Three ways to pay us, written into the engagement letter before any work starts.
Which one applies depends on the matter, not on what you can be talked into. The basis is written into the engagement letter and it does not change mid-case.
Costs are separate from fees, in every arrangement. Filing fees, service, deposition transcripts, expert witnesses, records requests and mediator time are billed at what they cost us, with receipts attached to the invoice. On contingency matters we advance them and recover them out of the settlement — and if there is no recovery, we absorb them. You will get a written estimate of likely costs before the first filing.
Answer four questions. The scale shows how our intake team would weight the file today — evidence on one side, obstacles on the other.
These weightings mirror the checklist our intake team uses on a first call. It is an indication of how a file reads on paper — not advice, and not a valuation of your claim.
Adjust the answers on the left and the scale will re-weight.
Nothing. The intake call runs about thirty minutes and is with a partner, not a screener. If we think you have a matter worth pursuing, we will quote a fixed fee for the written file review before any further work begins. If we think you do not, we will say so on that call.
Three ways, agreed in writing before work starts. Injury and some employment claims run on contingency, typically a third of the recovery. Business, family and estates work is hourly with a monthly ceiling you approve in advance. Discrete pieces — a review, a trust, a demand letter — are flat fee.
The median across our practice is seven months from engagement to resolution. Matters that settle after a demand letter close in six to ten weeks. Matters that go to trial in Springfield County are currently taking fourteen to twenty months from filing, largely because of the court’s calendar rather than anything either side does.
No. The partner named on your engagement letter runs the matter and appears at every hearing. Associates draft and research under that partner, and you will see their names on invoices, but the person you met in the first meeting is the person at counsel table.
We appear across California and are admitted in Nevada, Oregon and the Ninth Circuit. For matters further afield we will either associate in local counsel or refer you out entirely — and we will tell you which, and why, at the first call.
No, but the clock is short. A California response is generally due thirty days after service, and a default judgment is far harder to undo than it is to avoid. Call the office rather than using the form — say you have been served, and you will be put through to a partner the same day.
Names shortened at the client’s request; matters described with permission.
Two firms told me the case was too old. Halvern read the file over a weekend, found the tolling argument, and we recovered every dollar eleven months later.
They talked me out of suing my former partner and negotiated a buyout instead. It cost me a fifth of what litigation would have, and I still have the business.
Custody work is miserable and they never once made it worse. Priya answered on a Sunday when the exchange went wrong, and had an order modified inside a fortnight.
I got a written estimate on day one and the final invoice was under it. After twenty years of dealing with law firms, that alone was remarkable.
They filed inside a week of the first call, and the other side settled before the first hearing. I never once had to chase anybody for an update.
The written file review was worth the fee on its own. It told me plainly what the case was worth and what it would cost to find out.
Send the outline and a partner will call you back the same business day. If it is urgent — you have been served, or a deadline is inside a week — use the phone number instead.
Everything you send is confidential. Submitting this form does not create an attorney–client relationship.
Typical reply: same business day before 18:00 Pacific.
