Save on Legal Bills: Get Organized

It’s no secret that hiring a lawyer to litigate a civil lawsuit on your behalf can be very expensive. The reason for this is because litigation is an extremely time-consuming endeavor, and many attorneys charge as much as several hundred dollars per hour for time working your case. For this reason, you’re likely to save money if you can help your attorney reduce the time he or she must spend working on your matter.

One of the best ways to help reduce your legal fees is to be extremely organized and forthright with the documents you have pertaining to your legal matter. For example, a client involved in an insurance dispute must carefully organize emails, letters, claims estimates, receipts or invoices for covered services and materials, photographs, and even personal notes.

In the modern era, this naturally means keeping all of these items in electronic format. If you aren’t yet technologically savvy enough to scan paper documents into your system, then you need to associate with someone who can. Alternatively, your attorney should have staff on hand who can help you get your documentation scanned into an electronic format. By far the best file format to use is PDF format; however, other documents may have differing needs.

Emails can present a particularly trick problem. They are often sent en-masse, and people use a variety of platforms for them, which can create difficulties when it comes to disclosing emails. Moreover, careful review is required in order to ensure that privileged or protected documents do not reach your opponent.

Why is being acutely organized such a boon to your legal case? Mainly because hunting through documents can be extremely time consuming, and if your lawyer is billing you by the hour, well . . . you get the picture. Moreover, if your documents are keenly organized, it allows you and your lawyer to respond far more quickly to new developments in your case, making faster and more timely decisions.

Finally, if you’re dealing with a legal matter, and you’re worried that the documentation relevant to that matter is about to get out of control, then we recommend you reach out and call us here at Asheville Legal today. We have the knowledge, expertise, and technological know-how to help you get a grasp on your documentation for better use in your case and to help you save money.