08.27.07
If You Were My Lawyer
Let’s pretend for a minute that you’re a practicing lawyer. Lawyers charge between $300 and $600 per hour. Let’s be conservative and say you charge only $200 per hour. Let’s say I come to you and tell you that I’m married with two teenage kids. As my lawyer, instead of you charging me $200 per hour to provide legal services for me and my family, I ask that we work out a flat monthly fee arrangement that I can pay you each month to cover any legal needs we might have. (A “lawyer on retainer” like very rich people have.)
What I want to do is outline some of our legal needs, and I’d like you to calculate as I go through them, at $200 per hour, how much you would have to charge me per month to provide all these services for us.
First, I want anyone in my family to be able to pick up the phone and call you when they have a legal question or need legal advice. We might call one time, five times or more a month with no time limit on how long we talk. At $200 per hour, start adding that up.
Second, before we even sign a legal document, whether it be a contract to buy a house, lease a car, rent an apartment, purchase a cell phone, or whatever, we want to be able to say, “This looks great, but let me run it by my lawyer.” We want to be able to fax or send an unlimited number of documents for you to review, all ten pages or less in length, to make sure the documents are prepared with our best interests in mind. I’ve heard it said, “The bold print giveth, but the fine print taketh away.” Again, at $200 per hour, keep adding this up.
Also, any time we have a legal situation, you would probably agree that a lawyer making a phone call or writing a letter on the firm’s letterhead will carry a lot more weight than if we tried handling it ourselves. Whether it’s a dog barking next door at 3am every night and the neighbors won’t take care of it or a manufacturer who won’t stand behind a warranty, we want you to step in and help resolve those issues by making a phone call or writing a letter for each separate matter. It may happen three times a month or ten, so keep tallying this up at $200 an hour.
Plus, I want you to prepare a Will and Powers of Attorney for both property and for health, for both me and my spouse and update them each and every year.
I also want you to give me a twenty-five percent reduction to your basic rate, on any legal services beyond what we’ve agreed you’ll do for me on a monthly basis.
I know you go home every night at five o’clock so when you lock up and go home for the night I want you to carry a cell phone with you so if I am ever detained or questioned by security or law enforcement personnel after hours I can call you for your advice and help.
And I want you look after my wife in the event that our identities are stolen (Identity Theft) and include full restoration.
AND, if I’m traveling anywhere in North America and I need any of these services, I want you to arrange them through the best law firm in the area, all included in this monthly fee.
Based on that, what would you charge me on a flat rate per month, for all this legal protection, and me and my family?
I’ve heard $1,000 to $5,000 per month. Well, this exact service is available to you right now for $35 per month. I personally use this service and it WORKS. You can also earn thousandsby referring others to it! Click here to learn more: www.DollarMakersBusiness.com
Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com
