the Price of Family Law Attorneys

My son got in trouble for shoplifting from a local store. He actually didn't take anything out of the store, but he picked something up off the shelf, walked around the corner, and handed it to another kid knowing that he planned to steal it. They got caught when they left the store. Even though they immediately handed back the merchandise (which cost about $5) the police were still called. An attorney was assigned to defend my son, and he recommended that we apply for diversion rather than entering a not guilty plea (because he said he'd be convicted of theft.) Apparently, if you're acquitted, you don't have to pay attorney fees, but if you're found guilty or take diversion, you have to reimburse the court for the cost.

I guess the $150 in attorney fees were reasonable - he probably has a total of about an hour on my son's case between reviewing the charges, the 2 minutes in court (he was late and would've had to be there anyway because he had other cases before the same judge that morning), and the signing off on the diversion paperwork. What I thought was unreasonable was the fact that the entire thing is going to cost me about $800, between the diversion application and acceptance fees, attorney fee, court costs, and on-going monitoring fee. When I asked the attorney up front how much all of this was going to cost, he said he couldn't see it being more than $200 - $250. I guess he was just talking about his part.

If your employer offers a legal plan like my husband's company does, you might want to consider signing up for it. I think our plan would've cost about $10/month and would've had an attorney represent my son for free. Maybe if we'd had that, we could've defended him against this charge. I really think he could've been acquitted. He didn't actually steal anything, even though I guess he was an accomplice. Also, know what you're getting into ahead of time - if I had gone online and looked at the County Attorney's website, I could've seen the costs of diversion ahead of time and known I was in for about $500 - $1000. I don't know why the attorney couldn't tell me that up front. So, I guess the best advice is "never do anything to need an attorney" but if you do, RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH!