Hiring a lawyer can be one of the best financial decisions you make—or an unexpectedly expensive one.

Legal work costs money because lawyers are paid for their time, knowledge, judgment, and responsibility. However, in some cases, clients accidentally increase their legal bills simply because they don’t know how lawyers charge or what information their lawyer actually needs.

What can you do?

You can take several simple steps to keep your legal costs under control. The following are some suggestions on how to keep your legal costs down.

1. Be Sure to Be Honest with Your Lawyer – your lawyer needs to know all your details, even the details you don’t want to tell anyone. Shawn, the lawyer at SMP Law has a saying “you don’t lie to your doctor and you don’t lie to your lawyer”. This can be a costly mistake because your lawyer can be unprepared if they do not have all the details and the legal process can take longer if they have to start over with the proper details. Your lawyer’s job is to advise you based on the facts—not the version of the facts you wish were true. Hiding information can result in bad advice, unexpected problems, and more legal work later.
2. Don’t Send Ten Emails When One Will Do – it is important for your lawyer to have all the information but can you put it in one email rather than multiple? Each email must be read, understood, researched and answered. Also, many emails do not require a legal response, so be cautious of what you are asking in your email.
3. Multiple Demand Letters Should Be a Red Flag – often a lawyer may send a demand letter depending on the situation, in the hopes of saving further litigation. However, if the desired response is not received be wary of sending multiple demand letters. A client who retained SMP Law shared that their former lawyer had spent $12,000.00 on multiple demand letters and there was nothing accomplished. After all those demand letters, a decision has to be made on litigation and that $12,000 could have been put to better use.
4. Be Cautious of AI – AI is growing rapidly in its use, however SMP Law does not use AI to draft legal documents. AI is best used for generating ideas and legal documents require the facts and the law. If your lawyer uses AI, it is crucial that the facts presented by AI be thoroughly checked for accuracy, which can be quite costly. You are in essence paying for the time to search AI and then paying for the time to ensure the AI is accurate – rather than paying once for the legal research.
5. Don’t Fight Every Little Battle – when in a family legal battle, everything can feel very emotional but be cautious about making everything a fight. Determine what matters to you most. Is there something you can compromise on that can be taken off the table and save some money? If it will cost you more in legal fees to fight an issue, is the fight worth it? Your lawyer can help determine your rights and help you decide what is most important to you.

Contact us anytime at SMP Law to help SiMPlify your legal matter at 905-565-9494 or email info@smplaw.ca if you have any questions or would like to book an appointment to meet and discuss your situation and how we can help.

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