair and we strive to provide our clients with quality legal services at a reasonable cost no matter what billing method
you choose, we know that many of our clients prefer to have more certainty in their legal costs so we often will provide you
with a flat fee or unit billing option. A flat fee option is a flat fee for a particular legal service. If more
time is put into providing that service than the flat fee, the client comes out ahead. If less time is put into providing
that particular legal service, the law firm comes out ahead. In either case, the client knows what the cost is when
they hire us. There are limitations to the flat fee billing option. The flat fee is for a specific legal service.
If a situation arises that is not expected or within the "norm" for that legal service there will be an extra
cost. While this is rare, it happens on an occasion. The other factor that can vary are the out-of-pocket expenses.
We do not have control over the out-of-pocket costs that are associated with a particular legal service so those expenses
are added to the flat fee legal service fee. When we are aware of specific out-of-pocket fees we will disclose them
to you; however, certain fees are impossible to predict that they will be necessary and/or the exact amount of the cost. Unit
billing is slightly different than a flat fee cost. In a case where the legal service is to variable to be able to predict
a fair flat fee for the entire service, we can often break the over-all case into segments with flat fees associated with
each segment. You pay for the segments that are needed or wanted in your case, and you avoid the fees for the segments
that are not required or that you chose not to go forward with. Litigation or dispute oriented legal cases often use
unit billing since it is impossible to accurately predict the exact course of the case. We cannot always able
to provide you a flat fee or unit billing option, in most cases we can. We will also always be willing to bill with
a traditional hourly billing method. Please feel free to discuss billing with your attorney so you can make the choice
that is best for you.
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