At Waters Law, PLLC, we are proponents of alternative price arrangements to the typical hourly billing, especially flat rate arrangements. In fact, most of our estate planning and estate administration clients are charged on a flat rate basis.
Our flat rate represents the total cost to you from start to finish. This means we are never “on the clock”. You will never be asked to pay more than the flat rate we quoted you.
In some cases, either because the situation is more complex than typical or because of certain requirements imposed by the Court or the Board of Professional Responsibility (the ethics folks), we cannot charge a flat rate for our services.
In those cases, we can usually estimate our rate but will be required to charge based on the traditional hourly basis. Typically, a retainer is collected and deposited in our trust account, and we bill against this retainer at an hourly rate (which depends on the complexity of the case). Clients can request an itemized billing at any time and are entitled to be returned any money deposited with us that we have not earned.