Speaker 1: If you're getting ready for a court case, then you're probably concerned about your legal fees. I'm here today to teach you how you can save thousands of dollars in attorney's fees through a couple of very simple tricks. I'm not selling anything. This is purely informative and educational for you. Hi, I'm Matthew Harris, Chief Attorney here at Matthew Harris Law. Hiring an attorney is expensive. It's expensive because litigation requires hours upon hours of highly detailed work that costs hundreds of dollars per hour. Unfortunately, some cases don't get the justice they deserve simply because of the cost involved. Today, we're going to discuss how you can save thousands of dollars in attorney's fees to avoid something like this from happening to you.

Speaker 2: So I talked to my assistant a little bit about your case, but I want you to tell me what's going on. I think I have a really big case that I need you to represent me on. Okay, just so you know, cases require a lot of evidence. Don't worry, I have a lot of evidence. I've got emails and text messages. I've also got these pictures on these USB drives. Okay, hold on. So is this stack text messages and this one's emails? No, they're all kind of mixed together, but I have organized them by days of the week. So you have Mondays and Tuesdays. Okay, so based on what you've got here... I have more. Okay, what else do you have? I have more in boxes at home. I also have these old cell phones you can go through. Okay, so this is more than I anticipated. I'm going to have to go through a lot more, which unfortunately is going to cost you a lot more money. Oh, I see.

Speaker 1: When you go to trial, you must be able to provide the judge or the jury with clean, clear, and straightforward exhibits. Our client in today's video is very well-meaning, and kudos to her for getting the documents to her attorney. But she's going to incur a lot of extra legal fees by having that attorney having to go through that many documents. Simply put, it's going to take some extra time for that attorney to organize all of those documents and then arrange them in a way so that way they will be useful trial exhibits. So, how could our client today save herself potentially thousands of dollars in attorney's fees? Dropbox. Dropbox is a simple file-sharing service that you can download onto your phone. That way you can share files directly with your attorney. If you're our client, then your attorney has probably instructed you to come and watch this video, so that way you can learn how to download Dropbox and begin immediately sharing files with your attorney. You can find the Dropbox app for Android or Apple in your phone's app store. So let's just jump right in. Here we are in the Dropbox app. If you already have an account, then you simply sign in. If you don't have an account, you can sign in with your Google account, your Apple account, or create a new account. For this demonstration, we're going to sign in using a Google account. Dropbox will confirm permission to access your account, so you'll click on Allow. Since this Google account didn't already have an associated Dropbox account, it will ask us to create one. Check the box, and Create Account. From here, the app launches directly into your Dropbox files. The first thing you need to do is click the plus icon, then click on Create New Folder. This first folder you create is very important, because it will be your master folder. This is the folder that you're going to share with us, and we want to show that this is an attorney-client communication, and therefore afforded all of the attorney-client privilege. We do that by naming the folder, For My Attorney. Now, as you can imagine, as a firm, if we had several hundred employees, we wouldn't be able to do this. Now, as you can imagine, as a firm, if we had several hundred files with the same name, then it may get confusing. So you must include your name in the file name as well. Once you create this folder, then you need to click on the three dots next to the folder on the right. Once you click those three dots, you'll click Share. You'll need to share this folder with Matthew at MatthewHarrisLaw.com Obviously, if you're not our client, then this is where you would put in your attorney's email address. Make sure that Can Edit is visible, and then click Share. On our end, our firm will receive a notification that you have shared your Dropbox folder with us. Do you see now how naming the folder is helpful? Let's recap for a moment before we move on to the real point of this video. So far, you've set up your Dropbox account, you have created your One Master folder, and you've shared that One Master folder with your attorney. Now, all the work that you're going to do from this point forward will be inside that One Shared Master folder. Everything you do inside of that One Shared Master folder will automatically be shared with us. It's not required that you share individual files, or individual pictures, or individual videos. Everything happens automatically inside this shared folder. That's why this is so important. Okay, let's get back to it. Back to your Dropbox. We're going to click on your Shared For My Attorney folder. Now, inside this folder, I've already set up a few sample folders here, but we need to create more. Click on the Add button in the bottom right-hand corner, then click on Create New Folder. This one we'll name Emails, and click Create. Then a simple swipe from the left will take you back to your main folder. Next, we'll create a folder named Documents. Now, as you can see on my end, all of the files and folders in your shared folder will automatically sync to your folder in our system with no extra effort. You might have already caught on by now, but one of the greatest money-saving secrets is organization. I know it may have seemed simple for you to just upload your documents, but if you upload a year's worth of text messages, this is what it looks like. Now, imagine how much money you'll spend on attorney's fees having your attorney sort through a year's worth of text messages. Personally, I'd prefer that your attorney's fees go towards hearings and depositions instead of organizing text messages. In case you haven't watched our previous video, check out the link in the description below In case you haven't watched our previous video on the proper way of preserving text messages, go watch that video. That way you'll know the proper way of preserving text messages before you spend any extra effort here. We'll provide that link in the description. We'll go back inside your For My Attorney folder and click on your Text Messages folder. Then, create a new folder, and now you'll name this folder in a way that will help your attorney. We're going to upload the text messages between you and this contractor, and in parentheses, explain why this conversation is important. With our folder created, you'll click the Add button in the bottom right corner, and then click Upload Photos or Videos. Then you can select your screenshots of your text messages and upload them directly into the folder. There. Now that you understand how to set up a Dropbox, share your Dropbox with your attorney, and organize your documents, you can see how it's easy for you to save thousands of dollars on attorney's fees that would have been spent on reviewing and organizing all of these documents. You probably also see the benefit in not having to take time off work, schedule an appointment with an attorney, come all the way down to our office just to provide us with paper documents that we probably would have digitally scanned anyway. If you're our client, and you've run into any trouble amongst any of these steps, please don't hesitate to give us a call so that way we can walk you through the process. We hope you found this video helpful, even if you're not our client. If you found this video helpful, be sure to like or subscribe as the case may be. If you know someone that's in the middle of a court case, be sure to share this video so that way they get the benefit as well.