Cost Controls
Based on experience in some of Canada’s national and international law firms, clients rightly or wrongly feel that the hourly rate incentivizes lawyers to take more time on their file. Clients would like greater predictability and would like to be an active participant in controlling their legal costs.
At LexSage, we are flexibile and encourage clients to work with us to control their legal costs. It is a win-win proposition.
We recommend that clients consider ways to control their legal costs, such as:
- Consider alternative fee arrangements: LexSage offers a number of options;
- Budgets: Set a reasonable budget for your legal fees that is commensurate with the work that needs to be performed;
- Identify a contact person: Pick one or two people within your organization who may speak with your lawyer (the more people who think they can call, the more dockets to the file and less control the general counsel has over the legal costs);
- When you call your lawyer, keep the conversation to the point of the call - the longer the call, the higher the cost of that call;
- Don't call when you are upset: If you pick up the phone to call your lawyer when you are upset or emotional (you just had a fight with a CRA auditor and do not like their tone), please put the phone down and calm down before calling your lawyer (or deciding it is not worth the money to vent);
- Do not delegate to your lawyer what you can do yourself: You can stay involved in the file if you do not ask your lawyer to perform tasks that are within your job description (i.e., would you call the auditor for me as I really do not want to talk with him/her);
- Undertake time consuming administrative tasks in order to lower legal costs - such as organizing documents. Just as an accountant says it costs more when he/she receives a shoe box of receipts, it is more costly if you hand your lawyer a stack of unorganized paperwork. One of our client recently organized all the documents relevant to an appeal and saved thousands of dollars in legal fees. It can take less time to discuss how the lawyer would like the documents organized and doing it yourself;
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Undertake time consuming administrative tasks in order to lower legal costs - such as organizing documents. Just as an accountant says it costs more when he/she receives a shoe box of receipts, it is more costly if you hand your lawyer a stack of unorganized paperwork. One of our client recently organized all the documents relevant to an appeal and saved thousands of dollars in legal fees. It can take less time to discuss how the lawyer would like the documents organized and doing it yourself;
- Be proactive: Organize your own documents at the time the legal issue arises (e.g., during the sales tax audit or customs verification). It takes significantly less time to organize the documents and write notes to file as things happen. It takes more time if you wait years down the road and have to remember where you put all the relevant documents. Also, some of the relevant employees may have left the company and you may not know where are their files and what were they thinking at the time. Modern scanners are wonderful and saving the files on a CD-Rom or in an electronic file can make document transmission/printing easy when the time is right;
- Do some of your own photocopying. We recently had two clients: one sent us a USB key with hundreds of documents that we had to print and organize. The other client sent us a box with organized documents already printed (and the requisite number of copies were provided). The second client saved thousands of dollars in legal fees and photocopying charges. We were happy the second client was so willing to undertake this big and time consuming task;
- Ask for what is necessary: Do not ask for memos and written answers when a verbal answer is sufficient – a memo takes time to write and time is money; and
- Do not ask your lawyer to work all night to answer a question that you really do not need in the morning – a lawyer is a human being and is less productive when tired.