Legal Question in Family Law in California
How do I nicely tell my attorney that he is billing me for ridiculous things in a way that he will cancel the charges?
Unprovoked and unnecessarily, he emailed me a one sentence question. I responded with three sentences, with the third sentence stating that I would let him know whichever way the issue turned out. Four days later, I informed him of the situation with a 5 sentence email. He responded with the word, "wow".
The unprovoked sentence and my response were invoiced to me at $70 and $35 respectively for the service of �REVIEW EMAIL�. My second response and his one word email was invoiced for $35 as �REVIEW EMAIL�. $140 total for something unprovoked and claimed to have taken 0.4 hours but actually took less than one minute.
I think this is unreasonable and every lay person I've shown this to thinks it is ridiculous. So how do you recommend I respond to this invoice?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Generally, attorneys bill in minimum increments. Many attorneys use 0.1 hr as the minimum billing increment. Some use 0.25 hrs. (I use 0.1 hr.) So, if a task takes 1 second to 6 minutes, you would be charged 0.1 hrs. You have a right to dispute the billing by simply informing your attorney that you think it is wrong. Then, the attorney will provide you with a notice that you have a right to have the dispute arbitrated and how to do it. I suggest that you speak with the attorney and see if he would consider treating his email and your response as one act that took 0.1 or 0.2 hrs and to reduce the 0.4 hour charge. It's a lot cheaper to accommodate you than to go to arbitration, over $140.
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