CONSULTATION POLICY

A legal consultation occurs when an individual engages an attorney to assess a situation for its legal viability. This article is intended to provide information on our consultation policy.

“Do you offer a free case evaluation?”

You may tell us about your immigration issue for up to 10 minutes for free over the phone (not through email) — we call this a “free case evaluation” although it is more of an information gathering session. If, within 10 minutes, we decide we can take your case and are able to provide a quote, we will do so. We cannot guarantee that we can provide a quote in all cases.

Some cases and situations are more complex and require further discussion. If we determine during the 10 minute conversation that your situation is more complex and requires more explanation, we will require a full paid consultation which we will charge $280 for one hour (or $140 for 30 minutes). This will give us the time to dig deeper into the situtation and do the analysis necessary to devise a way forward, or not. If you decide you would like our law firm to manage your case within 7 days of the paid consultation, we will deduct the consultaiton fee paid from the down payment for the attorney fee (only on flat fee matters).

What is included in the 10-minute “free case evaluation”?

This 10-minute free case evaluation is done by a paralegal and is purely intended for you to describe your situation to us and for us to take some notes about it on our end. It does not include us providing a legal assessment about your situation or providing you substantive legal advice. Most of the time we can determine if we are able to take the case within 10 minutes. Sometimes though, situations are more complicated and we will not be able to make a determination on the best approach for you within this 10-minute conversation. In those situations, we will tell you that we will require a paid consultation. It is up to you on whether you decide to schedule a consultation or not. We do not pressure individuals to schedule.

 “I just have a quick question for the lawyer.”

You may have a “quick question,” but we do not have a “quick answer.” There are many reasons why it is a bad idea for lawyer to engage in this kind of dialogue. But first and foremost, it is because of liability. How is a lawyer to know the details of someone’s situation from a “quick question”? Lawyers have to do their due diligence before they are able to provide answers. No lawyer in their right mind would freely provide answers to “quick questions” without spending the time needed to assess the whole situation. Answering a “quick question” without doing due diligence is a recipe for malpractice. As stated above, we cannot provide answers to substantive legal questions without doing a paid consultation.

“I just have one question.”

When someone says they have just one question, it never turns out that it is just one question. Answering one question usually leads to at least three more questions. Answering those questions leads to more questions, and so on. We do not engage in the “I just have one question” dialogue. We can listen to your situation for up to 10 minutes, but we cannot provide substantive legal advice or answer substantive questions without doing a paid consultation.

How to get started

You can reach us on the telephone at (425) 947-1130.