Is it normal to pay Lawyers for the very first conversation?

searcher profile

August 19, 2021

by a searcher from Princeton University in San Francisco, CA, USA

Fellow Searchers, I am interviewing lawyers for help with the purchase agreement and one of them asked me to pay their hourly rate just to speak with me to figure out if we could work together.

Is this common? Would you still speak to the lawyer and think of the payment as a call option and as a way for him to weed out people looking for free advice or would you walk away?

Thank you.

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commentor profile
Reply by a professional
from New York University in New York, NY, USA
From my (a tax lawyer's) perspective, the general idea of asking someone to do their job before you decide whether you want to pay them is antithetical to business in general, but there's a lot of nuance.

1. It really depends on the purpose of the call. If you want to talk with the lawyer so they understand the scope of the work and potential issues, and you learn about their background and experience, that should be for free. However, you should not expect to get free legal advice.

2. As a tax attorney, the vast majority of my work is directing other professionals (the client, accountants, other attorneys, etc.) as to what they should do, and for the most part I do not have physical work product. My value is derived from my understanding of tax laws from my experience and education.

3. From a lawyer's perspective, potential clients who want a lot of time before deciding whether to engage have a much higher incidence rate of problem clients (want more free time, want discounts on discounts, etc.), so having a paid consultation is a way to test the client. Sometimes it's easier to have a firm rule that pushes away potential clients but allows for a much more efficient use of time overall. It really depends. It's important to remember that the practice of law is a profession and we need to make money.
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Reply by a professional
from University of Oregon in Portland, OR, USA
It is common for family law and immigration, not as common for a business attorney to charge for a consultation. But I would say that there is a difference between a meet and greet meeting where you are just speaking in generalities and seeing if there is a fit (not typically a charge), and a meeting where you are asking the attorney to jump right in and provide substantive advice on a particular situation or set of facts (expect to pay). The latter is why family law and immigration attorneys almost always charge for consultations - the situation usually warrants immediate application of legal advice to the client’s fact scenario. By the time you leave the meeting, the attorney is (should be) laying out a path and strategy for next steps or laying out the information they (or any attorney) will need from you or the decisions you need to make to get to that spot. They are earning that consult fee.

But I agree with the majority here, you shouldn’t pay to see if someone’s a fit or not. And it’s not a common practice for business attorneys.
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