Our Fee Policy

Fee Policy

Our Philosophy Regarding Fees

     After we meet with you to fully identify your estate planning objectives, and the work that we can do to assist you in meeting your goals, we will often quote a fixed fee for the legal services that we perform. This is commonly referred to as “value-billing,” and reflects our determination of what is fair and reasonable based on our knowledge, experience and expertise which we have gained from working exclusively in the estate planning field with thousands of previous clients.

     The actual physical documents that we draft for you, while critically important, are only a part of the entire service that we provide. As an example, Todd Villarrubia has a LL.M. in Taxation, is a board certified estate planning expert, and has been recognized by Worth Magazine as one of the top 100 attorneys in the country for several consecutive years. By working with an expert, the chances of your objectives being met are greatly increased. We often meet with clients who have unfortunately experienced a less than satisfactory outcome. Sometimes, the harm done is minor, but we have also seen numerous circumstances in which the attorney has unintentionally created extensive damage to the client’s wealth due to their lack of experience and training in this field. We always use the example that if you were having a heart attack you would not go to a podiatrist. Similarly, this process involves the disposition of all the assets that you have managed to accumulate over your lifetime of working every day to preserve wealth. You should not leave the planning of this event, which we all know will happen to each of us, to anyone other than an expert.

     Typically, our fees will be higher than a general practitioner attorney. However, the asset protection and tax savings we will achieve will almost always save your family much more than we charge. You will also have the peace of mind in knowing that your plan was developed and implemented properly. Sometimes, a small mistake by a general practitioner attorney can cost clients hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

     There a several reasons why we have implemented a fixed fee policy for most of the legal work that we perform. First, and most importantly, many of our clients prefer knowing the total fee that they will be charged so that they are not surprised by an unexpected bill at the end of a project. Second, it allows our clients to contact us at a time without apprehension that they are being charged for every phone call or email. Third, it allows a certain sense of comfort in knowing that the entire consultation and drafting phases of the process are all inclusive.

     Then the next question becomes how do we determine an appropriate fee for a certain amount of legal work that we perform? The fee we quote is based upon several factors including the time and labor involved, the novelty and difficulty of the types of legal issues presented, the skill, education and experience necessary to competently perform the requested legal services, as well as the results finally obtained.

     In our market research, we have found that we tend to be more expensive than attorneys who do not specialize in this field but less expensive than many of the other estate planning experts in Louisiana. Again, you should consider the risk associated with hiring an attorney who does not have much experience or expertise in this area and the resultant calamities that can occur due to their lack of knowledge. Compare the potential risk to the marginally small differential in the cost to prepare the documents in an expert manner. One of our favorite quotes is by John Ruskin who observed...

“It is unwise to pay too much, but it’s unwise to pay too little. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot – it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better!”

     We have worked with thousands of families in protecting their assets, and our clients value the client service and expertise we have provided in helping them meet their estate planning goals.