STATEMENT TO CLIENTS REGARDING STAFFING AND BILLING

Our goals are to provide first-rate legal services at a fair and reasonable price and to develop client relationships based on mutual respect, confidence and trust. To accomplish these goals, we believe there should be open and candid discussions about our clients’ expectations and about our billing procedures and practices.  While these conversations should occur when we are first retained, we also expect our clients to be fully involved in staffing, strategy and cost decisions throughout the course of our representation.  With that in mind, we wish to share with you our philosophy and our procedures.

Staffing

1. When we are first retained on a matter, we will want to have a full discussion regarding your expectations, your objectives and your cost considerations.  At the same time, we will advise you of our proposed staffing assignments.  While we have a lean staffing philosophy, there are occasions when we will use additional personnel for discrete tasks or when a matter’s size or time demands require greater staffing.  While our goal is to staff matters with maximum efficiency and minimum cost in mind, we also want to be able to meet your needs and expectations.

2. It is important that we jointly arrive at a “game plan” for each matter at the outset.  We intend to keep you apprised of developments throughout our representation and to discuss with you whether the “game plan” needs adjustment.  We will also talk to you before we begin any major project or incur any large expense.  Once approved however, we expect to be compensated for those services or costs.

3. If requested, we are prepared to give estimates or establish budgets for matters.  Those estimates or budgets would identify the work we jointly believe needs to be done and the anticipated costs.  Obviously, those figures may need to be adjusted upwards or downwards as changes occur.  To be workable, budgets need to be realistic from both of our standpoints.  It would be foolhardy to establish an unrealistically low budget that fails to take into account anticipated discovery, likely due diligence or other such items.  On the other hand, a budget that is set artificially high promotes waste and inefficiency.  Another essential ingredient of any budget is the help we can expect to receive from your staff.  To the extent that company personnel can be utilized to assist in the gathering of information or the assimilation of materials, savings can occur.

4. We understand that some clients desire to restrict the number of lawyers who attend meetings, depositions and court appearances.   In our view, it is often not only helpful, but necessary to have more than one attorney or paralegal in attendance.  We will talk to you about this issue in the context of your particular matter.

5. In sum, our goal is to address your needs with maximum efficiency.  We believe our representation should be a team effort and that each of us should be fully involved in the important decisions along the way.  We want to know when you are unhappy with the progress of a matter or the way in which it is being handled.  Likewise, we want to feel free to tell you if your personnel are not fulfilling their responsibilities or if we feel we are receiving inconsistent directions.

Billing Matters

1. We bill monthly and our rates are based on receiving payment within thirty days.  While we are agreeable to longer payment terms, if necessary, we believe that our rates should be adjusted in that event.  Our experience, however, indicates that prompt billing and prompt payment enhances the working relationship.

2. While some clients do not require great detail in their billing statements, others request fuller descriptions of our services.  We are generally able to meet most demands and are happy to provide the bill in the format that is most helpful to you.

3. We log time at flat fee, or in six-minute increments (1/10 of an hour), and we attempt to segregate our time by discrete tasks where possible.  Our attorneys are asked to provide ample descriptions on their time records.

4. Our attorneys and paralegals charge for travel time.  Obviously, if an attorney works on another client matter while traveling for you, you will not be charged for that time.

5. We occasionally write off time before sending you a bill when the billing attorney believes our efforts were inefficient or duplicative.

Other Charges

1. Our personnel are instructed to be reasonable and prudent in dealing with client reimbursable expenses.  We recognize that other charges can often become a major cost factor in a matter, and we recognize our obligation to help you control them.  We will discuss any major expense with you before it is incurred, and we would prefer that any expense over $1,000 be billed directly to you.

2. When our personnel travel domestically, we charge coach fares, unless the client has specifically authorized business or first-class travel.  We will not charge you for upgrades.  Likewise, we encourage our attorneys to take advantage of discount fares and to incur only reasonable lodging and meal costs.

3. We bill for overtime secretarial costs and meals only if your specific demands require late night work.  We may also charge for late night transportation for staff members, where dictated by safety reasons or commuting problems.

4. We maintain an on-site photocopying service for convenience and confidentiality reasons.  Our current charge for copies is $.25 per page, which includes only our direct and allocable, indirect costs.  We are willing to send documents out to an outside service at your request.  We also have an on-site fax service, and our current charge is $1.00 per page for outgoing documents only.  We do not charge for the telephone time in addition to the per-page charge.

5. Our computerized legal research time is billed at our actual (and volume discounted) cost times 1.25, to cover our allocable indirect costs.

6. We do not charge for office supplies unless we have to purchase an inordinate amount of materials for a trial or large transaction.  If so, we charge our actual costs.

7. We have large volume discounts with all major courier and air freight services.  We pass along our discounted rates to our clients.

8. Our telephone system automatically seeks out the lowest available rate on long distance calls.  We bill our actual costs to cover our allocable indirect costs.  We do not bill for local telephone charges.