I am definitely in the wrong business. Well, I’m not in any business, but that’s beside the point.
So far, the attorney fees for probating my mom’s estate are about $2,500. She had a will and kept good records. The lawyer has filed the probate application and gotten me appointed executor. He’s done some title research on mom’s house, phoned IRS for an EIN, and met with me once.
The corker (as Grandma Jacques used to say) is that the bill I got from him today is basically a bill for a bill.
What happened was I didn’t get his first statement, so when I got a bill charging interest on an unpaid balance, I contacted him and asked for the first bill. Well, according to today’s bill, it took him .80 hours to fax and mail me the first bill. So now I owe him $180 for sending me a copy of that first bill.
Gotta admire chutzpah like that.
Anyone have any good lawyer stories to share so I won’t feel like such a sucker?
You have to be impressed by their balls, don’t you. I feel your pain!
I also had to have an attorney prepare a legal estate to sell my dad’s home. I’m an only child, absolutely everything he owned is worth less than $50k, and I have to hire a friggin’ lawyer for this?? Forgive me, I guess I forgot to take my stupid pill this morning.
I haven’t gotten my first bill, but by God, I’ll now be sure to not lose it!
Ypu’d rather pay tens of thousands of dollars in estate taxes or other avoidable expenses than pay a few thousand dollars to a professional to do it right?
Pam, if you can’t find a decent probate attorney who charges less than $200 an hour, then you didn’t look very hard. OTOH, I’d ask the attorney why s/he is spending his/her time on the bill rather than having a secretary or paralegal do it.
Otto – I didn’t look for attorneys at all, and now I know I should have. I used the attorney who did mom’s will, because I was confident that she shopped around and got some recommendations. Now I think she liked the corn plants that he had growing on his balcony – probably reminded her of home.
I think I could have done the probate myself if there’d been time, but I was only there for two weeks last summer, and there was so much other stuff to do. (Mom lived and died in Washington State and I’m in Iowa.)
And Lurker – same thing I thought. That’s what assistants and secretaries are for. Heck, I used to be one, and you’d never catch one of my lawyers at a fax or copy machine.
You have just brought up one of my leading pet peeves. In my State, which is also your’s, the applicable statute in the probate code says that for performing “ordinary services” the executor/administrator/personal representative can get fees equal to about 2% of the gross estate subject to taxes and the lawyer for "ordinary services can likewise get up to 2% of the gross taxable estate. The 2% is a ceiling. All too often the ceiling becomes the standard. It doesn’t take many smarts to pad a time statement to get to the standard fee. The other trick is to characterize some task, such as overseeing the sale of some real estate, as an extraordinary service for which an additional fee may be claimed. If you are being charged for the preparation of an itemized bill and for the time the thing is cranking through the fax machine you may well suspect that you are the recipient of a padded bill.
I have no idea what the system may be in Washington State, but here the attorney’s fee and the personal representative’s fee must be approved by the court before full payment can be made. If you think you are being had you might consider objecting to the final report’s request for fees.
One unfortunate thing is that in some larger law firm bill padding is tacitly encouraged because the decision about continued employment and who gets to be a partner/shareholder is based on how much money the candidate brings in. The young lawyer who bills an honest six hours a day will be bumped in favor of the young lawyer who bills an honest six hours and a dishonest four hours every day.
It’s not that there are too many lawyers; it’s that there aren’t enough good ones.
First, I am not a lawyer and this not legal advice, I’m relaying my personal experience and opinion.
I work with lawyer’s everyday; I manage litigation for a regional insurance carrier. No attorney I have ever used would even dream of sending me a bill like that, cause I’d fire 'em. Then I’d take all my business away.
Now this is easy for me to say because I do it all the time, I think you should dispute the bill. Call up the attorney and say that you feel that you should not be charged for a copy of a bill and that 48 minutes to send a fax is down right unbelievible. If I was going to agree to the fee at all I would only accept 10 minutes of secretary’s time.
The American public is getting better about questioning their doctors and taking an active roll in their healthcare. We shouldn’t be intimidated by other professionals we hire.
I’m a paralegal for a large NYC law firm with several hundred attorney. Even paralegals aren’t supposed to bill for that stuff. Anything that a secretary or an assistant can do is not billable. In my particular division, if the US Trustee notices that we are billing for shit like that, he can object to our monthly fee application, which seriously holds up our cash flow.
Thanks, guys. Based on what you’ve all said, I’ll dispute that part of the bill, but I’ll probably wait and do it later, at the very end, when it comes time to ask the court to approve the expenses and close the estate.
We’re in the process of selling mom’s house (this lawyer isn’t involved in that at all) and I don’t want to do anything that might impede the sale. I suppose the lawyer could file a lien on the estate until he got paid, or something equally diabolical.
I could just kick myself though. I was able to do lots of stuff for my family when I worked as a legal assistant – I did one of my brother’s divorces and I helped my stepdad with a workers’ comp settlement. But with something as simple as this, I end up all frazzled.
Live and learn, I guess.
I really appreciate everyone’s thoughts on this. Thanks.
…definitely call and dispute the .8 hours billed. If your lawyer has any business sense, it will be waived. That kind of thing (1) should not take that long, and (2) should be handled by an administrative assistant, not billed by an attorney.
You should probably ask to waive or reduce the interest on the first bill while you’re at it.
Consider threatening to retain new counsel who does not bill clients for administrative work.
As some others have mentioned, if the attorney is billing for work that he didn’t actually do then he’s being a Very Bad Man. At best it’s a breach of ethics and at worst it’s criminal fraud.
Pam
Depends on who the client is and whether the client owns the property. If the house has pssed out of the estate, then he can’t file a lien against it based on estate work.
I really hope you’re not doing any of the above anymore, as this is a textbook case of unauthorized practice of law.
I guess I’m the client. Mom left the house to me and my brother. It’s being sold, and the sale is scheduled to close at the end of the month.
Um, not really, I don’t think. I didn’t represent anyone. My brother’s divorce was uncontested. Brief marriage (less than a year), no kids, no property. Wife signed the papers agreeing to the divorce, and at the proper time, I took my brother to the ex parte department of the King County Courthouse where a judge signed the decree.
As for my stepdad’s work comp case, my involvement was mainly convincing him to contest the temporary disability award the City wanted him to settle for. He hired an attorney and was awarded a disability pension. I don’t think he would have pursued it if I hadn’t persuaded him that he was probably entitled to more than what the City offered. I went to his appointments with him and made sure he got his questions answered, and I helped him follow through with stuff the attorney asked him to do.
I don’t want you to think I’m a total idiot. This stuff scares the dickens out of me.
What’s that sizzling at the top of my skull? Oh, that’s my temper.
I wish we were in the Pit right now, but since this is plain ole’ MPSIMS I’ll restrain myself.
IAAL. And what what this guy did is vile. Sure, it happens, but there is absolutely no need for you pay for it. Even supposing he did stand there the entire 48 minutes while the fax went through, his inefficiency is his problem, not yours.
It kills me that the clients who can least afford the bills are the ones least likely to challenge and negotiate them.
I’ve had clients who were banks, insurance companies, major manufacturers, hospitals, you name it. They all go over their bills with a fine tooth comb, and cross out anything they think isn’t justified. So should you.
Generally speaking (bearing in mind that this is not legal advice to you, etc., etc.), a client has a right to dispute all or part of a bill. If he starts getting obstreperous, pay him the part that you agree is fair - and not one red penny more.
And if he really gives you a hard time, file a complaint with your local bar association. There’s not exactly a shortage of lawyers, and we don’t need shysters around.
OxyMoron, I’m going to try to keep him honest. I’ll deduct 30 minutes from the bill, send him a check, and see what happens.
If he squawks – well, I don’t like empty threats, and since I’m 2000 miles away from him, I’m not sure about pursuing a complaint. But if he has any kind of business sense, like Bearflag said, maybe he’ll accept it and it won’t happen again.
But can’t you just see it? The next bill I get will include time he’ll spend reviewing my payment history.
