After many years of experience, we believe that everything we create in the practice is built upon what we have learned from our work with previous clients and our continuing education. The individualized services we provide to you, such as preparing your estate planning documents or filing your guardianship application, are only a part of the entire service we provide. In addition to the legal documents, you are paying for our experience, expertise, and seasoned insight. Proper legal advice is crucial and mistakes can cost you and your loved ones thousands, if not millions, of dollars. The real value of an attorney is to listen to your circumstances and goals and lead you to the best course of action.

Estate Planning, "Routine" Guardianships and Petitions, and Probate (also called Estate Administration), and Trust Administration

While hourly rates are available for litigation services, we work primarily on a flat fee basis in most areas of our practices. Clients tend to prefer having a firm understanding of the costs of the services, and we do our best to provide that comfort to allow the clients to budget as needed for our services. At the end of your first meeting, we quote you a flat fee for developing your estate plan (e.g., wills, powers of attorney, revocable living trusts, special needs trusts, deeds, funding your trust, etc.). The flat fee is based on your situation, the nature of the work that needs to be done, and the amount of time we estimate the work will take. In short, this quoted price encompasses all aspects of our services to you, including answering all of your questions, meeting with you to discuss your concerns, speaking with other advisers in your life (if you wish us to do so), and ensure that your estate plan is fully completed and operational. It will also include any fees for recording your documents and mailing or courier services required. If the scope of the work should greatly change, or if you need additional work that was not discussed at the initial meeting, we will discuss and prepare a fee agreement to cover the additional work. You will receive a fee engagement letter that spells out the work to be done and the planning fee we will charge. You may take the fee engagement letter with you to review or may sign it at your meeting. We do not begin work on your estate plan until we have received your agreement to hire our firm, in the form of the signed fee engagement letter.

Probate and Litigation (e.g., Will Contests and Contested Guardianships)

We always strive to deliver high quality client services at fair and reasonable prices. In certain cases, we cannot reasonably anticipate the costs that will come with the services we provide because there are simply too many variables that could go in too many different ways. In these types of cases (usually will contests, trust challenges, and contested guardianships), we provide you with a fee engagement letter at the end of your first meeting that spells out the work to be done, the rates we will charge on an hourly basis, and the amount of the retainer that we will require. You may take the fee engagement letter with you to review or may sign it at your meeting. We do not begin work on your matter until we have received your agreement to hire our firm, in the form of the signed fee engagement letter.

To make an appointment, please contact Elle Van Dahlgren Law, LLC by calling 302-407-5009 today.