Every so often I speak and answer questions for a group of folks known as Maryland Fathers United For Equal Rights (FUERF). Check out their website, here: Maryland Fathers United for Equal Rights Foundation.

Every time I go to speak, I find it increasingly sad to hear the tales about the dissatisfaction members often feel with their existing attorneys.

They tell pretty common stories, sometimes about the “big firms” who charge the high dollars. They don’t communicate with their clients. They charge outrageous fees (one local firm charges an initial deposit of $15,000.00 for a minimal number of hours. Once the hourly amount has been reached, the client is expected to provide another $20,000.00). The hourly rate at this firm is a minimum of $250.00 for an associate with little or no experience. Partners charge at least $375.00 an hour or more.

The problem is, by the time these folks have run out of money, the big firm has no more use for them and dumps them. This, in addition to not communicating and often, according to the stories these individuals tell, after making serious errors in their cases. Not to worry. They’re out of money. They can’t hire another lawyer and they can’t pay their existing lawyer.

I pride myself on my relationships with my clients. They matter to me. When I was in law school, I had a mentor who later became a judge. I told this person that one of the things I thought made me especially suited to representing clients in family cases was that I genuinely cared about my clients. This person replied that if that was true, I’d get my heart broken. What the person should have said was that if that was true, I was a dead ringer for going broke.

I get far too many clients who think that because they have a “just cause,” they don’t need to pay me for my services. Despite the fact that I always provide them with clear and consistent information about the cost of divorce and/or custody litigation, too often, they get halfway through the process, run out of money, and expect me to represent them without charge because they’ve already paid me X number of dollars.

Well, I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t know how to explain that if they’d been with the law firm I’ve heard about from clients who have been charged obscene amounts without any quality of service, they’d have been dumped long ago.

But I can tell them this: I respond to my clients. I care about them. And I charge a fraction of what the big guns charge. The results are up to my clients. If they do what I suggest, when I suggest they do it, and if they understand that my services are valuable and pay me a fair wage for what I do, we usually end up with an outcome that is very beneficial to the client.

IF not, well, maybe they should have retained the Big Guns. Then, they’d understand the value of my services and those of my firm