1. 1.Ask him/her about their experience
   

Just as you don't ask a brain surgeon to suture a toe, you don't ask a general practitioner to do a heart transplant.

Find out if your lawyer's experience suits your needs.

If he or she is not familiar with your problem you may be paying for their education so he can assist you. Many lawyers specialise or have a preferred area of practise and will take less time to do the job because they are experience in that area and so because they are experienced in an area they will take less time to do the job.

If your lawyer is good he will be worth what you pay. If he is not capable or inexperienced he may leave you owing more money than you imagined you could owe.

2. 2.Get organised
   

A lawyer is not an administrative assistant although he will be happy to act in that capacity if you are prepared to pay. He is entitled to have you present all the facts clearly and concisely if you want to save money.

If the matter is complicated you should sit down and write out your version of the facts in date order. You should then present all the documents cross referenced if possible to your chronology. It might not tell the lawyer all the things that he wants to know but it will get him to a stage when he can ask you the right questions much more quickly.

You should also tell him your biggest concerns about your problem so that he can avoid taking you through areas which do not concern you.

3. 3.Listen
   

A lawyer is not there to approve or disapprove of what you have done. A lawyer is not a therapist (although if you want to pay him...). If you have followed the advice in the previous paragraph he will be able to focus on your problem quicker than you can. Let him ask the questions. You are paying him to hear his advice not to listen to yourself (You can do that in the shower!). It is not important to a lawyer whether you are 'right' or 'wrong'. He is there to help you even if you are 'wrong'!

4. 4.Prevention is better then cure
   

See your lawyer before you enter into an important business relationship or transaction. It will cost a lot less than you will pay him to get you out of it.

For instance many lawyers will not charge you for perusing an offer and acceptance for a purchase of land before you sign it you instruct them to act for you in completing the settlement. If they have to represent you in extricating you from a contract you didn’t mean to sign the costs will be much higher.

Similarly if you go into business with a partner you should have a partnership agreement which provides for such things as capital, management, and what happens when/if someone wants to leave the partnership. It is very difficult to resolve a partnership dispute without an agreement and certainly more expensive.

5. 5.Ask the price
   
   There are number of services for which a lawyer can give you a fixed price. For example acting on the purchase or sale of your real estate or preparing a mortgage carries a “scale fee” which is the maximum a lawyer is entitled to charge unless the matter is unusually complicated. In other instances a lawyer may, after finding out what your problem is, be able to agree a fee with you
   
   In other cases where documentation is complex the lawyer is bound by a scale of fees which are a combination of his time and the documentation involved.
   

In cases of litigation it is very difficult for a lawyer to give an estimate because he doesn’t know when the case is going to end or what facts the other side is going to bring up.

In such a case ask your lawyer for a scale of charges and be sure to sign an agreement committing him to those charges.
Beware of the traps of the 'hourly rate'. A lawyer that is relatively inexperienced may take three times longer to do something than an experienced lawyer.

If his rate is $150 per hour you will still be paying more than the lawyer who charges $300 per hour.

Just because a lawyer charges you an hourly rate for the time he spends working on your case doesn't mean that this is all you pay for. Just like phone companies, many lawyers charge by 6 minute units. That means even if the lawyer makes a two minute phone call, you still pay for six minutes. Here at Mackinlays we charge by the minute so you only ever pay for the time we actually spend on you.