The President of the Supreme Court Tatu Leppanen commented recently in public (HS 19.8.) on the significancy of legal fees for the legal security of the Finnish people. The Secretary General of the Finland Arbitration Institute (FAI) Santtu Turunen, under the Finland Chamber of Commerce, wrote in an article published on FAI’s website (4.9) noting that legal fees do not constitute the entire legal fees in a case. Turunen notes that the length of the trial is a factor as well.
Sometimes, people or business decision-makers’ perceptions of the cost of lawyers’ services, or of years of legal battles, can cause a person in need of expert help not to obtain a service. This is the case even if there is a real need for expert assistance and a strong case may be at hand. This article focuses on the latter, which is why you should contact an expert.
In can be an alluring idea save legal fees by resorting to a do it yourself -solution and resort to utilizing old document templates or old document templates found on the Internet when drafting important or economically significant legal documents. However, one should approach these aforementioned DYI-solutions with criticism.
Legal document templates may be useful but one should always understand that the original author of the template is not not and cannot be aware of one’s or one’s company’s circumstances, backgrounds and other relevant aspects which may lead to the outcome that the legal document entails something that should not be there or a material clause for one’s company is not included in the document. Consulting a lawyer and asking a lawyer looking in to the case may in the best case lead to the outcome that one’s risks are eliminated or at least greatly reduced.
In some cases the lawyer’s main task might be outlining and clarifying the legal risks concerning a potential contract may include. The risk assessment regarding a (business) transaction should be in a right proportion to the assumed value or benefit of the transaction especially when talking about far reaching business decisions. Business transactions contain legal risks and these risk should be known and understood before a business decision is made.
Occasionally a person or a decision maker inside a company may have the problem that they are in need of legal advise but for some reason the threshold to obtain said advice is too great. Maybe she or he does not know a good lawyer or they think that the price of even a short consultation is too high, for example when the employer is considering terminating an employee’s employment with the company. The employer may have a legally justifiable grounds to terminate the employment (or in exceptional cases even terminate the employment without notice). If the process of termination is performed incorrectly, it may lead to a considerable bill, possible after a lengthy legal battle despite the employer having a justifiable reason of letting the person go in the first place.
Contacting a lawyer for consultation as early as possible generally has at least two perks: it saves legal fees and improves one’s legal security. Early support from a lawyer may lead to the outcome that the original risk or dispute is terminated before it escalates further, increasing legal fees on the side.
One cost effective method is to have a lawyer on a retainer. The advantage is that the threshold to contact a lawyer is greatly lowered. An added bonus is that above mentioned good lawyer is just a phone call or an email away.
In closing, consulting a lawyer does not always have to be expensive. At least, it is usually much less expensive before than after the fact.
Jouni Aarnio
Associate
