What to Expect from a Cheap Lawyer
When your liberty, assets, or parental rights are at stake, it may be unwise to gamble with the lowest-priced legal representation.
When weighing options for legal counsel, some make the mistake of only considering an attorney’s hourly rate, rather than other important factors:
Attorneys with lower rates may have more of a volume business because they need to take on more clients and cases to make up for the fact that their rates are remarkably lower than their competitors. This means less time for the attorney to work on your individual case.
Cheap attorneys are unable to properly invest in their own professional development or the training and education of their associates and support staff. Advocacy training is expensive in terms of both time and money and requires planning, budgeting, and care. Attorneys with lower rates may not have the margins to pay for necessary training, and because they have more volume of business to compensate for their rates being below market, they do not have the time for training either. This could mean a disadvantage in litigation, negotiation, and trial if the opposing attorney charges a higher rate and has the ability to invest in their continuing education and development.
Budget attorneys do not invest in their own internal infrastructure. Legal software and books are expensive. Attorneys with lower rates look to cut costs, even in important areas such as their case management system and research materials. As a result, they have to spend more time on routine tasks such as drafting forms. Low-rate attorneys actually bill their clients more for document packets than lawyers with higher rates who have sophisticated software that allows them to be efficient in their drafting and billing. Cheap attorneys may also have an ongoing disadvantage in fast-paced cases because they do not have the infrastructure to keep up with attorneys who have higher rates and superior technology and support staff.
Even in the rare event that the total fee for your case with lower rate attorney turns out to less than it might be with a lawyer who has higher rates (and that is not the norm) you should consider the opportunity cost of having less qualified counsel, even if more qualified counsel would be more expensive initially.
Think of it like this: Would you prefer to spend $15,000 and completely lose your case with no chance of appeal, or spend $90,000 and win every aspect of your case, including reimbursement of some of your attorney fees from the other side? While no lawyer may guarantee any outcome, you may have a better chance of a successful settlement or trial outcome with an experienced lawyer who has a higher rate but has the software, hardware, support staff, experience, time, and incentive to make the strongest case possible for you.
Discount lawyers are more prone to emotional outbursts and irritability. They are extremely stressed due to their high case volume and always behind on document drafts and responding to clients and their counterparts. They will seem rushed at every meeting and event due to the press of other business (their other cases).
Lawyers whose rates are a fraction of their competitors tend to have the worst characteristics identified here: They are overwhelmed with work with their volume business that they cannot handle because they do not have the ability to properly invest in their office infrastructure. Because they have so many open cases, they are behind in their ongoing education and training. They are also slow to communicate and do not have time to properly prepare their clients or themselves for upcoming events, leading to compounding disadvantages in each individual case and an overall likelihood of a loss for the case. Even though their rates may be a fraction of their competitors, they have to make up for those discounts by being heavy-handed with billing. When we see total fees at the conclusion of cases, it is often the lowest-rate attorneys who have billed their client the most, with the least to show for it.
Virtually everyone has a finite amount of resources and a budget for their legal problem. It may seem counterintuitive, but higher-rate attorneys are more likely to have transparency and a system that lets you smartly evaluate where to best put your money. They may have reports and other data that lets them give you an estimate of attorney fees to anticipate for your type of case. In some cases, a lawyer whose rate is 3x or 4x that of their competitor may actually charge a lower total fee than the lower-priced attorney. Higher-priced, experienced lawyers are often more efficient and informative than lower-rate competitors, putting you in a better decision to make big-picture decisions and move your case along to resolution.
We wrote about the difficulty of choosing a lawyer in a previous article, Researching Lawyers for a Family Member. It can be challenging to find a qualified lawyer who is a specialist in your area of need. Some tips for choosing a lawyer include:
Examine their post-law school training and education. This will show you their dedication to improving and being the best lawyer that they can be, and it will also give you insight into their areas of interest and training specific for your case
Look up their awards and badges. There are many fake vanity plaques and badges available for purchase and few legitimate ones. Unfortunately, thousands of lawyers choose to display fake awards, betting that you will not look them up. The best, most objective recognitions and fellowships are: The Best Lawyers in America, Chambers and Partners, Spear’s, The Legal 500, Doyle’s, American Academy of Family Lawyers, International Academy of Family Lawyers, American College of Trial Lawyers, and The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel
Read their articles. Like their training, an attorney’s volunteer work such as bar journal articles and other publications demonstrate their care for their profession and their areas of interest
Meet with them. Get in a room with them and decide if this is a person you trust with your hard-earned money. Your trust and confidence in their ability and care about your case are what matter the most
