Meeting With an Attorney to Discuss Your Legal Matters
Before your first appointment with an attorney, it’s a good idea to prepare a list of the questions you want to discuss. Ask the attorney what documents you should bring with you to the meeting and make sure that you have them well organized. Also, make a copy of them so that you and the attorney each have a copy in front of you when you’re discussing those documents.
Legal Fees
Most attorneys work at an hourly rate, which on the low end is $150 per hour, up to $500 and more per hour, especially at some of the large entertainment law firms in the major entertainment industry cities. My experience is that most well-qualified entertainment attorneys at small or medium-size law firms are currently charging in the range of $250–$400 per hour.
As a general rule, the larger the firm, the higher the hourly rate will be. Also, the hourly rates of attorneys in large cities tend to be higher than attorneys’ hourly rates in smaller cities.
But an attorney’s hourly rate is not the only consideration, since an attorney’s hourly rate doesn’t really tell you what the total cost will be. Experienced entertainment attorneys are much more likely to be able to handle your legal matters quickly and efficiently, since they will have done the same kind of work many times before. So you won’t be paying them to learn on-the-job. Even if their hourly rate is higher, the total cost could end up being less than what you would have to pay an inexperienced attorney.
Whenever possible, it’s always a good idea to try to get a cost estimate. Sometimes it will be practical for the attorney to give you an estimate, and sometimes it won’t. For example, if the attorney is preparing a standard kind of agreement, it will likely be possible to give you at least a ballpark estimate of the amount of attorney time required. On the other hand, if you’re having the attorney represent you in negotiations, it’s usually not possible for the attorney to give you a very specific estimate, since there are too many variables outside the attorney’s control.
One thing you can do, even in that situation, is to ask the attorney, preferably in writing, to let you know when the total legal cost has reached a particular amount. That way you won’t feel like you’re signing a blank check.
Be prepared to pay the attorney a “retainer” (a deposit). The attorney will put the retainer amount into the law firm’s trust account and pay himself or herself at the end of each month for work done that month. There’s no standard practice regarding the amount of the retainer. It will depend on how much work the attorney envisions needing to do. Not all attorneys require retainers.
Most attorneys will ask you to sign a retainer agreement. This contains the terms on which the attorney will be representing you. Read it carefully before signing. If you’re uncomfortable with anything in it, don’t let yourself get pressured into signing it. You can always tell the attorney you want to take the agreement with you so you can sleep on it.
Finally, as I mentioned above, most attorneys work on an hourly rate basis, but there is one significant exception to this rule. Sometimes in the case of artists who are signed to a major label or who are independently generating a sizeable amount of income, an attorney will represent a client on a percentage basis (most often 5 percent) of the artist’s annual entertainment industry income. The attorney is in effect being paid a commission of your annual income, instead of charging you an hourly rate for the legal work done. There are pros and cons of this kind of arrangement, and it’s always a good idea to get independent advice before entering into such arrangement.
