Preparing for Attorney Consultations: What to Expect and How to Make the Most of Your Meeting

jonathan-breeden_2_06-25-2024_130846.mp3: okay alright alright so i’m just gonna answer the questions you’re asking that’s all i’m gonna do about consultations alright alright we ready yep alright three two one hello and welcome to another episode of the best of johnson county podcast i’m your host jonathan breeden and today we’re gonna have another special edition episode of the best of johnson county podcast that we call ask jonathan breeden anything normally on this podcast i jonathan breeden interview community leaders business owners people of interest in the johnson county community about what they love about johnson county and what makes johnson county a great place to live every once in a while we do these special edition episodes where our social media coordinator rena burch asked me jonathan breeden questions about family law which is what we do here at the breeden law office and sometimes the general practice of law as well and that’s what one of these episodes is going to be about today and we’re gonna talk about how to prepare for and what to expect in a consultation with an attorney but before we do that i would like to ask or remind everybody if they would be so kind as to like follow or subscribe to this podcast wherever you’re seeing it on linkedin spotify apple podcast youtube tiktok instagram or facebook so that you’ll be made of where future episodes of the best of johnson county podcast the best of johnson county podcast comes out every monday and we’ve now been doing this for over eight months and we have lots and lots of episodes and we’ve had a lot of great guests in the past including patrick harris johnson county commissioner aj o’neil johnson county parks and rec director chris johnson johnson county economic development director we have representative donald white on as well from the state house and we had county commissioner ted godwin now county commissioner bill stovall when he was a candidate talking about what he wanted to do so we’ve got a lot of great guests you can go back and listen to and if you love johnson county as much as i love johnson county this is the podcast for you it would also help us if you would leave us a five star review down at the bottom wherever you’re seeing this podcast it will raise our visibility so that other people will be aware of the best johnson county podcast now on with the show as i’ve said the sort of disclaimer reyna so what do we wanna talk what do you wanna ask you about today alright so we’re gonna talk about consultations today and what people can kind of expect you know okay obviously that’s kind of the first step on their possible divorce journey and it’s a little can be a little scary so people have you know a lot of people have questions and don’t really know what to expect so we’re gonna kinda cover some of that today okay sounds good alright so first question is what is a consultation and what is the purpose of a consultation you know a consultation i mean i you know you could call it a consultation you can call it a case overview you know what i mean but i mean it kinda is what it is it is where somebody who believes that they have a problem a you know you know whether it’s what you would say a personal injury attorney family law attorney whatever it is somebody who has identified an attorney that they believe may be able to help them based on that attorney’s training experience and they’re gonna come in and they’re gonna meet with that attorney or or his staff or his office and sort of share their story and talk about where they’re at what they’re thinking and sort of begin to learn kind of what their rights are underneath whatever type of law they’re talking about and you know just start to gain some guidance on the process what if what they’re thinking what they’ve researched is correct or incorrect based on the facts they’re given and you know what their next steps you know would be if they wanna move forward and not everybody does move forward particularly in a family law yeah scenario but it does give them sort of their options right everybody has rights right the laws are there to protect the rights of everybody the laws apply equally to everybody but if you don’t know what your rights are it’s kinda hard to protect them and so you know one of the things you know a consultation can do is start to give you an idea of kind of what your rights are and what you can do if you choose to move forward the other thing a consultation does and probably more importantly than sort of trying to figure out kind of what your rights are or whatever is it allows you to start to build a relationship with the office that you’re meeting with because it’s very important that you feel listened to that you are comfortable because particularly if you’re gonna go through a divorce it is gonna be emotionally trying it’s gonna be financially trying if it’s if it’s a high contest case it’s gonna cost a lot of money that most people don’t have and you need to feel comfortable with the attorney that you choose probably more important than anything else is that you feel comfortable with that person you feel that they are listening to you that they care about your rights as a person that they’re being honest with you and not just telling you what you want to hear yeah because that doesn’t do anybody any good yep and that they’re gonna be an effective advocate and that they’re gonna communicate with you and i think you can start to figure that out by just sitting down for thirty or forty five minutes and just talking to somebody you know i i know the first time i met you we hit it off almost immediately you know i mean it’s like it’s the same thing like you know whether you like somebody or not you know there’s there’s lots of lawyers that can represent you and there’s tons of good family lawyers in johnson county and wake county but you’re not gonna be comfortable with all of them no and so that is one of the things that you need to be looking for is are you comfortable with this person got it okay so it’s definitely you know first first part of that is obviously the person identifies a problem the consultation might offer some solutions when you go over that and then obviously big purpose of that is to find somebody that you are comfortable working with long term because it might be you know a couple months couple years how whoever who knows how long correct alright so the next time the next question is how long should somebody expect a consultation to be you know once again depending on the area of law most consultations are gonna run particularly in my office and and most family law offices between thirty minutes and an hour you know what i mean you’re not gonna be able to get through the entire thing and go through every scenario and we try real hard to not get into the sort of this engineering of what if what if what if gotta get into the weeds right because if you you number one you don’t have time no and number two no matter what what if statement you create the odds that it is going to be that fact pattern that one side has come up with in their mind with their version of the facts yeah that’s not gonna happen so even if we sat here and tried to answer all the what if questions it doesn’t really do anybody any good because there’s no way that those exact facts are ever gonna line up because they’re coming from a interested party yeah not a disinterested third party and they’re gonna you know they’re gonna tell their story from their vantage point which they should because it’s their story yes but that might not be the actual story that a judge hears or or or believes mhmm and so so you know really our goals really is to you know figure out okay do you have a family law problem that we can help with you know are these areas of law that we help people in is it in one of the counties that we serve you know if the case is already ongoing do we have time to possibly get in the case and be prepared for a hearing that might be happening very quickly unfortunately for us it’s not that uncommon for people to come in and they’ve known about a court date for four months and the court date’s in three days yeah they’re coming in the last right coming in the last second right that puts us in an impossible position and so we often can’t help that person at least with that first court date but maybe we can help them with future court dates you know you know we try to educate people that come in about you know why kinda why we do what we do you know our story of trying to focus on helping children and getting children out of bad situations or allowing children to still have healthy relationships with both parents now depending on the the definition of healthy based on the mental health or the physical health of the parents mhmm varies greatly but you know you know so we’re trying to see where where people are on that and you know making them feel comfortable with us the person they’re meeting with and you sort of getting an overview of is this somebody we can help yeah and and if it is you know we we talk about you know what what that investment would look like and and how to move forward and sometimes if we get a you know we kinda know what the if we feel like we’re getting a pretty good indication of what the facts are we might be able to give the outline of a timeline mhmm but that’s always boy yeah you’re right timeline is the hardest part of it yeah okay and so in this thirty minutes to an hour i know we talked about you know it’s kinda gonna be an overview of of the you know what we’re gonna the case and and and everything so when i ask what can they expect to talk about maybe in terms of just your normal run of the mill you know divorce case somebody’s coming in it’s their first consultation what are the kind of the maybe five main topics that they can expect to cover in that initial consultation well i mean the i mean the i mean the i think the topics would be you know we start you start with you should really start with the jurisdictional stuff like does this person live within one of the counties that we serve is it is the case in one of these counties so it’s not that uncommon for somebody to come in here and they live in johnson county they live in wake county but the child lives in texas you know and north carolina is an order and it’s a texas case so you know so the first things we’re gonna try to talk about is identify what the issue is and where would the case be is this a case that if it needed to be filed or if it is ongoing is it in johnson harnett wake county north carolina which is where we primarily practice you know what is the status like is the case ongoing have you been served with papers have you missed deadlines have you missed court dates yeah have defaults been used against entered against you and all of those things happen like i mean yeah and so you know we kinda have to figure out you know what are what is the case where is it is it ongoing yeah and ninety percent of the people that come in the case is not ongoing this is the beginning of a fact finding mission that they’re on you know and and you know and we’re just trying to figure out what’s going on we’re definitely gonna listen to them tell their story and their words without trying to interrupt it yeah you know what i mean just to get out what is going on identify the hell the person is going through and see if we can project a heaven for them where they could possibly be you know if they were to move forward and and a realistic thing as to where it can move forward you know because i think it’s and and i think it is helpful for people you know it’s hard to like it is really hard to pick up the phone and call a divorce attorney that’s why i yeah we work very hard here to be empathetic we’ve worked very hard here to be understanding because we understand how hard it is to make that call and and then we know how hard it is to book that consultation and we know how hard it is to come to the most of the people come to the office you know and and have that meeting is a very emotionally trying and difficult thing to do it’s a heroine right right and and and we and we understand that and we try to oppress these things with with compassion and and i think there’s some value in enlisting you know people telling their story and and and i can assure you if you come here with all the cases that that i have done and the other attorneys have done while the story will be new unique to you and it is your life and your hell it is i can almost guarantee you we have seen that story before mhmm we have helped people with that same story facing that same hell and we’ve gotten people to a heaven and we can probably help you get to a heaven as well that would be a better life often few free of abuse free of verbal abuse physical abuse free free of alcoholism you know all of those types of of things and you know we can we can help with that and so you know but but but we can’t help you if you don’t come see us if you don’t come talk to us yeah where we can find out because we can’t help everybody you know we we can’t help everybody ryan and so cut that out okay anyway we can’t help it k you’re good okay alright where’s it going three two alright three two one we can’t help everybody reina but we wanna help the people that we can help but we can’t figure out if we can help you if you don’t come meet with us and that’s very true and i can attest that this man makes sure that everybody in his office is empathetic and an active listener and whatnot because we all had to take personality tests and we all came back with flying colors i can say that okay so next question would be should somebody do more than one consultation like should they kinda shop around for their you know their their divorce lawyer you know that’s up to the individual if if the first person you meet with you feel comfortable comfortable with you you’re comfortable with them you’re comfortable with the investment that you’re gonna have to make in them you feel like that they can provide the services that you need then maybe not but if the first person you meet with you’re not comfortable with or you’re not comfortable with the investment that it’s gonna take to hire that person or you didn’t feel like you were listened to you were more to talk to and you weren’t listened to then yeah i i would i would encourage people to talk to more than than than than one attorney you know and and some people do and some people don’t yeah you know what i mean and and and different attorneys are gonna have different opinions on whatever fact pattern you give them yeah you know what i mean overview but though you know most of the time it’s gonna be fairly close yeah because the law is kind of the law but i would never discourage somebody from talking doing more than one consult if they have the time and the resources you know i think it’s good because they need to find somebody who’s comfortable and i think one mistake people make is they come in and they meet with an attorney and they’re not comfortable mhmm but they they’re not comfortable with the person they’re not comfortable with the investment the amount of money it’s gonna take but they hire anyway and then that starts the relationship off on a bad foot yeah even even though the attorney hasn’t done anything wrong i mean they are who they are yeah you know the investment is the investment you know and so that can make for a more difficult relationship okay yeah absolutely of course so if somebody does multiple consultations how does that affect the opposing party because does that create a conflict of interest if that opposing party then also tries to come do a consultation correct once a law firm has done a consultation with one of the people in the lawsuit divorce or anything they then are conflicted out from doing a consultation or offering representation to the other side in that case and so people do go around and do multiple consultations to conflict out law firms and you know that people do it you know it happens here as we have become you know arguably the most successful firm in johnson county one of the most desired firms if not the most desired firm in johnson county you know even if people maybe decide that they can’t do the investment that we’re asking they will still here come here and do a consult to keep the breen law office out of their case mhmm and so i mean i would argue it’s kind of a smart move because you guys are very good at what you do that’s true and but our our greatest compliment is when we represent one side in one divorce and then the opposing side comes to hire us for their next divorce i bet where we can do that because we’re not against our client anymore we’re against a different the new wife yeah and and and those are always that’s how you know you’re doing something right absolutely when somebody you’ve been against the first opportunity they get comes and hires you to represent them that’s how you do it you know you’re doing something right you did a good job the first time you did a good job the first time yep because they were like if i’m in this spot again i’m gonna go higher i’ll go higher then but no it does it does create a conflict and so we’re unable to then consult with the other side now if you call and you schedule an appointment and you don’t appear for the appointment mhmm that does not create a conflict yeah you have to actually come in yeah pay for the consultation have the consultation mhmm to create the conflict we we do have at least once a month at least once a month reina somebody will call they will schedule their consultation they will cancel it before they come in and then the other side will call us and they will pay for the conversation and they will come in okay i don’t have a conflict if you don’t come in and talk to them yeah if you don’t have it yeah right you know so that there’s no attorney client for verification right because i’m not i’m right i’m not gaining information like you know like i’m getting your you know to book a consult i need you know i need your name and address yeah you know your whole life story right i don’t need your life story right i just need to know does it look like your cases in our area yeah is it a family law case what’s your name and your phone number yeah you know what i’m saying so so that kind of stuff so we do have that happen every once in a while and i i find that i find that interesting but but we’re definitely we’re we’re very ethical here we try to follow all the rules and you know can’t help it if you’re in high demand right right and that’s that that’s true so very last question probably the most important one that everybody wants to know how much on a range would you say a consultation can cost should cost that they’re they’re looking at you know it depends on what kind of lawyer you’re looking for right if you’re if you’re gonna see a personal injury attorney or social security disability attorney or an attorney that is working on a contingency fee where they get a percentage of what they win for you the consultation is almost always gonna be free yeah as far as that is concerned if you’re going to see a family law attorney or a real estate attorney or a business attorney where you’re gonna have to pay them to represent you either a flat fee or an hourly basis most of them are gonna charge some sort of consultation fee for their time to meet with you and figure out if they can help you know some attorneys do consults for a hundred hundred and fifty dollars some attorneys do consults for two hundred and fifty dollars some three fifty five hundred seven hundred eight hundred a thousand it really depends on who you call and what they choose to charge for their consultations i would say the vast majority of consultations are somewhere between two hundred and four hundred dollars okay for most law firms now some law firms just charge their hourly rate so if you’re doing you know corporate law or business law or some lawyers in raleigh that do family law they’re gonna be charging five hundred five hundred and fifty dollars an hour they may just charge that yeah so it really is up to an individual attorney now some some attorneys you know if you go see a personal injury firm you’re not gonna talk to an attorney you’re gonna talk to an intake specialist or a paralegal or somebody like that who’s trained to screen the calls yep and so at some family law firms you will see a an intake specialist who’s like a paralegal or somebody trained to sort of figure out if the firm can help you or not mhmm so you know one of the questions you wanna ask is i mean you know and if you’re not seeing an attorney it either should be free or should be substantially less yeah like maybe one hundred dollars you you know what i mean yeah he’s gonna meet with a staff member you know so you know if you’re gonna you know and some firms offer either one if you wanna talk to an attorney it’s four or four fifty and if you want to talk to an intake specialist who can you know get an outline of what’s going on and sort of tell you where it’s at it’s a hundred dollars so you know every firm out there is different gotcha well i mean that’s that’s a great thing to know for them to look out for for sure and to you know ask that question when they call to schedule that consultation if there’s a cheaper option if they’re gonna be speaking to an attorney when they go to their consultation you know i know i didn’t know to ask those questions when i had first started like my divorce journey so and it’s a great way you know giving them that cost estimate is i mean people need to be able to plan well they they do they they need to be able to plan and you know i mean divorces particularly contested divorces can be very expensive yes i mean it’s it’s it’s not that for contested divorce you know where there’s custody and property and all that stuff i mean it can easily be ten fifteen twenty twenty five thousand dollars i mean or more i mean and so you know if you know the more you can get along and we’ve said this on past episodes right now the more you get along the more you can get something settled the the quicker you’re gonna move to your heaven and the better off you’re just gonna be in general and you’re gonna save a substantial amount of money in attorney’s fees because the more work the attorneys do the more they’re gonna have to charge you to do it yep and so you know trying to be you know realistic about the outcomes listening to your attorney believe if your attorney is saying this is a reasonable outcome this is something that we should try to get to and we get there we should settle it you know versus just staying in the fight to stay in the fight because you’re mad you you you know what i’m saying yeah i mean that’s just a way yeah to spend a lot of money to end up in the same spot yeah for sure you know as far as that’s concerned but you know as you’re getting in it you’re coming in your consultations you know you know how especially if you’re doing family law have a pretty good idea of what your assets are yeah you know what i mean you know you need to have a pretty good idea like you know you got a house what do you own the house what’s the house worth what do you own the cars what’s the cars worth what is your budget you need a budget what is your budget living the house you’re in you need to kind of have a budget for where you might go a realistic budget if you don’t have a budget go make a budget if you don’t know how to make a budget go look at your last three or four months credit card bills or bank statements and see what are you spending money on download a financial affidavit off of n c courts dot org it’ll give you all the categories to sort of fill in you know so the the more you know about what do you owe the credit card debt bills what what do you gross what is your gross income what is your net income what is your spouse’s gross income what is your spouse’s net income what is your health insurance cost you know the more information you have about your assets and your bills the better information you’re gonna get in the consult and moving forward yeah and it’ll be a it’ll be easier for the attorney to be able to figure out whether you’re a good fit for them and their firm at the size of cases you have some firms can’t do multimillion dollar estates mhmm they’re not set up they don’t have the staff they don’t have the knowledge yep that kind of stuff you know so you need to have some idea so that the firm knows whether you sort of fit into their criteria of what they do yeah we can help anybody with really any size of state but any size of marital estate but but that’s not most firms yeah a lot of firms have to stay with less than a million dollars because they don’t have the staffing and and all the stuff and the amount of work that comes in when you start getting into those higher asset cases so that that becomes important as well i’m a proponent of reading the google reviews you know all law firms now have google reviews you know we have hundreds of google reviews of the breeden law office out there across our four locations mhmm go read those and and and you’ll see a theme you know i read my i read other my friends’ google reviews i i leave google reviews for businesses but usually if you’ll read five to ten reviews you will begin to see a theme as to what is good and maybe what could be better about different law firms yeah and and i think that’s important as well there there’s there’s no reason today to not be a educated consumer no given the information that’s out there particularly if you’re gonna do business with somebody like the breeden law office that has a podcast that has over a hundred and fifty youtube videos that has a website with over two hundred pages on it that has hundreds of google reviews that’s written a book that we’ll give you for free you just call or you can download off the website and we’ll mail it to you divorce in north carolina what you need to know like like you know this firm and the way i do it is a completely open book as to how things are are done and you can find out just about everything you want about me and how i do things with just my online presence which is probably greater than most other attorneys mhmm but still all attorneys have some online presence and you should right and you should go and and and investigate those yeah and you know like my mom always said you know learn from other people’s experiences and mistakes because you’re not going to live long enough to make them all yourself so definitely read those reviews you know especially if they’re great reviews you know take that and and run with it if there if there’s things that people can possibly work on maybe look out look out for that if that starts happening in your case and and whatnot so yeah i’m a big proponent of of reading reviews for literally everything whether it’s a product or a service so and that’s and that’s and and that’s the that’s the the gig economy we’re in i guess i guess people read the reviews alright and i think that’s it alright cool well anyway we’d like to thank you for listening to this episode of the best of johnson county podcast a special edition to ask jonathan breeden anything where we talked about you know how to prepare for and what to expect in a consultation with the law office if you have any questions or concerns about any family issues you may have feel free to reach out to us at nine one nine six six one four nine seven zero or at our website at breeding firm dot com we’d be glad to set up a consultation with you to see if we can help you with your family of all need as as we said earlier if this is your first time listening to the best of johnson county podcast we would ask you to like follow or subscribe to this podcast wherever you’re viewing it right now so that you’ll be aware of future episodes of the best of johnson county podcast until next time i’m your host jonathan breeden you said we couldn’t talk for twenty minutes about consultation i talked for like yeah thirty minutes about consultations i dude i can talk about anything