Free Consultations

Many lawyers offer a free initial consultation.  Many do not.  Free is good.  I like free. But, I dont give free consultations any more.  A lot of people expect that the first half hour or full hour should be free.  Why is that?

Would you go see a doctor to get treated for something and expect that OHIP does not pay the doctor for the first hour?  Would you expect a mechanic to spend an hour diagnosing your car for free?

Some people seem to think that a service provider should not get paid until they actually do something.  These people have a hard time paying lawyers for advice.  I didnt fix your plumbing.  I didnt use a $5,000 machine to diagnose your car.  We just sat and talked.  You mean I have to pay just to talk to you?  (No-one seems to have a problem paying therapists to sit and talk.)

What does a lawyer actually do in a consultation?  We use the knowledge and skill obtained from many years of education and experience to: listen to your story and facts; take your story and extract from it the relevant legal issues; apply the law (as we know it) that governs those issues to your facts; and, finally, come up with an opinion of what your case is about.  In that way, you are able to make an informed decision about whether or not you want to pursue your case further.  I think that has value.

Sometimes we cannot give you a firm opinion during a consultation.  No lawyer can know all the law.  That is not what we do.  All the law in the land would fill vast libraries.  Much of our law is contained in the decisions of past cases. 

What we do know is this: we know the fundamentals; we know how to find the law that is relevant to your specific facts (much harder than you think!); and we know how to analyse the law and apply it to your facts.   That is what you pay for.

What do you really get in a free consultation?  You wont likely get a bunch of earth-shattering advice.   When I gave free consultations, I did not spend time researching the issue before the client came in.  Now that I charge for a consultation, I make sure that the client is receiving value for the money.

Is the free consultation really free?  Lawyers set their own hourly rates.  If I am going to spend 5 hours a week doing free consultations, I will simply raise my hourly rates so that my revenue for the non-free time makes up for the free time I give away.  So, if you actually hire me, you are paying more per hour so that I can give free advice to other people.  Would you be better off having paid for that first hour?

Free consultations are nothing more than a marketing gimmick to get you in the door.  Are you going to choose one lawyer over another because one has a better marketing gimmick? 

Instead of asking if a lawyer gives free consultations, why not ask the lawyer about their areas of expertise and what experience he or she has with your type of case?  You will likely get a more useful answer.