Why Some Attorneys Don’t Tell You About Legal Fees (Ep. 38)

Justin Sisemore  00:00

Okay, we’re coming back to you live with our podcast In Your Best Interest. Today, we’re going to talk with Mary Maloney and Andrea Jones about our favorite topic. Some attorneys discuss legal fees. Some don’t. So we’re going to rip through legal fees and what that is like, what you can expect, and hopefully give you a better understanding about the frustrations and pain points of legal fees and certainly kind of the do’s and don’ts to preserve your money and keep it in your pocket and don’t give it to the lawyers. So Mary, why don’t you kick us off?

Mary Maloney  00:33

All right, and you are our attorney. Justin Sisemore,

Justin Sisemore  00:35

oh, I am. Yeah, oh yeah, I’m Justin Sisemore.

Justin Sisemore  00:37

size.

Mary Maloney  00:39

All right, so when people talk to an attorney, one of the first questions they ask is, How much is it going to cost? Me, of course, because we all want to know that, but attorneys do have different answers. Some are a little bit more murky about what they say. So how do people get an accurate estimate of legal fees? Is what we want to know. And my first question for you, Justin, is, you know, some attorneys are less transparent when it comes to their legal fees. So we want to talk about why that happens. I mean, they’re trying to lure clients in. But can you explain what’s going on there?

Justin Sisemore  01:12

Yeah, I think, I think one of the things that’s interesting to me is that attorneys are like the one organization in the world, at least in our space, in family law. I’m not speaking for every every firm out there, where they they they seem to think you can’t estimate pockets of what you’re doing, okay, if you can’t estimate pocket Now, granted, we’re not clairvoyant. We don’t live with your spouse. We don’t know how they’re going to react to all situations, and we certainly don’t know how you’re going to behave through the process. I have some people that I think is going to be a very simple case, and it turns very not so simple in a short period of time because of actions or inactions that they take throughout the course. So there are always in any business or any estimate, outliers on both sides, on the plus and minus side. I’ve had $30 million cases that end up being, you know, five or 10 grand. And I’ve had cases where people don’t have any real assets, but they just go at each other’s jugular that, you know, can get into the six figures if you’re not careful. I’m not a huge biller personally. So, you know, my team does a fair job, a good job, of billing, but what I am is a very I’m very observant, and I’ve very much am in tune with kind of the the cost of the process and the time that goes into that. So part of the thing that I look at, especially the initial retainer, is, what’s it going to take to get to the next step? Okay? And in divorce, it’s a little bit easier than some other areas of law, because you can compartmentalize your temporary orders, which is your first stage, your discovery, second stage, your mediation, third stage. And most cases resolve in mediation. And I’ll tell that to every client that calls to do a consult. So, you know, you should be able to break down what those stages look like. And I don’t really understand the concept of how we can’t get a good like, you know, inside of several $1,000 of what that’s going to look like. Now, what makes that hard is, Well, Justin, if you can gage at each step, then how come you can’t tell me within several $1,000 of the whole thing? The short answer, or long answer, is, there are various things that happen throughout the course of litigation that are in our control and outside of our control. So, like we talked about personality, whether somebody is willing to settle, whether they really just love some piece of art so much that they don’t want to part with it so they want to charge you a million bucks for it. I mean, those are things that you kind of really can’t gage until you get into the the arena with them, but certainly from a standpoint of time that goes into in preparation that goes into the temporary hearing. For example, you know, you’re not going to have, most likely, more than a couple of hours in preparation for a temporary hearing. From a lawyer’s perspective. Now, some lawyers, I guess, when they wake up, they think about your case, they they put that thought process down in the hourly I would run from those people, and you’re going to know inside of the first three months what that looks like. So when I quote somebody a seven or $10,000 fee, or four or $5,000 fee, that’s based on, okay, we need a temporary hearing. We might need some extraordinary relief. This is a bigger case, so we’re going to need to go get some financials. Maybe we’re going to need some subpoenas that go out to some third party witnesses. And so I’m really just thinking in smaller increments or compartments there. So when I look, when a client asks me about the overall costs, you know, when I tell somebody, well, you know, discovery is usually four or five grand. The temporary orders here is usually five to six grand. Why is that? Well, I know that we’re getting timelines. I know in the beginning stages, we’re getting a lot of the information together, assimilated. We’re sifting through a lot of stuff. It doesn’t matter. And so, you know, I can tell people within steps and stages, what that looks like. So I just don’t like when I hear people say, well, the attorney just can’t guesstimate what it’s going to be. I tell people all the time, I had a contractor do that to me, doubled up the cost and doubled up the time, and I am not interested in doing that to people. And I’ll also, I told you this would be a short answer, right, right? Yeah. I also see a lot of firms, yeah, that it looks like, you know, I’m like, you know, if you can’t scratch the surface of something, and they’re just like, Well, I’m gonna get this person in for 1500 or 3000 bucks. And I see that all the time, you know, a client calls me, they say, Well, my retainer was only five grand. And I’m like, this is, like, a really nasty case. And I, I wouldn’t, I never quote super high retainers for multiple reasons. One, it, it allows, potentially, for the other side to go equalize. If you’ve got a divorce case, and I may not want you to equalize, right? Um, but, but when you’ve vastly underestimated, or you’re just, in my opinion, it looks like you’re trying to get the client on the hook. And I can’t stand that, because people can’t prep for that. And so,

Andrea Jones  06:01

and I think that as a client, when you hire an attorney, when looking for attorney, you need to ask those questions. And you’re always when you when you break it down, and people, somebody’s like, I don’t want to know the whole process. I don’t understand the process, but the process is important to understand, because once I understand what steps there are and what is involved in each step, then I’m not surprised anymore what the cost is. Because if I don’t even know what a discovery is, for example, and you just run through this as an attorney and say, Well, this is going to be a temporary orders, and then there’s going to be discovery, and then there’s going to be mediation, and I have no idea what those terms mean, and you quote me, maybe whatever, $10,000 for the case, then I’m going to be like, whoa, whoa. And then across the street they say $3000 but they don’t say anything about what that all entails, how far I’m gonna get. That’s why we said before in other podcasts, you need to ask more questions and say, Well, what does discovery even mean? Or, even better, do your research first, before you do the consultations, or have a basic understanding. When you say discovery, I know what that means. And then when you say, it’s gonna be this much, well, based on how much property I have and how much whatever in bank accounts I have and investment accounts, that’s probably true, because there’s a lot of documents we need to go through. Yeah, you be prepared, because then I think legal fees, if you break it down, it’s not going to be as shocking or as crazy and thinking the lawyer is going to pull one over on you. No, they’re actually telling you the truth, instead of running blindly into something, and then every month, they’re asking you for more money, and it’s ends up being more than what you

Justin Sisemore  07:26

Yeah, I like to put a really good estimate on it, you know. And I’ll most in most cases, you know, we start out retainers between five and 10,000 bucks, which is a lot of money for people to come up with. And there are resources out there for that, but that help with with lending and whatnot. But the big thing there is, you know, if I’ve got a client that’s getting control of a lot of the information, I know that what I need right away financially is not a huge number, right? If I’ve got to go out and get an expert to go trace down and chase down all these corporate accounts that have been shifting, it’s a totally different figure. So even if I quote a lower retainer, 7500 or 10,000 for a big case, and you know the other side, quote 50, and I’m like, I’m I know I’m not. I know I’m going to get to 50, but we don’t need to get to 50 today on that kind of case. To me, it’s a matter of understanding that, so that the client’s not parting ways with their dollar, all of it, and so they feel trapped right? First of all, every attorney has a duty to know to refund any unused portion, and I write tons of checks every single day in refunds, so sometimes I over overshoot. But I’d rather the client get used to the monthly about the monthly costs and about what it’s going to be to estimate where they need to be, then the client that goes, I need to come up with 10 more 1000 bucks, you know? And it’s just like anything, you get more experience, you know, how to estimate better. And so that’s part of it, right?

Mary Maloney  08:52

And it’s all, it’s all about that transparency. So briefly, can we talk about what kind of questions people should ask the attorney when they’re getting an estimate?

Justin Sisemore  09:00

Yeah. So I think, I think it’s, I’m gonna flip that one on you a little bit, because I think that the attorney should be a gage of what the client’s expectations are within the confines of reality. And what I mean by that is, if you are interviewing a client and they’re just like, oh, we just get along fine, and everything’s just wonderful, and we’ve got everything resolved, the attorney’s job is to a know what questions to probe into that statement, which is probably completely factually wrong, even though that may be the goal, and to probe in to ask those questions. And it’s not scare selling, it’s like, okay, well, have you talked about the educational rights and where you’re going to live, and how you know how we’re going to do these dual households, and do you really understand what it is that you’re asking for on temporary relief and really diving into that? So it’s not the client saying to me, Well, how much does this cost, and how much does this cost? I can give them very, very good direction based on their honest feedback, on what they think. Going to ask for and how they think they’re going to get it. So if you’ve got the client that literally walk into court and they haven’t provided any documentation, they haven’t provided any of their summary documents, which most of the time, if it’s our case that we’re the petitioner on, we move the hearing. Otherwise, we’re just going in and flying by the seat of our pants. So in those situations where a client has the ability to get that information to you. You can really get a good gage about where they’re going to be from a standpoint of expectation. And, you know, I think it’s, it’s wildly different when you have one party that has not been the primary caretaker of a kid or or doesn’t have any understanding of the business, to think that they’re going to go in for five grand and sell houses, divide up retirement, get a custody case, do temporary orders hearings, negotiate with their spouse who they’ve never been able to negotiate with, add an attorney in the mix who probably is going to be a little bit combative at some point in time. Deal with judges in their schedules, court settings and all that stuff. It’s just not realistic. So if you just want to be told this is cheap, well, you’re gonna get a you’re gonna get a cheap lawyer. You’re gonna get somebody that’s full of what we know they’re full of.

Mary Maloney  11:10

Yep. You get what you pay for, once again. Yeah. So, I mean, I think just the questions to ask, because not every attorney is like you. I mean, some are going to just tell, tell them, this is your, you know, $1,500 retainer front but they’re not gonna explain it.

Andrea Jones  11:28

But even, even even understanding what a retainer is, retainer is not your case, right? Retainer is basically a bucket of money that is sitting there that the attorney pulls money. That’s the dumb dummy version. It’s probably just a legal version, no, but it’s basically a bucket stuff where you pull from and it needs to be replenished. Yeah? And when it’s empty, guess what is empty? And you don’t replenish it, then the attorney has the right to pull from the case. So that’s even understanding what a retainer is, because people, I think, mix that up all the time.

Justin Sisemore  11:55

That’s an example. I’m talking about. Like, I attorneys don’t know until the client asks. Sometimes, that they do it over and over again. I mean, I’m sitting there like retainers. It’s a retainer. But that’s not an easy thing for pepole.

Andrea Jones  12:06

what does it mean? People, oh, trust account. What is the trust account? I don’t know what that means, unless I do my research or I ask the question, yeah, I need to under we have that doing a law firm. We do we, we do it the way that they pay a retainer, and then we do a monthly withdrawal for on the on the account or their credit card to kind of replenish that. And again, if it’s kind of like a savings account that you have sitting there, and then, if the case is over, it’s a nice sitting money that you get back if the case solves faster or so solves better than what you expect. But I kind of expect every month to be replenished. People still don’t understand what that means. Why are you billing me another $500 we’re not billing you. You’re putting money into your legal savings account that you can then use to pay the legal fees. And those kind of explanations need to happen, because otherwise,

Justin Sisemore  12:49

yeah, I think Mary to your question, like, what questions should I ask? Well, if you if you walk out of the consult and you have no freaking clue where you’re going in the case and when things should happen from a timeline perspective. Like, we have packets that give that information and talk about when things should happen if they’re on pace.

Andrea Jones  13:08

We have a process. We have a process guide.

Justin Sisemore  13:10

Like, I don’t hide how the soup is made at all, right, you know, so when we when we look at the temporary orders, the discovery, the mediation, the trial, I keep beating that dead horse, but there’s a reason for beating that dead horse. Those are in your pre trial scheduling order, those late which lays out your timelines and your deadlines. So if you compartmentalize those now, you can start to budget and compartmentalize each step. And I think that if, if they’re not, if they’re not doing that, the best question to ask is, well, when are we going to have this done? When do we when should we shoot for discovery and things get moved I’ve had 10 trials this year that were supposed to go this year that literally, the judge just goes, no, not doing it all, new set of timelines, and the client thinks, well, oh my gosh, the world is coming to an end. No, we’ve gotten past the temporary orders. We like the temporary orders, or we would appeal them. We’ve gotten to the discovery, and all we’re doing now is just updating that, and it’s all organized in a portal. We’ve been to mediation maybe or maybe not, and the courts now, because the courts push the trial date back so long, maybe that extra Tuesday is not quite as important. And so we have the ability to be nimble and agile. To your point, the last thing I’ll say is that the bills when, if your attorney is not giving you bills inside of every month, and they don’t clearly explain and it should be broken out by peril. It’s required, but some people don’t do it this way. It’s to be broken out by the paralegal doing the work or the lawyer doing the work. You know, I can’t tell you the last time I’ve touched a keyboard to draft a pleading right? What? Yeah, no, I don’t do that, right? I have teams that that’s all they do. So if you don’t have on the bill, broken out specifically what it is, and when you have a conversation with an attorney or a paralegal, it I’m real big on our team saying next steps, right? So a there’s a calendar, next step the ball. Gets kicked back into the client’s court to do X, Y or Z. Then it goes on our calendar, then it goes on the bill, and it explains what we talked about. And even with hearings, I’ll talk about the why or what the person was asking in the bill. So it might be a little bit longer paragraph, just to remind you, hey, this person was asking for you to get booted out of the house and give you two grand a month. You got 20, right? So they didn’t want to give you anything, right? So you need to constantly be having those

Andrea Jones  15:26

and ask questions against them. When you get the invoice and you see something on there that you don’t understand, ask it. Ask because, I mean, if I see on there, for example, I was billed for the attorney drafting something, and I was billed for the paralegal, the same thing. Or it just says, drafting, then find out what it was, because and lawyers make mistakes.

Andrea Jones  15:43

It’s

Justin Sisemore  15:43

Look at your bills like, there’s there’s, we make mistakes. Okay, so I have like, five or six Davises at one time. My billing input goes in on my phone. I have these little fingers that I use this little phone for sometimes. And I know this is hard to believe, but sometimes I’ll click the wrong Davis. That doesn’t mean fire your lawyer. It means, hey, this is the and it very seldomly happens, because we are very careful, but it does happen, especially when you’ve got newer staff or newer team members. But we have a set where we have, hell, I do it okay, and I’ve been doing this a long time,

Andrea Jones  16:16

but, but again, in a real team which we have, we have somebody in our case, it’s the office manager that looks over every bill and even then goes to the attorney or the paralegal and says, like, Hey, I see this on here twice. Was by accident. It may be a different pleading. Or did you by accident both call the client? Or did you both call the client because there was a different date? You put the wrong date in there? There’s checks and balances. In our case, you might enter it, but Carrie catches it, and then she’s gonna update the bill and say, Well, that makes no sense, unless it’s not catchable. Because,

Justin Sisemore  16:46

and I look, I don’t want people to say, like, well, they’re just throwing things down that. I mean, when I say it’s very rare, I mean once in three or four years, type of thing,

Andrea Jones  16:54

but a client, I need to understand what they’re even billing me for, because then again, there’s a frustration I don’t understand the process. Now I’m seeing all the stuff on my invoice. My trust account is going down. I have no more money in there. They’re asking me for more money, and I don’t even understand what they’re billing me for. So I cannot respond and potentially say and here’s the thing I want to mention, too, there’s always a way and you do that, which I think is a cool thing, there’s always a way to get a third opinion. Because what you do now do is, is be a consultant, major third the third party, meaning I already have an attorney, my ex wife, my ex my ex husband, or future ex husband, future ex wife, has an attorney, but I am not sure whether my attorney is actually doing the right thing, because I don’t really understand or don’t want to ask. Then you can bring a third party in. I can have somebody out there, like Justin and other people probably out doing the same thing. Bring him in and say, Can you please take a look at my case? So I might spend a contract or $2,000 whatever.

Justin Sisemore  17:49

There’s a reason. You have a general contractor and a builder and an architect.

Andrea Jones  17:52

I can have a third opinion. And then you might say, they’re doing everything by the book. Is everything correct? You just didn’t understand the process. Or, well, there’s some other strategy we can do here, or this might not be okay, and then you get a opinion. So don’t feel that you are at the mercy of your attorney. You’re not. And if you’re not happy with your attorney, you can change attorneys. I think a lot of people don’t even know throughout your case, you can change your attorney. You don’t tie it to them,

Andrea Jones  18:15

right?

Justin Sisemore  18:15

right? Yeah, I think a lot of people understand that huge point. And I mean, you know, this, this, this works against us and for us, right? So this is not, this is not a hey, switch your attorney kind of comment. I have said many times that it’s like a bad dentist, right? You feel like they’ve got their hands in your mouth and they’ve got your file or an accountant or whatever else, and the concept of switching is impossible, because my new person will never be able to figure this out,

Andrea Jones  18:40

like changing bank accounts. The same thing, I’m not going to change that

Justin Sisemore  18:42

Kick that out of your damn head. There is no question to what we can get up to speed. Any good attorney can get up to speed in very short form. We may not be able to capture all the money that you’ve spent or lost based on bad work back and sometimes we’re batting cleanup. Now, if you’re switching three and four lawyers, people, right? But, but, but, keep in mind this switching piece, or the thing, the thing that you need to think about there is, if I’m going to make a move and I do a consult, I look at that. I’m like, I had a client call two days ago. This was like, Well, I want to hire you. And I said, Great, your hearings on Wednesday. No, what do you mean? No, no, there’s nothing else to say about it. So it’s understanding the value of what you’re doing and creating the time to get it, to get it matched up with what the client needs to do. And then also, when it comes to just the day to day payment of bills, the one my biggest pet peeve is when a client calls and I know that they’re frustrated, but they’re like, Well, I just, I don’t feel like anything was done in my case. And I mean, when that those people, I get, like, one or two of those a year, and I’m sure they’re the same people that go to the hotel that had, like, a awesome bed and their pillow sucked and everything else, but, but the reality of that is, you. You know, if you, if you have a question about your invoice, a a good lawyers, they’re trying to to expand their business, and they’re trying to create a brand image and a recognition and referral base. They want to talk to you about an issue with an invoice, okay? And if they don’t, obviously run but, but if they, they’re going to sit down and go, Hey, you know this, yeah, this, this, this piece of this doesn’t really make sense, or didn’t move the needle. I’ve wiped two or 300 bucks off people’s bills all the time because they just felt bad about a conversation they had with a paralegal. So what, okay, what I what I don’t like, is clients feeling like, well, I didn’t get the result that I wanted as a whole lot of times, to do their own action, and sometimes due to the lawyer, right?

Andrea Jones  20:45

And so always, it can also be the judge

Justin Sisemore  20:47

or the judge, or the day the bed they woke up on, or the way the moon aligned with the stars. I don’t know what the hell causes it, right? I like to think we win everything, but we don’t. But what I do know is, when you’re in those situations and you call an attorney and say, Hey, I don’t like my billing. Nothing was done on my case. I immediately go, Okay, well, tell me what issue you had with your billing. And they go, I don’t know. How can you expect me to do that? Right? I said, Well, the answer is, if you feel like we did something in error, I will fix an error all day long. If you feel like you didn’t get a result, I will look at the result, and I will be objective and look at the look at the entire situation, but I’m going to push back on you and challenge you, because what we do is sell advice, and if you didn’t take the advice, or maybe you didn’t, you know, stop doing drugs. And all of a sudden, we had three more hearings, and it got a little more expensive. You know, there’s a lot of things that can happen, so just be very, very realistic about what you’re doing and compartmentalize it like Andrea said. Don’t ever hesitate to have a second set of eyes on it, and then don’t be afraid to cut bait. Now, don’t wait until the trial date, or don’t wait till the day before the hearing to cut bait either, right?

Andrea Jones  21:57

A good attorney and a good attorney was actually welcome, yeah. And third thing, because if the client constantly complains, and now there is a different opinion, and the third party tells you your attorney is doing everything by the book, but that’s confirms that I as attorney do a good job, so that I should actually want that well.

Justin Sisemore  22:14

And people think, like, they really think I like run around hanging out with family lawyers. I don’t. I don’t hang out with a single family lawyer, not one, not because they all, I don’t want to, it’s just, they’re just not in my circle. So I have, I’ve never, ever gotten on this boat of like kicking some other lawyer, because it’s not our business. In fact, you will very seldomly see me ever say anything negative about another attorney. But I would definitely if I see some egregious billing or a date, what they’re doing sucks. And I’m just like, No, that’s that’s not what I would do. I explain how I would do it differently, and then explain to them about what my costs would be. So that’s my check on some other person in the industry that’s either charging too much or not doing any work or not doing enough, right? And that’s my check, is just being able to say what we do different. And, you know, I think that’s where it comes into play on the consulting side.

Mary Maloney  22:24

So just to kind of encapsulate a few of these last questions here, ooh, well, we want to talk about the fact that you get what you pay for. We kind of talked about that, and then that you should really, when you’re looking at different attorneys, you really should be comparing apples to apples, not apples to oranges. So any tips to help people figure that out?

Justin Sisemore  23:26

Yes. So the number one, the attorney who wants to be the person on the phone with you all the time at every stage. Okay, be cautious of that, because that bill can get out of control inside of the first two or three months. And I’ve seen firms that, literally, their business is built around the first two or three months, okay,

Andrea Jones  23:45

and emotions around the highest

Justin Sisemore  23:46

Yeah, absolutely. So when I when I have a client calling us 50 times a day, I’m not saying, hey, stop calling me. I’m saying, Get your thoughts organized, right? Get it into a summary timeline, and let’s meet about it where we can have a quality session to go through your concerns. If you’re firing off an email every 12 minutes, you’re getting billed, point to five or whatever the increment is, to answer and respond, and a lawyer is a legal duty to respond. And there are clients out there, I know people won’t, maybe may not believe this, that are that are kind of nutty. Okay, they do. They do things in life, and the reason they’re in certain situations is because that’s how they approach all of life, everything that’s very half empty approach. And so when they get to the billing stage of it, well, that’s a problem, and then the attorney who billed it was a problem. So I would encourage people, number one, to get their thoughts organized and get those stored up for a meeting. Instead of firing off a bunch of emails, I would make sure that the the attorney that’s billing, you know, when you when I look at how many hours I billed for the year. Now, I do a lot of management and case strategy and all that, which doesn’t go on the bill. But I don’t want to be on the phone all day long with people talking about things that don’t move the needle. I want to move the needle for people so, you know, when you’re in. And when you’re in the middle of that, that situation, you have to know a the cost per hour when you’re comparing apples to apples, back to your point, the cost per hour is not always the critical thing. It’s the value per the action, the interaction, right? So if I bill 600 bucks an hour, and Joe Blow bills $300 an hour, but Joe Blow is charging every time they’re doing any kind of letter back and forth or email, they can get up to $800 an hour real quick. Okay, and if I’m if I’ve got a paralegal billing at 195 an hour, and 90% of the stuff that goes back and forth is done like that, well, that that makes more sense for the value of the of the process for the client. So don’t get married to cost per hour. Also don’t like the $1,000 per hour. Really understand what you’re getting there, right? I mean, I I’d love to be able to charge 1000 bucks an hour, and certainly, you know, there’s days where I think I’m worth it, but most people would disagree, and I no disrespect to the people that charge it. It’s just, there’s, there’s like, outliers and everything, and it’s county specific, and it’s task specific. And so I just think you look at all of it,

Andrea Jones  26:06

and I think, like the the apples, the apples and oranges, like you said, you need to really compare, like we said earlier, ask the steps. So this is, how much are you charging me per hour? How much are you approximately charging me for each step? What is the overall because we we talk about how attorneys are so shady about not giving you in an estimate. You need to ask that, like you understand what a retainer is, understand what additional costs come up, understand the different steps, which is your homework beforehand, and then you can really compare, yeah, compare somebody

Justin Sisemore  26:37

I hate. I hate that. I hate the notion that attorneys have gotten this, this stigma about them, about over billing or billing for things that are dumb. Like, I don’t want to project that amongst our listeners, because most attorneys do it inside the fairway, even if clients disagree. Okay, most the outliers I have seen are like, I don’t even know how they do it. I mean, I’ve got six or seven lawyers and seven or eight support staff that bill a decent amount in a given week, and if they billed every hour of the day for their entire career of that year, they couldn’t get to what some of the legal fees are for a onesie twosie shop. And I don’t know how you do that, because it’s a numbers game, right? And I run a business and so, and they are expected to bill so just be cognizant of that when you see the the God’s gift to the earth attorney that is going to bill you 200 grand to do whatever it is, they say they did.

Mary Maloney  27:34

All right? Any other final thoughts from either one of you guys?

Andrea Jones  27:37

Legal fees, like you loaded legal fees, if you have other people to talk to any attorney. We said this many times before, your attorney is not your counselor. So when you reach out to an attorney, you talked about not every every 12 minutes, an email, but also make sure that all the emotional stuff is handled somewhere else with a counselor that get that out the way. So when you talk to your attorney, talk facts and strategy and only about that and don’t get upset. And again, this is very emotional, especially the first several months. It’s very emotional and but you need some help and some guidance and some support.

Justin Sisemore  28:06

But the last apples to apples, and I’ll be quiet, yeah, if you have oftentimes in divorce cases or custody cases, one side of the case is more expensive than the other, and the reason for that is one party is getting all the information together, or one party is asking for the most relief, right? Or one party does some really dumb stuff. So when I hear, well, they only spent 10,000 bucks or 5000 bucks on this, and I spent 22 and I’m like, Yes, you did meth, or whatever the case may be, or you don’t have any of the documentation. We had to go get an expert to trace that. You spend a bunch of money on an adulterous situation, like there’s things that come up that create inequalities in attorneys fees. So apples to apples, is your fact circumstance to your specific fact pattern in real time compared to no one else. But definitely you can go get somebody else who is a consulting attorney or just somebody to get lay us at eyes on it, and also be cognizant they may be trying to get a case too. So really understand what their process would have been and what it would have cost, and then you’ll have a good measurement.

Mary Maloney  29:12

Okay. Well, that’s great. That’s a great place to wrap up. So if you would like to speak to Attorney Justin Sisemore at law firm, the Sisemore Law Firm, you can contact the firm at 817-336-4444, or visit www.lawyerdfw.com We also invite you to follow the podcast and share it with others who you might think would find it interesting. Thanks so much for listening in and have a great day. You.