Welcome to Steinbrenner Law Offices, LLC, a New York professional limited liability company. The following is a statement of our billing policy and procedures, which shall govern the legal services performed for and on behalf of you.
Billing Cycle
Invoicing is customarily done on a monthly basis based upon services performed or to be performed, including expenses incurred on your behalf. We strive to ensure that our billing is always reflective of excellent service and outstanding client focused value being provided at a reasonable charge.
Legal Services Included
We shall provide such legal services concerning business matters or issues as requested by you and mutually agreed to.
Mutual Obligations
We shall competently and effectively perform legal services for you while keeping you informed and updating you on changes in the status of matters, and shall reasonably respond to your inquiries or other communication. You shall be honest and cooperate with us, keeping us abreast of new developments or changes that could affect your matter, and make any and all payments according to this agreement on or before the date due.
Alternative Billing Arrangements
Many services such as contract review, document drafting, licensing and business entity document processing, can be quoted at a flat fee rate or structured value-based fee. Additionally, monthly ongoing representation agreements, discounted fees for legal consulting or fees on trade can be arranged. If none of these is in place, you will be billed on an hourly basis.
Hourly Billing
Our standard professional fee for business legal services is $350.00 per hour. Legal services rendered by Paralegals are billed at $175.00 per hour. We value long-term relationships with our business clients and customarily provide discounted fees, monthly billing credits, and alternative fee and billing arrangements to clients. We will charge in increments of one tenth of an hour, rounded up or down for each activity to the nearest one tenth of an hour. Billable time will include, for example and without limitation, time spent in in-person meetings or telephone consultations with you or others, engaging in research, preparing documents, developing strategy, and consultation with other professionals. We, to account for inflation or other matters, may adjust our rates from time to time. Please review our invoices when you receive them, so that any questions you may have, are raised in a timely fashion.
Expenses and Costs
You shall pay any reasonable expenses or costs incurred in rendering your legal services. Such expenses and costs include, but are not limited to, filing fees and expenses, investigation costs, overnight delivery fees, process server fees and any other related expense incurred by us to provide satisfactory legal services to you.
Prepaid Legal Fees
We may request you to deposit a fee with us for prepaid legal services prior to commencing work on this case. We may request that you periodically replenish the prepaid legal fees. You are responsible for paying any fees, costs, and expenses, which exceed the prepaid legal fees. Any unused portion of the prepaid legal fees will be refunded to you. If we agree to waive at any time the requirement of an advance prepaid legal fee, you agree to fully pay each monthly statement within thirty days (30) of issuance.
Right to Terminate Representation
At all times, we reserve the right to terminate work on any matter, and to withdraw from the representation on proper notice, if payment is not timely received. You may, at any time, discharge us for any reason whatsoever by written notice, which shall become effective upon receipt by us. Upon receipt, we shall cease to provide legal services to you, unless otherwise agreed upon. You acknowledge that following such termination; you still remain obligated to pay for any fees, expenses and costs owed to us.
Your Property
Your legal file, and the documents therein, are your property. We shall retain your property obtained or generated during the pendency of the legal services being rendered. Upon request, subject to our attorney’s lien mentioned below, your files shall be promptly released and delivered to you. If you do not request or accept such property after legal services have been completed, we are authorized to retain or dispose of such property in our reasonable discretion.
Attorney’s Lien
Under New York law, we have an automatic lien on your papers and files for any unpaid attorney’s fees, costs or expenses advanced on your behalf, and also on any funds or monies obtained by judgment, settlement or arbitration award which belong to you.
Conflict of Interest
We must disclose to you whether any actual or potential conflict of interest exists between you and another person represented by us. If an actual or potential conflict of interest exists, we may not represent you without written consent from both you and the adverse party.
Disclaimer
You acknowledge that we make no guarantee regarding the outcome or success with regard to your matter. We do not have or hold any power to guarantee any certain outcome in favor of your matter.
Entire Agreement
This statement is complete in its entirety between us and governs our relationship. It supersedes any and all verbal discussions between us.
Fee Dispute
In the event of a dispute between you and us regarding legal fees or costs, you agree that such dispute shall be first resolved by good faith efforts to achieve a resolution, then through mediation with a mutually agreed to third party, and thereafter only by binding arbitration in accordance with arbitration rules standard and customary in the State of New York.
Your Satisfaction
Comments about our services are always welcome. Our ultimate goal is that the manner in which we provide legal services to you promotes an excellent relationship between us.
ACCEPTED & AGREED
