Some people will say, well, it’s so expensive that the average person has been priced out of the market, well there’s some truth to that. Probably not for some of the flat fee things like a simple will or a real estate closing for a residence but for more complex things where it can take 20 or 30 or 50 or 100 hours to do, then it is very expensive and you become so the clients are unable to actually afford it.
But we try to take the approach in all of our fee setting of being reasonable. Reasonable in terms of several analyses. One is what is the market? What are other lawyers in the area charge who have similar competence and experience?
It’s not the only thing but that’s part of it.
How complex is this? What level of experience and expertise does it take? Obviously as I mentioned, how much time is it going to take?
We certainly do factor in the identity of the client. I mean obviously if we’re representing Ford Motor Company they can afford to… pay a fee that your mom & pop can’t who own a little business. So that’s a factor that we take into account.
But our goal has always been we don’t want to be the cheapest guys in town, that’s not our goal.
But we want to charge people a fee that’s reasonable under all those factors. It’ll still seem like a lot, but it is what it is and has to be, but we really make an effort to try to keep our fees down so that they’re as reasonable as we can possibly charge people.
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How complex is this? What level of experience and expertise does it take? Obviously as I mentioned, how much time is it going to take?
And part of it is, our practice tends to gravitate toward small and medium-sized business and individuals and so I think we do charge a little less than what some of the mega-sized law firms would charge because their client bases primarily are Fortune 500 companies that require a lot of team players and they’re accustomed to paying those higher rates.
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– Rulon D. Munns is an experienced real estate attorney and managing shareholder of Bogin, Munns & Munns, a full service law firm with offices in Orlando, Clermont, Kissimmee, Orange City, Daytona Beach, Ocala, Melbourne, Gainesville, and Leesburg, Florida. He welcomes questions and comments regarding the above and can be reached at rulon@boginmunns.com.
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