When you are facing a criminal case, you must be looking to hire a criminal defense lawyer to defend your case. While you are looking for the lawyer, the first thing that comes to your mind is what will he charge for the case?
Here is complete detail on what factors do the charges of the criminal defense attorney depends on:
Case Complexity
The charges for the felony cases are more than that of Misdemeanour cases as felony charges require more appearances in court, more penalties, and better preparations. Hence, the attorneys charge more for complex cases.
Experience of the Attorney
The attorneys with lesser experience generally charge lesser than the ones having high experience. But, if the attorney is charging too low, this might be misleading. An attorney with a higher hourly rate might give you more satisfactory results in a shorter period of time than a lawyer at a lower rate.
Although an experienced attorney might charge you more you should always consider hiring a professional and experienced lawyer like Galveston criminal defense attorney.
Geographical Location
The location is another major deciding factor for the charges of the criminal defense attorney. The cost of hiring the attorney is high in some parts of the country compared to rest.
Hourly billing
Lawyers charge for the hours incurred during case presentation and investigation. They charge hourly for every hour they devote to the case while trying to bring out the possible solutions quickly. Hourly billing is very comfortable for short cases and experienced attorneys put on their efforts to provide better results in a short time.
Case Billing
Apart from hourly billing, billing for the whole case is the other option. Defendants like to pay for the whole case hearing fees instead of counting the hours spent by an attorney in the case. The fixed amount is somehow unchangeable and required to pay in advance. Both pros and cons are counted in this situation as well. Lawyers feel that the amount of work was more than the payment done.
It is up to the defendant to state the case clearly in front of an attorney while hiring him. The defendant can opt to hire for a full case or hourly billing. If the case looks to be resolved in few hearings, you can opt for hourly billing, and if the case looks to be stretched to some time, billing for the whole case would be a better option.
Retainers
Lawyers generally ask the defendants to pay the retaining fee first to begin the case proceedings. It is generally like the advance payment for the lawyer expenditure in case presentation and research. Retaining fee can be calculated with the hours of working of a lawyer. It is the lawyer’s prior responsibility to share the statement with the client for his knowledge and better settlement in the future.
Final Words
A number of different factors affect the variations in charges of the Galveston criminal defense attorney. The case filed in the court and the experience of handling situations help the clients to understand the charges set by the lawyers. Few variations can be sorted out on the table of discussion. The right amount of charges help the lawyers to be more dedicated to their work.
