Fee & Cost Control

Child & Marton, LLP is committed to managing your case as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. Here are just some of the steps we take to keep litigation expenses reasonable:

• Efficient technology.  We use technology to speed case preparation. We've computerized our legal research and our document input, management, and cross-referencing systems to keep all your case information at our fingertips.
  
  
• Fee and cost budgets.  We help our clients develop reasonable fee and cost budgets and litigation plans, and explore with them potential ways to resolve disputes short of trial. Our goal is always to meet our clients' litigation objectives within their budget.
  
  
• Reasonable rates.  New efficiencies from technology and our long-term relationships with many clients have enabled us to keep our rates reasonable and relatively stable for many years.
  
  
• Only productive time is billed.  We only bill for productive time spent on a case.
  
  
• Attorneys salaried, not "commissioned."  We compensate our attorneys by salary and not by amounts billed, so they are never under pressure to over-bill a client.
  
  
• Cost-billing agreements.  We agree ahead of time with each client on how we will bill travel time, computer-assisted research, and conferences.
  
  
• Only appropriate items charged as costs.  We don't charge for word processing, secretarial overtime, staff meals, or excessive travel expenses such as first-class airfare.
  
  
• No "mark up" on costs.  We don't "mark up" cost disbursements such as Westlaw, court reporting, and copying fees.
  
  
• Alternative billing methods offered.  To stay within clients' budgets, we offer several alternatives to hourly fee-for-service billing. These include "fixed-price" billing, "reverse contingency" billing, and volume discounts.

We value our long-term relationships with our clients. We are always pleased to discuss billing policies, invoices, and ways to keep litigation expenses reasonable with our current and prospective clients.

If you are looking for experienced trial attorneys who make it a policy to avoid unreasonable charges and surprise invoices, please call us at (213) 627-3113. We welcome the opportunity to assist you.