Speaker 1: Hey folks, I'm attorney Roger P. Foley, and I'm going to talk to you today about pricing in criminal defense. I'm going to give you a couple of examples of what I'm talking about, and then I'm going to leave you with a special, special offer. And I know that sounds crazy, but I'm going to leave you with a special offer. You listening? Alright. Criminal defense attorneys, how do they price? Everything, guys, is on a flat fee, meaning we're not billing by the hour. Very rarely do we bill by hour unless there's some extra work that's not contemplated by the retainer. So, let me give you an example. Let's say you want to come in and you want to plea a misdemeanor possession of marijuana. You'll call around three to five attorneys and you'll get prices anywhere from, I don't know, $1,000 to $2,500, right? Prices vary. The thing that I notice is most clients don't call up and say, hey, I want to plead guilty to my case. I don't, I'm going to plead no contest to my case. Clients don't do that. Attorneys think that way. So let me explain. When you call around and get a price, right, you should be asking your attorney, if your price is $2,000, Mr. Attorney, what should I expect from that $2,000? Of course the attorney's going to say, hey, I can't make any promises. I don't know what's going to happen. That's not what I'm asking, Mr. Attorney. I'm asking you to tell me what you are going to do for the $2,000 that I'm giving you. Why am I telling you this, folks? Because I have cases where I quote $15,000, $20,000, they're a serious case, and then the person on the other side who's being charged, they go, oh my goodness, you're so expensive that the attorney down the street is, he's only charging $2,500. And I go, $2,500? Like what could he do for $2,500, right? He can't do much. You know what he can do? He can walk into the prosecutor, walk over to the prosecutor during the court hearing and say, okay, what kind of deal can you give me? Oh, you're going to give me a probation? Oh, you're going to give me so many days in jail? Oh, you're going to give me a prison? Okay, maybe he haggles, he or she haggles it out a little bit. Well, that's all you're going to get. So if you see a big distinguishment in prices, if someone like my office quotes you $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, and someone's quoting you $2,500, ding, ding, ding, ding, some lights. I wish I had a light bulb. I'd have a light bulb right next to my head right now. A light should be going off going, something's wrong. Either this guy's insane, this guy Foley, and he's just charging 10 times what this other guy is charging, or maybe they're not doing quite the same thing. Maybe this shirt that I bought at, where did I get it, Brothers, I forget the name of the company, whatever, the clothing store in the mall, Blues Brothers, I don't know what they're called anyway. Maybe I'm buying the shirt there. Maybe I'm buying at Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom, or maybe you're getting a Kmart shirt for 50 cents. Maybe there's a difference in the quality of shirt, right? So you gotta think about that. So what I do in my office, and I don't care if every attorney knows in town, I don't have any enemies, and I don't tell anyone how to run their practice, but the way I run my practice is I have two retainers. I have a diversion slash plea negotiation retainer, and I have a fight retainer. If someone contacts my office, and they tell me, here's the kicker, guys, here's the kicker, this is the surprise that I took the glasses off for, if someone tells me, I got a price from ABC Lawyer down the street, and he told me it's $2,000, okay, in my mind, that means he's doing a plea. A plea bargain, right, some negotiation with the state, and you're getting probation, jail, time served, whatever it may be, you're getting sentenced to something, then I will do everything I can to meet, I'm gonna go one better, I'll beat it. You heard me. I will beat their price, because I wanna make sure that a client that's pleading a case has a retainer that says, pleading the case. No client ever in the state of Florida or any other place in the United States should pay an enormous amount to get the knowledge, experience, fight of an attorney, the passion of an attorney, and not get it. You should not pay 20 grand for an attorney that's simply pleading you guilty. You should not. You heard that? If you have a case, and it's serious, you should know what's serious, right? A misdemeanor could be serious, if it's your third DUI, it could be serious. If you're charged with touching or striking or beating up your loved one, that could be serious, it's domestic violence, stays on your record for life, just like DUI. If you're charged with drug trafficking, or sex charges, or grand theft, or economic crimes, serious, right? If you're okay, and you just wanna make sure that the system doesn't totally screw you, that they don't take advantage of you, right, well then you may hire an attorney simply to make sure you get a fair deal, something that's fair, nothing worse than someone going into court, and their first charge, they end up in a prison sentence or a jail sentence. You should not be paying an attorney to do that, right? You should know, on your retainer, in writing, that your attorney is going to fight, take depositions, file motions, get CAD reports, look at the scene of the crime, possibly hire an investigator, argue in front of the court, stand up for you and go to battle, go to trial, tell the jury you're innocent, jury, this person is innocent, or you should know that you're paying a lesser fee, and they're gonna bargain you, you know, plea bargain your case, and you're going to get fair, or a little bit better than fair. You should know the difference, so when you get a quote for $20,000, and you get a quote for $2,500, ding, ding, ding, and the lights go, you know, it's a bell with a light right next to it, ding, ding, ding, ding, and there's a light, like the big light bulb, right? Think about it. I'm attorney Roger P. Foley, if you are plea bargaining your case, if you're looking for a diversion program, if you're, like, on a driving while license suspended, or possibly a domestic violence case, or a possession of weed case, or a possession of narcotics case, right? Something that's not the biggest thing, and you're willing to negotiate, because maybe you think you're culpable in some way, I will meet or beat the price that you have from another attorney, from any of my local competitors, okay? I'm attorney Roger P. Foley, thanks.