FEE ARRANGEMENTS
alternative fee arrangements
At Waters Law, PLLC, we are proponents of alternative fee arrangements to the typical hourly billing, especially flat fee arrangements. In fact, most of our estate planning and estate administration clients are charged on a flat fee basis.
Our flat fee 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 fee we quoted you.
Traditional Fee Arrangements
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 fee 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.