What Happens during an Initial Consultation?

Most of my consultations are set for one hour.  Consults work better in person. For folks who live far away, have an urgent situation, or cannot travel, I can do them via zoom.

During the initial part of the consult, I ask questions to elicit basic information. The purpose is to determine what problems bring a potential client to my office and what concerns need to be addressed to resolve those problems.  These problems often involve issues of child custody and support, grounds for divorce, alimony, and property division. However, some consults involve appeals, adoptions/termination of parental rights, enforcement of court orders, DSS abuse or neglect proceedings, or domestic abuse proceedings.  This process typically takes about twenty minutes.

The next part of the consult, I discuss with the potential client his or her goals for the issues, the realistic range of resolutions for each issue if the parties cannot reach an agreement and require a judge to resolve the dispute, and potential concerns regarding a resolution on these issues.  For example, if a potential client’s goal is primary legal and physical custody, we will discuss what factors might make that an easily achievable or likely unrealistic goal.  If the goal is to keep a home that person owned prior to the marriage, we might discuss transmutation and how proof for or against transmutation might be developed.  If someone was working towards a defined benefit pension both before and during the marriage, we would discuss the coverture fraction and how a Qualified Domestic Relations Order might be used to divide that pension.

Unless the potential client decides to retain me, I will use the final part of the consult to draft an email, in discussion with the client, laying out various options for moving forward, describing the issues I see and concerns and goals regarding each issue, and quoting an initial retainer for each option.  With each option, I will describe my initial plans to help achieve the potential client’s goals.

This email will contain numerous hyperlinks to my website (much like this FAQ does) for the potential client to read and consider at his or her leisure. This email will also discuss information the potential client can gather or lifestyle changes the potential client can make to increase the likelihood of achieving those goals.

I begin consults with no expectation that the potential client will hire me.  For some of these consults, potential clients are seeking second (or third) opinions because they lack confidence in their current attorney. For such consults, I can provide insight into why litigation has taken a particular path and advice on how to move litigation in a direction that achieves that person’s goals. If they do not retain me, such potential clients can bring my written suggests to their current counsel to discuss whether to pursue them.

Sometimes a potential client is simply seeking basic information or interviewing numerous attorneys. Sometimes a potential client comes with unrealistic or uncertain goals and needs time after the consult to determine whether to retain me to pursue different or better-defined goals.  Sometime it requires a consult to determine the potential client and I will not work well together. Sometimes it requires a consult to determine a potential client’s goals cannot be achieved via the local family courts or that I lack the time to give the matter the attention it requires. In those circumstances, I will refer the potential client to a different attorney.

Unlike some attorneys, I do not need a high yield rate from consults to maintain a busy practice. If a case particularly intrigues me I will let a potential client know. If a matter is time sensitive I will inform the potential client that a decision to retain counsel should be made promptly. But I don’t use consults to push potential clients to retain me–although, obviously, I intend some of my consults to lead to an ongoing attorney-client relationship.

Despite not needing to turn every consult into an ongoing attorney-client relationship, my goal is to provide value to potential clients for every consult. My hope is that every potential client leaves the consult with a strong understanding of his or her options and the legal and factual considerations that will go into achieving those goals, and further considers the consult to have been a good investment of time and money.