The Law Office of Steven W. Varney, LLC

Consultations/Fees

Because of the nature of our practice, we have a high volume of demand for consultations.

We do not charge consultation fees for criminal matters.

In DCF cases, we charge a discounted fee of $150, payable at our conference, for a one-hour consultation to discuss your case with you and provide you with our advice as to your available options. We encourage our clients to bring all available documentation concerning their case with them to the consultation. If you have not yet obtained a copy of your file from DCF, we encourage you to do so in advance of our first meeting if possible. (In order to obtain a copy of your file, you must make a request to the local DCF office handling your matter. The form below is suitable for that purpose). This can be a time-consuming process, however, depending on the size of your file. You should follow up your written request with a (polite) phone call a few days later asking how long you should expect it to take until your file copy is ready to be picked up. DCF offices are often overwhelmed with requests for file copies, and it can occasionally take weeks for a copy to be made. We encourage our clients not to wait to talk with us if there is going to be a significant delay in obtaining the DCF file copy of if there are pending court dates in the near future. If we require additional documentation or information in order to provide you with our best advice, work done on your behalf after our initial consultation is billed at our standard rates.

If you choose to retain our firm, our rates after our initial consultation vary, depending on the type of case, the status of the case (for example, is it in the investigatory stage or are we expected to go to trial in a week), and the complexity of the matter. Our base (low) rate is $250/hour for DCF and other general litigation matters, and our fees to represent you in court in any criminal/ motor vehicle matter are $1500.00 and up. We often charge $300 per hour or more for actual trial time and for bringing (or defending) appeals after trial (if any), depending on the nature and specific facts of your case. We always work out our fee agreements in advance, in writing, so there is no question about the fees you will be pay. We also generally require a retainer to be paid at the time we open your file, which is deposited into our client's funds (escrow) account and billed against monthly at our applicable hourly rate(s). We always strive to keep our fees and costs as reasonable as possible, and we provide our clients with itemized bills on a monthly basis. However, at the same time, quite simply, we believe in aggressive representation of our clients, and (our) time is (your) money. We remind all our clients that having a case in criminal or juvenile court can be very expensive when properly defended, and it is always a good idea to try to reach as many agreements with the State as possible (when possible, without compromising your rights) in order to minimize the time we must actually spend in court arguing motions, conducting hearings, etc.

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