Paying Legal Fees: How to Hire the Representation You Need

Getting the right legal representation and the help you need at a difficult time, can be a worry, especially if you think that you can’t really afford it.

If you are facing a DUI charge, you could probably do with the services of someone like Andrade Law Offices, and if you learn a bit more about how to hire the representation you need and be able to pay the legal fees, it will hopefully allow you to focus on getting your problem sorted.

Ask and negotiate

The most obvious starting point when it comes to sorting out how to be able to pay your legal bill, is to tell your lawyer your financial position and employment status and ask them to quote a fee, so that you know what you are facing in terms of costs.

It would definitely not be a good idea to just go ahead and get the legal help you need without having any sort of idea of what the fees are going to come to or how you are going to pay them.

It might be that your lawyer will agree to a fixed fee, or they might agree to an alternative billing model. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, so it is worth trying to negotiate and it might be that if you are a student or on a low-income for example, there might be some help available with fees, that they can help you with and guide you towards.

Get organized

Another good way of keeping your legal bill down as low as possible, is to prepare all the documentation that your lawyer will need and be as organized as possible.

Any delays or unnecessary correspondence between you and your lawyer when they are chasing you up for something, is likely to add to the bill, so do as much of the basic groundwork that you can, as this will not only save valuable time but also help to keep your costs under greater control.

Legal Aid

There are certain categories of citizens who qualify for legal aid help, so if you are a veteran or on a low-income, there is a chance that there may be a scheme that you qualify for based on your circumstances.

What you don’t want to try and do if it is at all possible, is consider the idea of representing yourself in a court case, in order to save on court fees.

You may well have legitimate and pressing concerns about how you are going to pay for the legal help that you need, but you should find that a reasonable percentage of lawyers will be willing to try and help you around this problem in some way, maybe by extending the terms of your repayment.

You can’t be sure they will do this of course and they are not obligated to do so, but if you want to try and ensure that you get the best possible outcome to your court case, it makes sense to try and hire someone who can do potentially do that for you.

Elise Parkes is a student with big plans for entering law school. She writes about a range of law topics, educating herself at the same time as the people reading her articles.