5 Tips to minimize your legal fees in Nova Scotia
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5 Tips to minimize your legal fees in Nova Scotia
No one really wants to spend money on a lawyer, but sometimes it becomes the only practical option. Here are a few practical tips to minimize the amount of money you spend on legal fees if you do have to retain a lawyer in Nova Scotia.
Provide All of the Material Your Lawyer Asks for the First Time
In Nova Scotia your lawyer will often ask you for information or documents to help build your case. If they ask you during a phone call, write down the list of items. After the call, use that list as a checklist to ensure you send them all the things they are asking for.
If they provide the list in an email or letter be sure to double check the letter/email before sending your materials. If the lawyer reviews the materials you’ve provided and items are missing, you’ll now unnecessarily be paying them to ask you again.
Do Not Send Material Your Lawyer Did Not Ask for
Do not send a bunch of extra material that the lawyer didn’t ask for. Your lawyer knows what they need and will ask for it. Any time your lawyer spends reading and sorting irrelevant material you’ve sent to them is a complete waste of your retainer fees.
Provide the Materials in a Timely Fashion
If a deadline is looming and the lawyer has asked you to provide certain material or information, prioritize getting it to them as soon as possible. Yours is not the lawyer’s only file. They may need your materials long before they are due in order to fit your file into their calendar. Every time they have to contact you to remind you to provide the requested materials, it’s unnecessarily costing you money.
Organize Your Materials
Do your best to organize any material you need to send the lawyer. For example, instead of sending a text message conversation as a bunch of separate files, take the time to organize them in date/time order and put then in one document. That allows the lawyer to just open one file and read the material in order vs trying the lawyer spending time trying to figure out what order the files go in.
It’s also helpful to label your electronic in a way that allows the lawyer to easily find what they are looking for. The less time the lawyer spends looking for the file, the less they are billing you.
Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call you
In general, lawyers are just as anxious to move your file along as you are. If we have news, we’ll be in touch. You will likely be charged for the lawyer to respond to your unnecessary email to ask ‘Have you heard anything?’. If you feel like you will be waiting by the phone for an update, ask the lawyer if they could follow up with you after a certain amount of time has passed (generally after the lawyer expects to get a reply from the other side).
Review Your Information before asking questions
Lawyers understand that a lot of elements of your matter are complex and often frustrating. We know that often you are presented with several options or explanations as to why what you’d like to do isn’t a practical option. Many lawyers will make an effort to provide this sort of important information to you in writing so you are able to review it when questions come to mind.
Before asking your lawyer a question about your file, take the time to review the emails/letters you’ve already paid your lawyer to write – very often the answer to your question is already there.
These should sound like tremendously obvious things to do or not do, but it turns out many clients do not take advantage of these tips and unnecessarily waste their retainer fees.
By: Dianna M. Rievaj – Managing Lawyer
Have Questions For Us?:
If you have any questions you can call us at (902) 826-3070 or email us at info@highlanderlaw.ca to set up a meeting with one of our lawyers at our Tantallon law firm. You can also schedule a no commitment Issue Review Consult for $250+HST where you have the opportunity to explain your situation to a lawyer and get basic advice, before deciding whether or not you'd like to retain us.
The information and materials on this blog are provided for general informational purposes only and are not intended to be legal advice. Nothing contained on this blog is legal advice or constitutes a legal opinion. While it is our goal to provide information which is current, legislative changes and court decisions, among other matters, may result in some information no longer being current or accurate. You should consult a lawyer before relying on any information. The views expressed herein by individual contributing lawyers posting entries to the blog are solely those of the authors and should not necessarily be attributed to or considered representative of the firm of Highlander Law Group Lawyers
