Do you provide a free initial consultation or otherwise offer or provide free legal advice?

Yes. We provide free initial consultations for all of our potential clients to discover the facts of their case and determine if our firm is a good fit for the potential client's needs.  We only accept about 5% of the cases we are presented with, but we often forward the clients we don't accept to other law firms.

When should I contact a lawyer?

We recommend that you contact a lawyer in the following circumstances:

1. You or your business have been sued.
2. You have been charged with a crime.
3. You have assets, children, a spouse, but no will or you have a will but your circumstances have changed.
4. You are about to embark upon a new business either by start-up or purchase.
5. You are interested in selling a business or major asset.
6. You are about to acquire a substantial asset or assets by way of purchase or lease.
7. You are owed money and are having trouble collecting it.
8. You are asked to personally guarantee another's debt.
9. Generally you are concerned about what legal rights you have in a certain area or you want to enforce your legal rights.

How do I retain your legal services?

Call us at 866.309.0911 to discuss your needs, or feel free to send an e-mail which concisely describes your needs or problem.  Do not include sensitive or confidential information. If you seek our representation in a dispute, you must first identify all of the adverse parties so that we can do a conflicts check to make sure we do not represent any of them.

Please identify the amount of money at issue, whether you have already consulted any other attorneys about it, and if so, who they are, and why you are now contacting us about it. Finally, include your E-Mail address, physical address, and all of your phone numbers. We will then contact you to set up an appointment or advise you whether we feel this is a matter or case which we can accept.

The firm may or may not require the payment of a advanced deposit (retainer) before commencing representation of a new client, depending on the complexity of the case, the amount of work involved, and whether we take the case on contingency or a mixed-fee arrangement of partial hourly and partial contingency.

What is an Advanced Deposit (Often improperly referred to as a retainer)?

An advanced deposit is a deposit or advance payment to the firm of some of the fees and/or costs which the firm anticipates it will incur to represent you. The deposit is held in a trust account by the firm pursuant to a written fee agreement.

The firm pays itself from the retainer funds only as it earns the fees or spends the costs on your behalf. The amount of the retainer requested by the firm depends upon the amount of time, costs and resources which the firm anticipates it will spend to represent you. If it is a large assignment, the retainer may cover only a portion of the entire project. If the firm concludes its representation and has not utilized the entire retainer, you will be refunded the difference.

Our firm has collected retainers as small as $500 and as large as $250,000.00.  The amount of the retainer is fact specific.

How much do you charge, and how do you charge?

Generally we prefer to charge for the results we achieve not the time we expend on your behalf. (For more on this, see this page.)  This is done with a contingency agreement or a mixed-fee agreement.  That said, we know that not all files can be billed this way so we do offer clients the option to pay us hourly.  The minimum hourly rate of the firm for most work is $200.00. On some projects the hourly rate is higher. The rates depend on the attorney at the type of work. We bill our clients monthly and our bills provide a detailed description of the legal services rendered. Clients are also responsible for any costs incurred by the firm in connection with the representation, such as copying charges, expert witness fees, filing fees, outside support expenses and court reporter fees.

HOW DO CONTINGENCY FEES WORK?

Most financially damaged businesses or seriously injured people do not want to pay lawyers $250 - $700 per hour, even if they can afford to do so. We believe that you should be able to participate in the legal process on fair footing, even though you cannot or choose not to pay hourly fees.  Accordingly, we can usually agree to work on some type of contingency fee or mixed-fee basis, where rather than charging hourly fees, or for reduced hourly fees the firm will take a fee as a percentage of the client's recovery; if no recovery is made, the client does not have to pay anything for the legal services rendered by the firm.

WHAT PERCENTAGE WILL I HAVE TO PAY AS A CONTINGENCY FEE?

We do not have a set contingency fee rate.  Partially because it depends on whether or not we are also charging a reduced hourly rate, the complexity of the case, the stage in the litigation where we are hired and numerous other factors.   The rate the firm is willing to work for on any given matter depends on all of these factors, plus some others.  Generally, though, the firm's fees range from 33.33% for the least complex pre-trial matters to 45% for complex cases which are set for trial.

In personal injury cases, we typically charge a sliding scale percentage.  For instance, the contingent fee may be 35% if the case is settled, 40% if suit is filed, and 45% if an appeal is taken by either side. In criminal cases, a set fee is determined based upon the severity of the case and the amount of time required by the law firm to handle that case.

WILL I HAVE TO PAY LITIGATION COSTS? HOW MUCH WILL LITIGATION COSTS RUN?

Litigation is expensive. In order for a case to be handled properly, there are a host of costs for such things as investigation, copying documents, witness fees, transcript fees, retention of expert witnesses, exhibit preparation, jury fees and countless other necessary preparatory expenses. There is no way to estimate in advance how much these costs will total, because every case is different and, of course, the earlier in the process that the case is resolved, the less the costs are likely to be. We always endeavor to keep the litigation costs spent on a case in proportion to the anticipated recovery.

On most personal injury cases, we will advance the costs for the client. In the unlikely event that no recovery is made, the client does not have to repay the advanced costs. If a recovery is made, the client is required to repay the costs from his/her share of the recovery.

I need for someone to review my potential lawsuit that I want to file, or the lawsuit that was filed against me. What should I do?

You need to contact an attorney. The Babcock Law Firm welcomes you to call us at 225.344.0911 or you can email us and discuss your lawsuit.

I do not live close to your office. How do I hire your firm?

There are several ways for you to complete our paperwork and get it back to us:

1. You can print our forms from the Internet, complete them and mail to us;
2. We can fax our forms to you;
3. We can mail our forms to you;
4. We can Federal Express our forms to you and you can return them by Federal Express (we pay);
5. We can pay for a taxi or other land transportation to our office;
6. We can pay to fly you to our office;
7. Let us know if you have another idea of how we can help with transportation for you;
8. Lastly, Stephen Babcock is a pilot and may be able to fly to you for a personal meeting;

Do I pay for long distance calls to your office?

No. We provide a nationwide toll-free number to our office. We will not charge you for using our toll-free number. The number is 866.309.9011.

What is my case worth?

The fact that there are attorneys with billboards in our home town that ask "What is your case worth?" is a good indication that clients are quite curious about this; however, this is one of the most difficult questions to answer, and you should be wary of any attorney who claims to know what your case is worth when you first talk to him or her.  Normally, the value of a case cannot be accurately determined until "discovery" is conducted, which involves testimony under oath of yourself, witnesses to the incident, and others. The reason this fact-finding must occur is that a case value is based on two factors: "liability" and "damages." Liability is the "fault" of the other party, and damages are the total losses that you have incurred, including pain and suffering, lost wages, and medical bills or in the case of a business matter, lost profits and damage to reputation. The stronger the liability in a case, the more likely settlement will occur at close to full value of the damages. The more difficult it is to prove liability, the more likely settlement will occur at less than full value of damages. But remember, if settlement does not occur and the case goes to trial, your case is worth whatever the jury decides it is worth.

I have never been involved in a trial. How do you help me prepare?

Statistics prove that most cases get resolved prior to going to trial. Regardless, we prepare every case as if it might ultimately be decided by a jury. We believe in being prepared in the event that an agreement between the parties cannot be reached. By the time a case is ready for trial, our clients will have spent a great deal of time preparing with us. You will know what to expect if and when your case goes to trial.  In some special cases, we will even have a "mock" trial before the real thing.