Why you need a Planning Session

When dealing with a family law matter, it is important that you become informed about your legal rights and responsibilities so that you can plan properly.  Our Memphis attorney offers a low cost Planning Sessions to provide you with an in depth analysis of your situation, helpful legal advice and information, and a legal strategy tailored to your particular situation to save you time, money, and stress.  The cost of our Planning Sessions is $100, and the information you will obtain during your Planning Session will prove to be invaluable.

 

Types of Planning Sessions we offer.

We offer Planning Sessions for Divorce, Family Law, Estate Planning, and other legal matters affecting families.  Learn more about the various planning sessions we offer below.

• Divorce Planning Session - Learn what you need to know now to divorce with dignity and protect yourself, your finances, and your children.

• Family Law Planning Session - Learn what you need to know now to handle your family law matter (such as division of assests and debts, spousal support, name change, paternity, child support, and child custody) with dignity and protect yourself, your finances, and your children.

• Estate Panning Session - Learn what you need to know now to ensure that you, your finances, and your loved ones are protected and provided for in the best way possible in the event of your disability or death.

• Legal Planning Session - Meet with our knowledgeable attorney about your legal rights and responsibilities in relation to a variety of legal matters.  

 

Get the most out of your Planning Session

We want the time you spend with our attorney to be meaningful and helpful.  That is why when you schedule a Planning Session, our attorney will send you an email informing you how to prepare for your Planning Session.  The email will also contain a link to an intake form for you to complete prior to your Planning Session.  We ask that you complete our intake form before your Planning Session and provide it to our attorney at the time of your scheduled Planning Session. 

 

By completing the intake form before your Planning Session it allows our attorney to use the time that would otherwise be spent filling out paperwork to answer your questions and provide you with helpful legal advice and information. In addition, completing the intake form allows our attorney to provide you with a legal game plan catered to meet your unique needs and goals.

 

Make your Planning Session FREE!

If you decide to retain our Memphis attorney, your Planning Session fee will be credited towards the overall cost of your legal services, making it free in effect! 

 

Meet with our attorney by phone, video conference, or in office

Our Planning Sessions can be completed in our office, by phone, or by video conference.  You may choose the method that is most convenient for you. You can expect your Planning Session to last from 45 minutes to one hour.

 

What you can expect during your Planning Session

During your Planning Session, our Memphis attorney will:

• Review your intake forms and other relevant documents to gain a thorough understanding of your particular situation;

• Review any legal documents that you may have drafted on your own or received from a document preparation company, the opposing party, or other attorney;

• Talk with you to learn more about your situation, your concerns, and your goals;

• Share our honest thoughts regarding the strengths and weaknesses of your position;

• Provide you with information relating to the legal processes and laws relating to your legal matter;

• Collaborate with you to set realistic goals and develop a legal strategy tailored to your unique situation and goals;

• Inform you what legal options you may benefit from using;

• Advise you on how to proceed;

• Provide you with an estimated cost of your legal services; and

• Discuss your payment options and our payment plans.

 

In addition to providing you with legal information, another objective of our Planning Session is to determine whether or not you and our firm are a good fit for each other.  If we decide we are not a good fit, then we will refund you your Planning Session fee.  There are many reasons why we might decide not to represent you, but if we make such a decision, it should never be taken personally. 

 

If we decide you are a good fit for us and you feel likewise, we will discuss your payment options, decide on a payment plan, and execute an Attorney-Client Agreement.  If you would like to take advantage of one of our affordable payment plans, you will need to provide our office a government issued photo identification, your last two check stubs (or other proof of income), a copy of your last bank statement, and a debit or credit card during your Planning Session. If you decide to use a payment plan, the payments for your attorney fees will be automatically drafted from the debit or credit card you provide in accordance with the payment plan you choose. 

 

 Please note that your Planning Session is confidential and subject to the attorney-client privilege, even if you do not retain our Memphis attorney.

 

Why the Walls Law Firm does not offer free consultations

At the Walls Law Firm, we do not offer free consultations.  However, we do offer low cost Planning Sessions that have the potential to be free. We currently charge $100.00 for our Planning Sessions lasting up to one-hour with potential new clients.  If you decide to retain our law firm, the cost of the Planning Session will be credited to the overall cost of your attorney fee, making the Planning Session free in effect!

 

Often people who find us through our website call and ask if we offer free initial consultations.  A small enough subset have taken offence at our refusal to do so that we feel it is necessary to explain the six reasons why we don’t offer free consultations.

 

Reason #1: We aren’t interested in “making a sell”.

Generally, when you make an appointment for a free consultation with an attorney, the free consultation is simply used as a sales mechanism to get clients in the door and so that the attorney can sell the potential client the law firm’s services.  Many attorneys who provide free consultations will not discuss the specific circumstances of your case in detail, provide you with legal advice, nor provide you with a legal game plan during the free consultation. Typically, free consultations are simply meant to be a brief conversation with the sole purpose of convincing the client he or she should move forward with the law firm and the costs of doing so. Thus, most attorneys who provide free consultations will not discuss the nuances of the facts of your case or explain how the law applies to your particular circumstances until you sign a contract for their legal services and pay their required attorney fees.  Hence, it is not surprising that most potential clients leave free consultations with more questions than answers.

 

Attorney Nakeshia Walls founded the Walls Law Firm because she wanted to change the way people are dealt with when they are dealing with a legal matter.  At the Walls Law Firm, we value people over profits.  That is why we are dedicated to using the law as a helping and healing profession.  When you meet with us for a Planning Session, we aren’t interested in “making a sell” or creating issues to increase our attorney fees.  Instead our goal during the Planning Session is to provide you with helpful legal information and a strategic plan to resolve your concerns and achieve your desired goals.

 

During the Planning Session, you can expect the opportunity to have an in-depth discussion of the details of your legal matter followed by a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of your case.  You can also expect our attorney to provide you with legal advice and detailed information on how the law affects your particular situation.  Our attorney will review legal documents, discuss the various options that are available to resolve your legal matter, and make suggestions as to which options might be worth exploring further.   In addition, our attorney will provide you with a legal game plan to save you time, money, and stress in the long run.  If legal representation is necessary, our attorney will also quote a firm flat fee or retainer for our law firm to begin representation and provide you with protection from us later representing the opposing party on the same matter. Our attorney will also discuss your payment options and inform you about our payment plans.

 

 When you leave your Planning Session, you will leave well informed about how the law affects your particular situation.  In addition, you will also have a detailed legal game plan to help you efficiently resolve your legal matter in order to save you money, time, and stress in the long run. 

 

Reason #2: A lawyer’s time and advice is his/her service.

As Abraham Lincoln noted, “a lawyer’s time and advice is his stock in trade.”  As a law firm dedicated to using the law as a helping and healing profession, our greatest service to our clients are our time, advice, experience, and abilities.  Time is the most finite of these qualities and our advice is the most valuable. Our attorney already does a significant amount of pro bono work, such as guardian ad litem work, participating in free legal clinics, and organizing, moderating and speaking at family law and estate planning seminars.  Our attorney could easily provide two or more free consultations a day, which would mean a quarter of our attorney’s work day would be spent providing free consultations.  Our law practice is too busy for us to provide free consultations to everyone who wants one and it isn’t fair for us to offer free consultations to some prospective clients but not others.

 

Reason #3: Free consultations can result in attorney’s being conflicted out of a case.

Once one party consults with an attorney, that party may attempt to conflict the attorney out of the case and prevent the opposing party from hiring the attorney, even if they did not hire the attorney themselves.  Sometimes people will consult with attorneys for the sole purpose of conflicting the attorneys out of the case in order to prevent the opposing party from being able to hire the attorneys.  This practice is greatly frowned upon.  Requiring people to pay an affordable Planning Session fee decreases the chances of people consulting with our attorney for the sole purpose of precluding our attorney from representing the opposing party in their case.

 

Reason #4: We offer a lot of free legal information on our website.

At the Walls Law Firm, we want you to be informed.  That is why we provide tons of helpful legal information on our website for free.  Our website’s content is the product of years of family law and estate planning experience and thousands of hours of research and writing.  We offer it both to market our legal services and as a public resource.  People seeking free information on Tennessee divorce, family law, and estate planning are welcome to use it.  However, people expecting more detailed advice from us should be willing to pay for it.  Just think, you wouldn’t be too fond of your employer requesting you to go to work for free.  By charging a minimal fee for our Planning Sessions, we are simply requesting the same respect as you…to be paid for our work.

 

Reason #5: We credit what you pay for your Planning Session to your overall attorney fees, making the Planning Session free in effect!

If you decide to retain us, we will credit whatever you paid for your Planning Session to the overall cost of your legal services, making the Planning  Session free in effect!

 

Reason #6: Charging for our Planning Sessions allows us to keep our attorney fees affordable and offer flexible payment plans by saving on collection costs.

We are able to offer affordable flat fees and flexible payment plans by reducing the need for collecting delinquent accounts.  Our Planning Session fee is offered at a reduced hourly fee in order to make obtaining the legal services you need more affordable.  In addition, if you decide to retain us, we will also credit the fee you paid for the Planning Session towards the total cost of your legal services.  This makes the Planning Session free in effect!

 

By charging a Planning Session fee, we are able to weed out the clients who can’t or are unwilling to pay us for our services.  This in turn allows us to save on the cost of collecting delinquent accounts.  This savings allows us to keep our attorney fees affordable and offer flexible payment plans (with payments as low as $50 biweekly) to clients who are able and willing to pay us for our services. From our experience, a potential client who cannot afford the Planning Session fee generally cannot afford to pay for our legal services.  In addition, a potential client who is unwilling to pay the Planning Session fee is usually unwilling to pay for an attorney’s services. Our flexible payment plans typically make affording an attorney within most people’s budget.  If you are truly unable to afford an attorney, you should consider contacting Memphis Area Legal Services at (901) 523-8822.  Memphis Area Legal Services offers free legal assistance in civil matters to low income and elderly persons.