Best Practices in Selecting Legal Counsel Part 3: Buy the Right Product

Lawyers have been their own worst enemies in creating false impressions of what is the product they are selling. Hourly rates can suggest they are selling time. Fixed fees for certain bundles of documents can suggest they are selling paper. And so, clients naturally may think in terms of how much time has been spent on a matter, or whether a certain document is less expensive with one lawyer rather than another.

In fact, a good lawyer is not in the business of selling time or paper. A lawyer should be selling advice, to assist a client in making good decisions, and then selling effective execution of the client’s decisions. For example, if a firm is offering a “start-up package” at a fixed price for a pre-defined set of legal documents for forming a new company, the client should immediately seek new legal counsel. That’s because no lawyer can, in advance, determine what set of legal documents the client will need. That determination should be based on a discussion of the client’s specific needs and requirements, from which the lawyer’s advice will be derived, and then the client should make decisions using that advice. The document preparation only begins after the advice is given and the decisions are made.

As to whether an hourly rate fee or fixed fee arrangement is appropriate in the circumstances—that’s the subject for the next blog post, so be watching for that one soon on KrauseLawKC.com.