Law Blog

1.    Legal Aid

Before you hire a lawyer, see if you qualify for Legal Aid, which may pay for all or some of your legal fees:

Queensland
Legal Aid Qld

New South Wales
Legal Aid NSW

Victoria
Legal Aid Vic

Tasmania
Legal Aid Tas

South Australia
Legal Services Commission SA

Western Australia
Legal Aid WA

Australian Capital Territory
Legal Aid ACT

Northern Territory
NT Legal Aid Commission

2.    Clear communication of your legal issue

Take the time to really understand your legal situation, and write everything down clearly and concisely – this will make your lawyer’s job much easier and the less time your lawyer spends on your matter, the lower your fees.

Prepare a chronology (time line) of the events relevant to your legal issue... for example if you wish to recover money owing to you, write down when you met the debtor, when you formed a contract, when the money was due, when you reminded them about the debt and any other important events. This will provide you with a useful structure you can then add the ‘who, what, where, how and why’ details to....

3.    Attempt a peaceful resolution

This may sound obvious, but if you can avoid a confrontation completely, a lawyer/ the justice system may not be needed at all. Consider different approaches to reasoning with the person you are in a dispute with and suggest alternatives to him or her that neither of you have yet discussed. You may be surprised what honest and open communication can achieve.

A cheaper alternative to all out war in court is a peaceful mediation process which can be facilitated by a lawyer. Ask your solicitor about this and you may find it is the best way forward – some people who are unreasonable talking to you may calm down and see the light if there is a qualified legal professional sitting in the same room.

Of course, there are many situations where the time for reasoning has passed, and strong and swift action is necessary... but in any event you should give serious consideration to whether or not your legal issues can be solved amicably.

4.    Prepare for quoted and unexpected legal fees

Have a detailed discussion about the way your lawyer will charge you for their services, and make your own plan to take into account contingencies. A legal matter that has been quoted at $5,000 can increase in cost when unforeseen circumstances arise (for instance a particularly belligerent opponent) so your budget should make allowance for these increases. If you plan for high legal fees, you will reduce the stress that may otherwise have come from an unexpected fee hike (because said fee hike won’t be unexpected at all).

Furthermore, if you know that there’s a chance of paying more than you have been quoted, you may be able to invest money or increase your credit limit in advance so that you won’t be scrambling for fees at the last minute.

5.  Take your lawyer’s advice

If your lawyer tells you that your best option is to pay money to a particular party by a certain date because otherwise you will lose in court and have to pay the money anyway – follow their advice. If your lawyer tells you that your legal costs will exceed an amount recovered and that your best bet is to just move on in life – listen to these words of wisdom borne of hard experience. If your solicitor says that the multinational corporation you want to sue for hundreds of millions of dollars may put up a fight that will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars for which you will have to mortgage your house and potentially lose your family – believe what you hear – and try not to be blinded by emotion and tunnel-vision.

Despite your feelings on the matter, and as sad as it is to say, court proceedings are almost always very expensive. By ‘very expensive’ don’t think that you will pay $100 or $200 more than you expect... think instead of the possibility of paying $10,000 more than you expected to your own lawyer and also paying your opponent’s legal expenses. It is common for clients trying to recover money to win this money back from a defendant successfully, but to then have to fork out the same amount or more to their lawyers for time spent pursuing the action. Added to this is the unavoidable stress of just being around lawyers and others in the legal industry, and a whole range of other unpleasant realities. Naturally there are some situations in which a fight for justice is warranted and should be pursued come what may, but take counsel on this from those in the know.

In business and in life, it is best to plan for the possibility of being ripped off or stolen from, and to move on when these unfortunate events occur in the face of temptation of destroying a debtor in court. In our legal system, justice can and does often come at a price, so take your lawyer’s word for it if they tell you this price is too much. Look at the possibility of being mistreated in the commercial world or otherwise as being an unavoidable scenario that you can insure yourself against by increasing your prices, for example, and try to steer away from the notion that all injustices are punished and the law will bring about equity in every case and in every sense of the word.

This website contains general information only. This site does not contain any legal advice. If you require legal advice, contact an Australian Legal Practitioner.