Understanding Communication with Your Lawyer
What do you do if your lawyer won’t communicate with you? Hi, my name is Carl Birkhead. I’m a Tulsa family law attorney with Wirth Law Office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve been practicing family and criminal law for almost eight years now, and I want to help you make law easy by talking about what to do when there’s difficulty communicating with your attorney.
So, obviously, as an attorney, I might be a little bit biased here, but generally speaking, any attorney, at least any attorney that I know of, has anywhere from 50 to 100 cases on their caseload at any given time. And I realize I’m saying any a lot, but I’m trying to just explain how much there is. Every single one of those cases has a client who needs to be kept in touch, kept in the loop, and communicated with. And it’s not always easy.
The Role of Support Staff in Client Communication
This is why, a lot of time, our attorneys will have paralegals, interns, secretaries, and support staff to help maintain client communication. Quite frankly, if I had to call every single one of my clients every single day, that’s all I would do throughout the day is just make those phone calls. Sometimes it would take me several days just to get through my client list.
Now, that doesn’t mean that your lawyer shouldn’t talk to you. If you’ve hired an attorney, that attorney should be keeping in touch with you and making sure that you’re up to date about your case and making sure that you understand what’s going on.
The Benefits of Email Communication
So here’s what I tell my clients, or what I try to tell my clients, and what I tell my staff to tell my clients. Email is always gonna be the way to go. It’s maybe not gonna give you the instant answer that you want, but it’s a lot easier and a lot faster for an attorney to be able to respond to an email than it is to be able to pick up the phone and make that phone call.
Not only that, but an email’s also gonna be easier for you on your bill. If you’re in a type of case where you’ve hired an attorney and you’re paying an hourly rate, that attorney’s gonna be billing you for every minute they spend on the phone or for emails. But here’s how it works, or how it usually works and how it works for my billing. If I have to read an email, I bill 1/10 of an hour. If I have to send an email, I bill 1/10 of an hour.
Managing Communication and Costs
So my client could have 18 questions in one email, and I would send 18 answers in one email, and they’re only gonna be billed for 2/10 of an hour. Whereas if I’m on the phone with that client answering those 18 questions, they’re probably gonna get billed for 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how long that conversation takes. So not only is it quicker and more efficient and frees up the attorney’s time to be able to address your concerns, it’s also gonna be easy on your bill as well.
Schedule a Low-Cost Initial Strategy Session
If you have questions about this, or if you’re in a situation where it’s tough getting in touch with your attorney, definitely give us a call. My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m a Tulsa criminal law attorney with Wirth Law Office, and I want to help you make law easy. To get started, call us at 918-879-1681 for a low-cost initial strategy session. Thank you.
