Steve Palmer [00:00:00]:

Steve Palmer here, Lawyer talk off the record, on the air. Check us out. LawyerTalkPodcast.com I'm going to call this a Q and A, but it's really a follow up to an episode I just recorded, frankly. And one of our production guys here in the studio had a question. We were talking about attorney consultations and I was sort of going through like part two of that series about how to consult with a lawyer and what to expect. And our production guy had, he had a great question, I probably should have covered it. Should I expect to have to pay for a consultation with a lawyer? In other words, do I get free consultations? Open up the yellow page. You guys probably know what the yellow pages are.

Steve Palmer [00:00:37]:

Open up Google, open up websites, and you're going to see all sorts of ads that say free consultations. And really the question I was dealing with last time was what's to be expected out of a free consultation? But not all lawyers actually provide free consultations. Believe it or not, I do criminal defense work in the arena of domestic relations or divorces. At least here in Ohio, it's very customary to have to pay to go meet with a lawyer for a consultation. You know, 300 bucks, 500 bucks, whatever it is, to go sit down with a domestic relations lawyer to talk about your divorce or whatever is going on. And you know, they have reasons for that. I mean, because one, if a divorce attorney talks to you about your case, then they're not going to be able to. He or she is not going to be able to talk to the other side.

Steve Palmer [00:01:28]:

You know, you've sort of conflicted that attorney out. Perhaps if you've shared information with a lawyer confidentially, your husband or wife is not going to then be able to go in and engage that lawyer because they'll have a conflict of interest. In criminal law, that's somewhat true. There are often multi defendant conspiracy cases that float around local jurisdictions here in federal court, that's very common and even in state court. So if I talk to one member of one potential client who's accused in this conspiracy and they share a bunch of information with me, it raises the question, can I then later represent a different part of a person charged in the same conspiracy if the first one didn't hire me? And like so many things in law, it all depends. And this a lot of times will cause lawyers to want to sell that consultation. So at least we're getting something out of it. Here's my thoughts on it.

Steve Palmer [00:02:20]:

I believe that if somebody's going to hire me in something Personal, like representing them in a courtroom when they're charged with a crime. They ought to meet me first or at least talk to me on the telephone and be comfortable with me. I've talked about whether face to face meetings or telephone consultations, you guys figure out what you would like. But I think it's important that there be some interaction. So my client is going to, as we go forward, will trust me. I think you lose trust when you lose communication. So I typically don't charge for an initial consultation, but as I was discussing last time, it's sort of you have to get to the next part, which is how much work is expected in an initial consultation. And you know, I'm going to reiterate some of this, but I'm going to break it down.

Steve Palmer [00:03:05]:

You should expect to hear about the lawyer's experience. You should expect to hear about what the lawyer's general plans are when they handle the. In my line of work, a criminal defense case, like what's next? If it's an investigation, what would the attorney propose to do? If there's already a charge, how would the attorney generally handle it? Does the attorney think it might go to trial, might not go to trial? And then maybe, perhaps most important, what's the cost structure going to look like? Those are basic things that you should expect in an initial consultation, but you probably shouldn't expect nuts and bolts, heavy document review or email review or things, or even witness interviews, things like that. And I've had those kind of requests before people hire me. I think that's a bridge too far, and I hope that's reasonable for everybody. But anyway, if you've got questions about it, you've got your own thoughts about it, leave me a comment or shoot me a question at lawyertalkpodcast. Com off the record, on the air till now.