What are typical Lawyer's fees?

[ksgirl38]

I downloaded a trial version of the software attorneys commonly use. It isn't as easy as filling in a few blanks. You still have to know and understand the law. There is nothing wrong with an attorney sending a partner to a 341, even if it is just because she had a busy work load that day. Do you have some reason to suspect there was no death in the family? Have some compassion!

The fact that you perceive your attorney to not have done much is evidence that she earned every dollar of her fee. You pay an attorney so that you don't have to learn the law and all of the court rules and procedures and do all the work yourself. In addition to the actual time she spent on your case, you paid for your lawyer's expertise and all the money and time it took her to gain that expertise, not to mention her overhead including a large malpractice insurance premium. How much debt did you discharge for that $1600 plus court fees? I bet you got a bargain.

I am sure I could have filed my petition and gotten a plan confirmed on my own. But, paying $6300 to my attorney to make sure everything went smoothly and to not have to spend hours researching and preparing documents was well worth it. He even told me that I made his job easy because of the way I provided information to him. I don't care whether he spent 1 hour or 40 hours.

About a week before we were scheduled to go to court I get an email from her saying that she won't be able to attend, no explanation given as to why, but her partner (who I had never met) would be there in her place. At some point during the court proceedings the partner mentioned that my attorney was out for a funeral. I guess it's possible she went to the funeral of someone with a terminal illness or some other situation where she knew the death was coming, but it just seemed odd to go to court being represented by someone you'd never met. The firm was made up of only the two lawyers so if it's common practice for only one of them to attend court proceedings then I thought it would have been appropriate to introduce me to the other attorney, just so I didn't feel blindsided the day of the hearing.

She wasn't very informed on some pretty basic questions. Like the student loan question that comes up often and some other very basic questions I've seen on this forum. It kind of surprised me since they seem to be such common questions. It seems like there was another common question that she didn't seem too informed on either, but I can't remember exactly what it was now - reaffirming the car or something like that.

[ksgirl38]

ksgirl, it sounds like you were charge for a 7 and not 13 by the rate.

here is florida the prices for the 13 also varied from atty to atty, and most possibly from district to district. here in the middle district of florida we were quoted 5k -3500 for a 13. 1000- 2000 for a chapter 7.

we ended up going with the "middle" but not because of the price, it's was because we liked the firm. if they would have been the most expensive we still would have gone with them.

The attorney I went with ended up being about $200 more than the lowest priced one of the 5 I had consultations with. She was nice and all, but in retrospect I just didn't feel like she was as professional as I would have hoped for or informed enough. There were a couple of times she didn't know the answer to questions about things I've seen on this forum. Also within a few days of my discharge I found out Verizon was witholding some money on my account and she basically told me it would be an additional charge to resolve that. That was after she had consulted with some other attorneys on a question I asked her. Then she never did respond to my last email. I guess something just rubbed me the wrong way. Considering what you pay for the attorney I just expected a little more for my money. I know I'm going to offend someone by saying this, but after gong through this experience I have a lot less respect for bankruptcy attorneys just because it seems like they do the least of most of the attorneys. Of course I guess every case is different and some are better than others. Just my personal opinion.

[brandv1]

My attorney fees were about 4000 - 500 retainer, 26 something in the plan, plus another $500 in the plan to cover filing any modification during plan (which they refund if not used - I thought that was interesting).

[LadyInTheRed]

lady you are so correct, i found the complaint of the firm i used was their clients never followed through, nor provided the information needed to file timely. so you hit the nail right on the head.

I work in another area of law, as I think you know. On my last day of work before Christmas which was my last day of work for the year, I worked until midnight to get something done for clients. We had a meeting in July and told them everything we needed to complete the transaction by the end of the year and followed up in writing with a detailed list. Despite several follow ups, they waited until the last minute to get me the required info. There actually is still some information I need from them to tie up some loose ends. Still nothing. Lack of information from clients is a real problem. And these clients always complain about fees. If you would provide information on a timely basis, I'd have to spend a lot less time updating old information and bugging you for what I need!

Of course, there are also attorneys who don't follow up on things like they should. There is no excuse for that.

[tobee43]

LadyInTheRed:I am sure I could have filed my petition and gotten a plan confirmed on my own. But, paying $6300 to my attorney to make sure everything went smoothly and to not have to spend hours researching and preparing documents was well worth it. He even told me that I made his job easy because of the way I provided information to him. I don't care whether he spent 1 hour or 40 hours.

here here!! you know what they say; "He who represents himself has a fool for a client", that's why even attys hire other attys

lady you are so correct, i found the complaint of the firm i used was their clients never followed through, nor provided the information needed to file timely. so you hit the nail right on the head.

[LadyInTheRed]

I can understand that. To be honest, I consider bankruptcy lawyers one of the biggest ripoffs. Considering what we pay them they really don't do much. At least mine didn't. I know that my attorney filled out the petition using some type of software. How hard is it to fill in a blank? She didn't even show up when I went to court. Her partner showed up instead. Supposedly she had a death in the family. Outside of answering a few emails from me and meeting with me a couple of times I can't see where she was worth $1600. Of course my case was really simple so maybe in a more complicated case it's different. Not to mention that most of us didn't really have that extra money to pay an attorney to begin with.

I downloaded a trial version of the software attorneys commonly use. It isn't as easy as filling in a few blanks. You still have to know and understand the law. There is nothing wrong with an attorney sending a partner to a 341, even if it is just because she had a busy work load that day. Do you have some reason to suspect there was no death in the family? Have some compassion!

The fact that you perceive your attorney to not have done much is evidence that she earned every dollar of her fee. You pay an attorney so that you don't have to learn the law and all of the court rules and procedures and do all the work yourself. In addition to the actual time she spent on your case, you paid for your lawyer's expertise and all the money and time it took her to gain that expertise, not to mention her overhead including a large malpractice insurance premium. How much debt did you discharge for that $1600 plus court fees? I bet you got a bargain.

I am sure I could have filed my petition and gotten a plan confirmed on my own. But, paying $6300 to my attorney to make sure everything went smoothly and to not have to spend hours researching and preparing documents was well worth it. He even told me that I made his job easy because of the way I provided information to him. I don't care whether he spent 1 hour or 40 hours.

[tobee43]

ksgirl, it sounds like you were charge for a 7 and not 13 by the rate.

here is florida the prices for the 13 also varied from atty to atty, and most possibly from district to district. here in the middle district of florida we were quoted 5k -3500 for a 13. 1000- 2000 for a chapter 7.

we ended up going with the "middle" but not because of the price, it's was because we liked the firm. if they would have been the most expensive we still would have gone with them.

[ksgirl38]

At least you had communication until your case was closed. Many complaints here are that the attorney stops communicating once the full fee is paid.

I can understand that. To be honest, I consider bankruptcy lawyers one of the biggest ripoffs. Considering what we pay them they really don't do much. At least mine didn't. I know that my attorney filled out the petition using some type of software. How hard is it to fill in a blank? She didn't even show up when I went to court. Her partner showed up instead. Supposedly she had a death in the family. Outside of answering a few emails from me and meeting with me a couple of times I can't see where she was worth $1600. Of course my case was really simple so maybe in a more complicated case it's different. Not to mention that most of us didn't really have that extra money to pay an attorney to begin with.

[MarkCantaur]

At least you had communication until your case was closed. Many complaints here are that the attorney stops communicating once the full fee is paid.

[ksgirl38]

I think I paid $1600 which I still felt was high considering that my case was extremely simple and I was very organized with my paperwork so I basically felt like I was just paying to have someone else fill out the paperwork. Not to mention that as soon as my case was closed my attorney stopped answering emails and didn't seem to know as much as I thought. I went to 5 consultations and I didn't find an attorney charging over $2000, but as someone else mentioned, it varies from state to state.

[Sammie]

Our Attorney is $3,000 which is in our plan. We paid $500 up front for the retainer and filing fees. sammie

[keepsmiling]

You will be in bed (so to speak) with this person for a long time.
Make sure you feel comfy with him/her. There is a huge trust factor involved.

[AngelinaCat]

The fee should not be your only consideration. This is not a place to bargain shop. Hire the person you think is best for the job.

That is what I was trying to say in my post, only Lady did it much better; i.e. you get what you pay for.

[LadyInTheRed]

( The price for adding creditors, seems to vary from state to state.)

As far as court guidelines go, it varies by district or division. It also varies by attorney as long as they stay within local guidelines, if there are any.

doing some googling brought me to the US Bankruptcy court for Northern CA region web page that listed the maximum allowable standard fees. Los Angeles region did not have the same list, but I can guess it would be similar. Basic fee is $3500, and there are lots of add ons, half of which apply, so it sounds like the quote was in line.

That's for the San Francisco Division. There are 4 divisions in the Northern District of California. The Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles, has 5 divisions. So, you would need to also the correct division within your district. But, I agree that the SF guidelines can help determine if the quote is reasonable.

The fee should not be your only consideration. This is not a place to bargain shop. Hire the person you think is best for the job. As long as the attorney will agree to include most of the fee in your plan and you aren't paying 100% to unsecured creditors, a higher fee to your attorney will just reduce what you pay to unsecured creditors.

[dragondad]

doing some googling brought me to the US Bankruptcy court for Northern CA region web page that listed the maximum allowable standard fees. Los Angeles region did not have the same list, but I can guess it would be similar. Basic fee is $3500, and there are lots of add ons, half of which apply, so it sounds like the quote was in line.