September 15, 2009
Free consultations, Part 2
There are two other, slightly more cynical, reasons I don’t do free consultations.
The first is that there are some people in the world who have a lot of time on their hands, and as a result think their time isn’t valuable. These people also seem to think that my time isn’t valuable, either, and that it’s a good idea for us to spend a few hours talking about the vague possibility that at some point in the future they might potentially think about changing their trust, and/or putting together an estate plan. I’m really not interested in meeting with people who don’t think twice about meeting with 5 or 6 different attorneys (and burning up 10-12 hours of their time, and the attorneys’ time) before they’re even serious about planning.
The second is that once I’ve met with someone and discussed their situation, even in a “free consultation”, I am limited by the attorney ethics rules with respect to how I can interact with that person in the future. If, for example, someone comes to meet with me because they think they might be involved in a trust dispute and want to talk that over, and I discuss their circumstances with them, I will never be able to represent a different party with respect to that dispute, because I’ve already learned confidential information from the first person. Once I meet with that first person, I’m effectively disqualified from ever working on that matter for someone else, even if the first person doesn’t hire me. I think it’s only fair that I get paid for at least a little bit of my time if I’m going to agree to be permanently disqualified from ever working on a case in the future.