Initial consultations are free, and carry no obligation. To set an appropriate fee, I will need to understand something about your situation. If you think I might be able to help you, please call me or contact me by e-mail.
Structure of the fee.
Typically, I charge a flat fee, paid in advance, for the cases I take on. By "flat fee," I mean a fixed amount that will cover my fee for the entire case or project.
The fee is non-refundable, and deemed earned upon receipt. In other words, it is not, as retainers for legal services sometimes are, put in a trust fund and drawn against as work is completed at an hourly rate (retainers of this sort are particularly common in business and commercial legal work). Contingent fees, dependent on the outcome of the case, are not permitted in criminal practice.
I believe you will find that most lawyers in criminal defense practice have similar flat-fee requirements.
Manner of payment.
At this time, I do not take payment by charge-cards of any sort.
Determining the amount of the fee.
A number of factors are considered in deciding a reasonable fee. By way of example:
- the time and labor that the particular case will likely require
- the novelty and difficulty of the factual and legal questions involved
- the skill necessary to properly defend the case
- the likelihood that accepting the particular case will leave me unavailable for other cases
- the current local market rate for similar legal services
- the stakes involved
- whether the circumstances impose any special time constraints
- the nature and length of any existing professional relationship between me and the client
- my own experience, reputation, and demonstrated abilities in cases of the type involved
Costs & expenses.My fee covers my services, including my ordinary costs of doing business. There is no additional billing for routine expenses such as local travel, parking, postage, routine photocopying expenses, and so forth.
On the other hand, extraordinary costs and expenses specific to a case are not included in my fee, and must be paid by the client. In any given case, there might be no such extraordinary costs or expenses; in other cases, such costs and expenses may come to rival my fee. Examples of case-specific costs and expenses to be borne by the client might include:
- the cost of hiring a private investigator
- the cost of obtaining medical records
- independent forensic expert(s) of various descriptions (accident reconstruction, ballistics, fingerprints, chemical analysis, DNA analysis, etc.)
- where necessary, a court reporter's fee for transcribing earlier court hearings for use at trial, or taking and transcribing out-of-court depositions
- expert psychological and psychiatric evaluations and opinion testimony
- evaluations regarding alcohol or drug dependency, or chemically-induced impairment of some person
The initial consultation generally allows me to give some reasonably reliable estimate of what expenses, if any, should be anticipated. It sometimes happens, however, that the need to incur an expense becomes apparent only as the case progresses.
Third-party payment arrangements.
One last general observation about fees in criminal cases involves the situation where a third party is paying the fee for the client's representation. It is not unusual, for example, that a family member may want to step forward and pay for a person's legal representation. There is nothing wrong with such an arrangement, so long as it is agreed to by the client, the person who is actually to be represented.
Any person considering footing the bill in this way, however, should also be aware that their money cannot buy control over how the case proceeds, or even access to information that must be kept confidential. In a criminal case especially, the person represented must make decisions about waiving or exercising a number of important constitutional rights that are personal to her or to him. Such decisions would not be free and voluntary, and could not be valid, if they were really being made by someone else with financial or other control over the client.
Similarly, attorney-client confidentiality may be deemed to have been waived where a third party is included in discussions, or advised of what was discussed. In order to preserve confidentiality, it is often therefore necessary to exclude such a third-party payer from sensitive and important conversations about the case.
