Lagom’s Tips to reduce legal Fees
“I want to spend my money on legal fees”; no one has ever said. As family lawyers we know that our specialty area of law ranks on par with grudge purchases like root canal surgery.
But just like visits to the dentist, working with an expert family lawyer doesn’t need to be painful and expensive if you do the right preparation and maintain good habits.
In this blog we provide insight into how you can minimise legal fees and get the results that are in yours and your family’s best interests.
1. Seek Professional Advice Early
It's no good to try to prepare by simply turning to the internet and “hack” your own legal expertise.
If you've searched "divorce" in your social media groups, you've probably seen a long list of complaints about how much it costs and how unfair it all is. Often that comes down to how the start of a matter was first handled.
There are many occasions we have clients realise that after 12 months of trying to self-represent or simply going with the cheapest legal generalist in a complex matter, that they have added extra expense or worse, jeopardised certain legal privilege and not considered the trajectory of their matter, legal entitlements or how a deal should be structured. Clients often freely admit that in their testimonials to us.
Financially these are resources that could go towards their future property purchases, supporting children or even their well earned Divorce party - have you heard that these are a thing now!? Lets not start on the emotional costs of getting off to a bad start.
Working with professional family lawyers, we have an obligation as “Officers of the Court” to minimise your legal fees. Our team are here to support you by taking instructions in your matter and working through a strategy that can be legally binding, commercially viable and which considers how the Family Law Act will need to be navigated in your instance.
2. The 4 P’s - Preparation Prevents Poor Performance!
If you have a scheduled meeting with a lawyer, invest time in preparation. Come to the meeting with the information we have asked for and if you have doubts about whether something is relevant, let us be the judge of that. Don’t withhold information thinking it will save you money. Lawyers charge for their time working on your matter, so the more efficient we are, the more cost effective your outcomes can be.
Before our Initial Conference, Advice and Planning Session for example, we will give you a form to fill out, which allows us to get a birds eye view of your finances or your potential parenting matter. Spend time reviewing your assets, liabilities, expenses and time and concerns with children.
Be detailed and come to the meeting with that information completed because it can significantly reduce the amount of time in the conference that our team are fact finding and taking basic instructions. That is time which can be better spent problem solving together and talking to you about how the Legal system applies in your matter and what you can do to find a resolution.
Further along in your matter, our team will likely be asking for financial disclosure. If you can appropriately label files with “Bank Account ABC, Dates X-Y” when sharing, then our team won’t need to go digging when required.
The other area you can save is by not having your legal team need to chase up on requests constantly.
Sounds like homework?! Yes, there will be homework. So as much as you might like to say “you handle it”, if we have asked you to do something, elements of that will be us trying to save you money, so think commercially and take the time to do the homework right, if saving on costs is important to you.
Not everyone is in the same boat however. We have professionals, business owners and trades who for them legal admin is not there speciality and they would rather pay someone else to do it. We have the resources should that be the case for you.
3. Make lists
Questions are normal and expected. If you’re anything like us, you will wake up at 3am on a Sunday and have a very important question that you would like an answer to yesterday. This will happen often.
Unless it is a matter of extreme urgency, consider making a list of all of your questions and on a weekly basis (or as frequently as necessary depending on the deadlines that are set in your matter) get answers in a session with us rather than multiple calls, texts and emails.
This can reduce your fees, because it can all be addressed in one meeting, email or telephone call, rather than multiple. Also, often the answers will overlap or may be premature.
Going through multiple hypotheticals or dwelling on the position “it’s not fair – he/she has done XYZ” time and again doesn’t do much but drive up costs.
As legal professionals in family law our role is to look at what the Court would say if it were to be listed, which is not always what clients want to hear, but frankly what they need to hear – and that is another way our firm is determined to save on legal fees – by not providing false hope and viewing the situation with commercial awareness. For example, let’s not spend $1000 in legal fees fighting over on a $100 painting. Unless that painting has significant sentimental value to you, it is likely better to play the end game.
4. Overshare.
Family law is a much more personal area of law than a property transaction or an employment contract. It’s not black and white and we will need to talk about the most private part of a person’s life; their family. This can result in embarrassing things popping up that you would much rather stick your head in the sand about. We touched on this in point 1.
DON’T be an ostrich. If we know about the “warts and all” at the start, we can get in front of an issue and collectively, we are in a better position to manage it. Coming from the back foot takes more time and often costs more money, and particularly if discovered in front of a Judge, can seriously detriment your position. We are here to protect you from that by managing the situation on all levels.
Similarly, detail is critical! You might think providing us with one-line answers will cut down your costs or that you have disclosed enough, but usually it will just end up with our team asking you further clarifying questions to get the detail we need to make your case or protect it.
Remember, we are a team, so keep us well informed and whatever you do, always share with us your intentions if you are thinking of sending a direct email or text that might ruffle feathers on the other side. Even on the weekend, our team can be there for a text exchange or call if something is super urgent and needs to be acted upon.
5. Put down your weapon and fight ‘fire’ with ‘reason and skill’
There is nothing more likely to hurt your hip pocket than trying to fight fire with fire. If your ex is incredibly unreasonable, acting unreasonably in return is likely only going to cost a significant amount of money and not help in progressing your matter to a resolution. We aren’t saying you need to bow down and roll over on everything, rather that we’ll win for you in the areas that matter, not by being petty and playing tit for tat.
It can often seem like the other party is ‘winning’ when they are ‘fighting with fire’ but almost always this ‘fire’ is entirely irrelevant and only going to bring them undone in the long run.
Think like Muhammad Ali and “Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee”. The all-time champion danced around the ring with such grace and dignity before waiting for the right time to land his winning punch.
Trust us - being the bigger person is not only a lot less stressful, but it is likely to cost you a lot less money and emotionally will be a sweeter victory knowing you picked your battles and took the high road.
With the right approach you can be an internet unicorn in all your community Facebook groups, looking at others in pity that they couldn’t reframe their approach to focus on the end result, during what is often the most stressful point in a person’s life.
The team at Lagom Family Law strives to be open and transparent about our costs and we are always looking to get you the best possible result for your investment. If you are concerned about legal fees with your current firm, we are able to discuss ways for you to still get excellent and quality legal advice without breaking the bank.
Our experienced team has availability so book a free Discovery Call here or call us on (02) 8379 1835.
We look forward to assisting you.
Author: Kalisha Martin, Senior Lawyer at Lagom Family Law
Lagom is Swedish and means not too little, not too much, just right. This is our philosophy of practice as we aim to provide tailored advice specific for your individual needs - that’s just right for you!
Lagom Family Law is a boutique legal practice lead by Principal Lichee Hogland who strives to achieve the best possible outcome for her clients whilst being approachable and respectful.