Billing Policies

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• Bills are sent on the first business day of the month. (For example, the bill for November's work will be sent the first business day of December).

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• All tasks other than phone calls are billed to the nearest 15 minutes (0.25 of an hour).

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• Phone calls for client cases are logged based on duration either billed as a batch to the nearest 0.1 of an hour (6 mins), or individually in increments of 0.05 of an hour (3 mins), whichever makes most sense for the number of calls made and their durations.  This level of precision is used to keep your bill lower.

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• Phone calls as a professional contractor service are billed at 5 per hour (0.2 of an hour each), unless they take more than 15 minutes - at which point any call exceeding 15 minutes in duration will be billed by its duration to the nearest 0.1 of an hour (6 minutes).

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• Tasks completed for flat-fee clients are tracked the same as hourly-billing clients so as to have documentation for accounting purposes of services provided for the fees. These records are provided to hourly-billing clients each month with their invoice, and are also available to the flat-fee clients upon request.

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• Incidental office services: Incidental office services for non-clients or which are not connected to a case may be billed at the following rates:

  • Notarization - $5 per document

  • Photocopies - 10 cents per page

  • Fax - 25 cents per page

  • Note that these services in connection with a client's case are included in the legal fees

 

Record-keeping policies

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• Client files are retained for 6 years after their conclusion, in accordance with state law. If at any point you would like your file for your records, please request it before the 6 years is up, as after that time, they will no longer be available.

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• All voicemails received by Lopez Law are logged in a book when received, and immediately deleted. This is to avoid ever having a full voicemail box. If the voicemail pertains to a client or potential client, it is also logged in the case-management database. If the voicemail pertains to administrative matters regarding the business operations of Lopez Law, it will only be logged in the book. If the voicemail contains admissions of a party-opponent which are pertinent to a case, the recording of the voicemail will be saved into the client file.