Before you retain an attorney, it is vitally important that you understand how each attorney calculates his or her billable hours. It can make a huge difference in what your legal fees will be.
Calculating legal fees
Mr. Attorney One charges a $300.00 hourly rate and his billable hours are broken into 10 minute increments.
Ms. Attorney Two charges a $250.00 hourly rate and her billable hours are broken into 15 minute increments.
Which attorney is more expensive? This will ultimately depend on the length of time your divorce process takes. You must stay on top of your legal fees and the following example will show one of the reasons why.
1. You make a call to your attorney that lasts for 3 minutes.
2. Your attorney writes a document that takes 8 minutes.
3. You email your attorney. He reads your email and answers it for a total time of 4 minutes.
4. Your attorney speaks to your husband’s attorney for 6 minutes and calls you to explain what happened for 5 minutes. The two calls take a total of 11 minutes.
Mr. Attorney One charges in 10 minute increments for #1-4 above. So that calculation will be 10 minutes + 10 minutes + 10 minutes + 20 minutes = 50 minutes.
Ms. Attorney Two charges in 15 minute increments for #1-4 above. So that calculation will be 15 minutes + 15 minutes + 15 minutes + 15 minutes = 60 minutes.
Mr. Attorney One will charge you for 50 minutes at $300.00 per hour = $250.00
Ms. Attorney Two will charge you for 60 minutes at $250 per hour = $250.00
So you see that for the events above, even though the hourly fee is different, the way the billable hours are computed makes the bill exactly the same.
A higher hourly rate does not necessarily mean that that attorney will be more expensive.
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