Frequently Asked Questions

What are your hours of operation?

     The office is open for business 10 a.m. through 9 p.m.  If you wish to make an appointment for an hour outside of this timeframe, kindly inquire.  We will do our best to accommodate you.  Recognizing that a non-trivial percentage of our clients work outside of the house, we routinely hold client meetings on the weekends and in the evenings.

Do you charge extra for working in the evening or on the weekends?

     Not generally.  We do not charge extra for scheduled work on weekends and in the evening.  We may charge extra, however, if urgent work becomes necessary due to circumstances beyond our control and requires us to work overnight or to cancel other engagements.  An example of such occurrence is when you rush into our offices asking for help only weeks before a trial, when you had ignored for months the fact that your spouse had engaged an attorney and filed a lawsuit.  Assuming that we take a case under these conditions, you may be billed extra “procrastination” charges if the work cannot be accommodated during normal hours.

How will I be billed?

     Most law offices bill in fractions of an hour.  That means that a twenty second phone call is billed as a minimum of six minutes.  We do not dispute the validity of this practice. (It would take you six minutes to drop whatever you were doing, listen intently to the question, give help, and then get back into your original task, wouldn’t it?)  We bill only the actual time, however.  This means that if your phone call took three minutes, you will be billed for just three minutes. 

How much will it cost to get a divorce?

     We have no idea.  We promise efficient service at a moderate hourly rate.  How many hours it will take for you and your spouse to reach an agreement is completely outside our control.  If you and your spouse are agreeable,  it may cost you very little.  If you and your spouse can not see eye-to-eye on any issue, and we wind up in court,  it will cost you a lot.  It has been our experience that the degree of enmity and spite has no correlation with the size of the marital estate being divided. Anger is unpredictable. 

Do you charge for your first consultation?

     Yes, because experience indicates that we cannot have a meaningful consultation without,  in the course of our conversation,  providing you with some valuable professional advice.   The fee is always $300, no matter how long it takes to explore the circumstances of your particular problem.

    During the initial consultation, we will establish the strategy to attack your immediate problems, identify the long-term issues presented,  and estimate what it will take to sort out your problems.  At the end of the meeting, we will tell you whether we are interested in taking your case.  If we are, we will give you a copy of our contract to take home, and decide whether you are interested in having us represent you.

What if I do not want to pay just to meet you?

     Good question.  If you just want to eyeball a prospective attorney, call the office and inquire into a schedule of an upcoming AFL public presentation that you could attend.  Currently, the next lecture is set for 24 February 2006, at 12:00 at Mecklenburg County Bar is entitled Divorce 101.  To register, please contact 704.375.8624, or http://www.meckbar.org

Are there any services you offer for a flat fee?

     Yes. If we determine, after the initial consultation, that you require nothing but a North Carolina divorce, or change of name, or domestication of a foreign order, or a non-abandonment agreement, the charge for each of these services will be $300 plus the court costs.  Please feel free to enquire about other services that may be available on a flat-rate basis.