Steps to Take in an Attorney Fee Dispute

Failing to act promptly during an attorney fee dispute could result in complex hassles and unnecessary expenses for your business. Read below to learn a few crucial things to do if you suspect you’ve been billed too much for legal services.

Carefully Review Your Fee Agreement

When there are uncertainties about whether you’ve been charged the wrong way for services rendered, or you think you may have been billed an improper amount, those questions can often be answered by referring to the fee agreement. Your lawyer should have provided one when you began receiving services. Look over it carefully before pursuing the dispute any further.

Talk to Your Attorney

The information learned by looking over your fee agreement again should help you feel more educated in the early stages of an attorney fee dispute. If you’ve done what you can to understand the fee structure but still feel you’re being asked to pay an inappropriate amount, reach out to your attorney. He or she should be willing to give a detailed description of each charge.

Some lawyers are very precise and will list the duties performed in 15-minute increments. Even if your lawyer charges an hourly rate, it’s not sufficient to simply invoice for a total number of hours. You deserve to also know the specific things that were done during particular timeframes. Speaking to your attorney may not immediately resolve the attorney fee dispute, but it should clarify how he or she arrived at the total amount.

Meet With a Legal Fee Auditor

Sometimes it’s necessary to get advice from a legal fee auditor in addition to the steps you’ve taken on your own. That professional can scrutinize each line of your invoice to identify charges that seem unwarranted. The auditors at Legal Fee Advisors can give expert testimony and act as consultants when you’re involved in an attorney fee dispute.

Disputes about payment can quickly disrupt your business operations and strain your relationships with attorneys. However, following the steps listed above will help you act quickly and assertively when getting to the bottom of a dispute. When you consistently verify invoice amounts and question them when necessary, it reduces the chances you’ll pay more than necessary for legal assistance.

Why You May Have an Attorney Fee Dispute

 
An attorney has a legal obligation to bill their clients fairly and ethically, though many law firms don’t do this. Reading fictional books about lawyers may make you wonder if those practices are actually done, and the answer is yes. In many cases, attorneys will bill a fee that is inflated as much as 20 percent over the reasonable cost it should take.

Pay Appropriately

If you are in a dispute with a lawyer because you feel they charged too much, you could be right. It is true that many attorneys charge high rates and this is generally fair because they have a professional legal judgment. However, many firms will bill at the high rate of an attorney when the clerical or administrative staff are the ones who handled the work. Secretarial hours are billed, but they should be billed at a lower rate than the attorney fee. Therefore, these firms are taking advantage of their billing rights.

Sometimes, law firms will also charge for overhead reasons. You, as the client, should not have to pay for IT support or any other number of regular maintenance charges to keep the law firm in business. You pay a fee to the law firm and that should cover all expenses on their part. However, many law firms overcharge you to help them pay their bills that have nothing to do with you or your case.

What to Do

If you find yourself in a dispute because of an attorney’s fees, then you need to seek legal counsel with a company that handles disputes for attorneys. Not all law firms will handle these cases as it seems that some law firms like to stick together. Therefore, it is important to ensure that the firm you choose does not affiliate itself with any other firm and expressly handles attorney fee disputes.

Search for law firms that handle disputes from other attorneys and then call them and talk to them. Most of these firms will provide you with a free consultation, so you can explain your case and find out what the firm says. It is okay to talk with a few firms to discuss your options, though you should pick one before you go forward with a lawsuit.

The law firms will be able to tell you if you have a shot and if they will be willing to take your case.

Benefits of Getting a Legal Bill Audit for Your Business

Managing expenses is an essential part of helping your company remain profitable. Although you probably already work with an accountant to make sure you’re not spending too much on day-to-day things, have you ever thought about getting a legal bill audit?

You may be fortunate and only need to hire a lawyer on a very occasional basis. Even if that’s true, it’s a good idea to think about working with professionals who can analyze the charges you’ve received from a law firm. Those fee experts can determine whether they’re reasonable or out of line with industry standards. Keep reading to learn about some specific advantages of this service.

A Legal Bill Audit Could Reform Billing Practices

When you rely on a team of auditors, those individuals can help identify any problematic characteristics of your case that may ultimately cause you to pay unexpected charges. That could cause a chain reaction that warns a law firm against trying to add unfair fees to bills. More importantly for your company, it could also help manage costs because you have more realistic expectations about the true costs of hiring an attorney.

Check for Compliance With Help From a Legal Bill Audit

Although there are some electronic solutions that claim to help businesses spot instances of potential billing violations, even the most robust technology can’t do the job better than specially trained human beings. Those experts are able to look at each line of an invoice and ensure compliance standards are being met.

It Could Help You Avoid Past Mistakes

While performing a legal bill audit, specialists can look at all your past invoices and see if there are identifiable patterns or certain factors that have caused you to pay too much for law firm services. Without that guidance, you risk getting caught in a perpetual cycle where your company is paying too much for an attorney’s advice, but you’re not sure how to remedy the problem.

Bills that come from law firms can be notoriously hard to understand. Make things easier by relying on a panel of experts that possess vast knowledge about fee structures in the law industry. The Legal Fee Advisors team is ready to help you today.

What You Need To Know About Legal Fees Consulting To Save Money

Often getting involved in the legal system is overwhelming, confusing and seems to be designed to be impossible to understand for anyone but an attorney. While this may be true, companies, businesses and individuals all have the opportunity find out exactly what they are being charge for and why. This is where professionals specializing in legal fees consulting come into play.

When to Consider Legal Fees Consulting 

Each and every time you work with an attorney you should be provided with several things in writing. These include a fee agreement that stipulates how the attorney or legal firm is to be paid and what the retainer will be. It should also list the other services anticipated and the rate for those services. The attorney will also provide a written estimate of the total cost of your case if you are working on any type of fee schedule other than a contingency basis.

Contingency basis means that the attorney is not paid until a favorable settlement is reached. However, there can be additional costs involved that are outside of the set percentage of the settlement that the attorney will collect at the end of the process.

Anytime the monthly invoicing contains activities or billing you don’t understand you should contact your attorney. If the questions are not answered satisfactorily you may then need the assistance of a legal fees consulting company.

What You Don’t Know Can Hurt Your Pocketbook 

With limited time and understanding of the accepted procedures and standards for legal billing it is very easy to miss mistakes or inaccurate billing issues on your invoice. Legal fee consulting services can point out these issues for you and act as your advocate to get the inaccuracies corrected and prevent further issues on your bill.

A simple example of this may be how your attorney is billing. He or she may have to travel for your case, but the time spent travelling should not be billed at his or her rate for being in court or representing you in a negation, mediation or arbitration.

Legal fees consulting is a cost saving option that anyone or any company using ongoing legal services should consider. The small price you pay for the consultant can end up saving you significant amounts on your legal expenses.