One reason we started our free Illinois legal guidance and lawyer referral service almost 25 years ago, was to change the perception of attorneys. One reason people hate attorneys is they hire the wrong one and that attorney does a terrible job for them. We thought if we could get you with the right attorney for your case, someone we know would do a good job for you, it would change the way you perceive attorneys.
Another reason people hate lawyers is how they act and what they say. Unfortunately that will always be louder in shaping opinions than a good experience with an attorney will.
I thought of this when I read an article about a Houston attorney who said that he and another partner charge $4,000 an hour for their services! That is apparently up from $3,000 last year. Publicizing this, in my opinion, is gross as was a comment in the article that said, “If there’s someone out there who bills at a higher rate than Bill and me on hourly cases, please let us know so we may raise our rates,”
Now this is a lawyer at a well regarded firm that has approximately 200 attorneys in four offices across the country. It is not the type of law firm that anyone who would reach out to us would likely be hiring. They often deal in multi-billion dollar cases. Many of there cases involve very complex litigation.
My problem with this is that it is incredibly tone deaf to make comments like this. Is he worth $4,000 an hour? I have no idea. I’m sure there are plenty of great attorneys at similarly big law firms who could get similar results for the low, low cost of $800 an hour. And I don’t even begrudge the guy for charging what he can get. If someone wants to pay that, good for him.
But if a regular person reads this and has never interacted with an attorney, they might think that this is what lawyers actually cost. $4,000 is more than most people make in a month. So many people refuse to even reach out to an attorney because they think they can’t afford. Articles like this with flippant comments do nothing to help those people.
The good news is that most people can afford an attorney. Many cases are handled on a contingency basis which means there is no fee unless you win the case. That is mostly injury cases or other matters where you will recover money like suing for unpaid life insurance benefits or a contested estate.
Other cases are hourly or flat fee and while it might take some searching around, most people can eventually find a good attorney that is in their price range.
I will say that the rates for this attorney are certainly shocking. I remember being a young attorney and seeing big firms charge $600 an hour and thinking that was insane. I can not imagine the justification that some of these big companies use to pay attorneys something in the four figures, especially knowing that there are usually multiple lawyers from the same firm working on a case at the same time. Fortunately, the rate for hiring a “regular” attorney who represents consumers has not gone up that much.
