The Karen Winner Difference
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Honest & Objective Legal Advice
You deserve to work with an ethical attorney that will listen to you and provide advice that you can trust. Karen's client-centered approach is based on providing unvarnished truth and empowering clients to make informed decisions.
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Leaving No Stone Unturned
Karen goes the extra mile, and that is often the difference in a case. Whether it is locating a one-of-a-kind expert, rigorous fact finding, or thinking outside the box to find new options, Karen will give your case the utmost attention as if you were family.
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30-Yrs. Investigative Experience
Karen gained invaluable skills as a former investigative reporter and former Policy Analyst for the NYC Dept. of Consumer Affairs. She has the resolve and experience to combat unethical litigants, attorneys, accountants, witnesses, and even judges.
As if you needed one more thing to think about going through your divorce. But you do: Your lawyer’s legal invoice.
As an investigative reporter who became a lawyer now embedded in the “system,” I can tell you that any number of lawyers would be very eager for you not to check your lawyer’s bill. Divorce lawyers in New York, for example, know that if you don’t check their bill and a few months go by, you are stuck with it. Lawyers exploit your silence — it is considered tacit acceptance of the bill. The next thing you know, you get sued by your former lawyer on an “account stated” claim, based on an archaic law that judges in New York typically use — whether the bill is fraudulent or not.
Additionally, if your lawyer is using hourly billing, there’s something you probably do not know about that should make you very mad.
In the hourly billing system, every contact you make with your lawyer gets rounded up to a tenth of an hour.
This is legitimatized fee padding.
A lawyer can bill for a half hour within the span of 2.5 minutes because in hourly billing, each amount of time is actually rounded up to 1/10th of hour.
So, for example: a lawyer charges $300 an hour and bills for five 30 second calls. If each 30-second call is rounded up to a tenth of an hour (6 minutes), the calculation should be as follows:
Duration of one call (rounded up): 6 minutes = 0.1 hours
Cost per rounded-up call: 0.1 hours * $300/hour = $30
Total cost for 5 calls: 5 calls * $30/call = $150
The total cost would be $150 — a half hour of time.
Now here is the calculation if the calls were not rounded up:
The total actual time for 5 calls at 30 seconds each would be 150 seconds, which is exactly 2.5 minutes (two and a half minutes).
The actual cost at an hourly rate of $300, would be $12.50.
Many lawyers really do not let their conscience get in the way when it comes to exploitative hourly billing practices, such as that above. Consider how one lawyer put it to colleagues on a list-serve:
“I’m sure many of us have been told to bill if we even think about a matter while taking a dump, so it’s not a stretch that someone might bill for saying thank you, or even reading a client’s unsubstantial acknowledgment reply.”
So before shooting off a one-liner email to your lawyer to check this or that, think twice before you do it. Or better yet, before you hire an attorney, tell them you won’t pay for email correspondence — and put it in the retainer agreement! If there is something that needs to be said, your lawyer can write it in a letter attachment (and not bill for the email carrying the attachment.) Or let their secretary call you. (Lawyers can’t bill at their hourly rate for secretarial tasks.)
If you are interested in learning how to look for red flags in your attorney’s bill, stay tuned for my webinar coming your way. AttorneyWinner.com