First Posted: 2/28/2015
Before hiring attorneys, people usually want to know and deserve to know two things, how much will it cost, and how long will it take.
Non-attorneys are often frustrated by how long legal work can take. There are six major considerations affecting the amount of time it may take to complete a client’s legal matter.
First, legal decisions are usually big decisions that are often expensive to implement. Fully implemented legal decisions are typically even more expensive to un-do if a client changes his or her mind.
I can think of a few of my clients in the last six months who changed their minds on decisions, after the decisions were made but before I had completed their work. Fortunately for my clients in those matters, I did not complete everything immediately. There is value and benefit in being diligent and reflective when finalizing expensive and sometimes unchangeable legal decisions.
Second, even when a client has decided what he or she wants, there are a myriad of small considerations to which the attorney must give attention. For example, if a client wants to sell a commercial property to someone else in exchange for payments over time, clients may refer to the arrangement as a land contract and ask for a land contract. However, the attorney will need to analyze and advise the client as to whether to undertake a land contract (in the legal sense) or to utilize a promissory note and mortgage arrangement instead. If everything goes as planned, the outcome for the client should be similar by using either structure, but each structure better addresses slightly different situations with different risks.
Third, clients typically want their legal documents perfect in substance and perfect in all details. For example, sometimes a client cannot understand why the client’s street address (noted in one location) in a 40-page document might miss a digit. Clients immediately recognize mistakes in their addresses because they see their addresses every day. Their attorneys likely do not. Allowing extra time to position attorneys and their staffs to re-proofread documents to find mistakes in details allows documents to be as perfect as clients expect in all respects.
Fourth, many legal matters require approvals and filings that can take days or weeks that are completely beyond the control of the attorney. Government offices are usually sensitive to timeliness, but other people (even a client’s business partners) may not be.
Fifth, attorneys and their employees are expected to be competent and professional on an array of topics. Maintaining a competent and professional staff is not cheap. Retaining professional staff requires that attorneys work on several matters at one time, so that there is sufficient work to retain the professional help. That quantity of work means that the attorney’s schedule does not always have a great deal of imminent flexibility.
Finally, although tough to accept sometimes, some matters simply have more imminent legal implications than other matters, despite how urgent each client usually feels that his or her work is.
