I have been practicing elder law for twenty-five years. Most of my practice is transactional law, as opposed to litigation. I draft estate planning documents (financial powers of attorney, advanced health care directive, last wills, and trusts) and assist clients in qualifying for Medicaid benefits. To some extent, qualifying for Medicaid is not transactional in the sense that I am dealing with government agencies that often take a position contrary to my client’s position, but for the most part, I do not have to litigate with the Medicaid office.

Because my work is primarily transactional, I can charge clients a flat fee. In other words, at the beginning of my representation of the client, I tell the client what my fee will be and my fee does not go up (or down) no matter how often I have to change the client’s documents/plans or no matter how often I have to meet with or speak with the client.

I prefer charging clients a flat fee. The client knows what my fees will be before the client retains my services. By retaining me, the client understands exactly how much he will pay for my services and what services I will deliver to the client.

Many attorneys—even other elder law attorneys—charge clients on an hourly basis for their services. Hourly rates often cause friction between he attorney and the client. Imagine if you were having your estate planning documents (Will, power of attorney, and advanced directive) drafted and every time you call your attorney, he charges you at the rate of $300 an hour. You would not want to speak with your attorney.

Or imagine if every time the lawyer mails you a document to review, he charges you for his assistant’s time in forwarding the draft documents to you and charges you for the cost of printing and mailing the documents. Once again, you would want to limit your contact with the attorney.

For this reason, I charge a flat fee. I want the client to participate with me. I want the client to get what he wants, and I want the client to help me get him what he wants. If the client thought that I was charging him for every action the client takes with me, then the client is not going to want to help me get what he wants.

I cannot speak for all attorneys, but over the course of my career, thousands of clients have said to me, “Your fee is a lot lower than I thought it would be.” I have had clients say to me, “John, you need to charge more.” In fact, I heard both of those statements just last week.

There is a thought in business (and as much as some lawyers would not want to admit it, the practice of law is a business), that you should raise your fees, lose a percentage of your clients, and make up the lost revenue with the higher fees. For instance, I charge $775 for a basic Will, financial power of attorney, and advanced health care directive ($975 for a couple who want these documents). I know that many of my colleagues charge two to three times this much for these documents.

Let us assume that I have four to five hundred new clients a year wanting these documents. Let us further assume that I double my rates but only 60% as many people retain my services. Even though I lost 40% of my clients because I doubled my fees, I would actually make more money. This would seem like good business practice.

The thing is, in my opinion, I would have to listen to 40% of the people who would have been my clients complain about my fee. I do not want to do that, to me or to them.

Not only that, despite people telling me I should charge more for the past twenty years, I have been successful in the practice of law, more successful than I ever thought I would be when I started practicing twenty-five years ago. So, the prices I charge, while reasonable (perhaps even below market), the technique has worked well for me and for my clients.