Attorney’s fees are always an issue for women facing divorce but in the current economy the issue is more frightening.
To save money on attorney’s fees, you need to ask questions before retaining an attorney. Divorce attorneys charge what is called a billable hourly rate. This rate is calculated in different ways and you need to understand how your attorney calculates his or her fee.
A billable hour might be broken down into 10 or 15 minute increments. What that means is that if you talk to your attorney for one minute, it will be billed to you as 10 minutes or 15 minutes even though the conversation only lasted one minute.
Often an attorney will have a paralegal working side by side with him or her. The paralegal or attorney’s assistants also charge by incremental billable hours BUT their fees are much lower so you need to utilize them.
Summarizing:
1. Understand how your attorney’s billable hours are calculated and make the most of their time increments. Instead of calling with one question that will take one minute, wait until you ask questions and obtain answers that will take 10 or 15 minutes so you don’t throw away the minutes not used.
2. If your attorney’s fee is $250.00 per hour and the paralegal’s fee is $75.00 per hour, call and ask your questions to the paralegal. It will save you a lot of money during your divorce.
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