Delivering high quality legal services depends upon experience, the proper use of technology, and clear communications.

Engaging a lawyer - What to expect

Clients are sophisticated consumers of legal services and have certain expectations of their lawyer. They deserve to know what services their lawyer will provide, as well as the costs of those services. In order to ensure that all parties understand what will be provided, Mr. Borrego will not commence providing legal services until an engagement agreement has been provided and reviewed by a client, and approved by that client. The engagement letter will establish the hourly fees to be charged, what services are to be provided, what expenses will be reimbursed and how and when invoices are to be submitted. A sample engagement letter is available, but each client should expect that the particular engagement letter supplied will vary from the sample to some degree or another, in order to address the details of the client’s specific needs.

Part of Mr. Borrego’s commitment to clients is to keep fees and expenses as low as possible, and because of that commitment, and the ability to control costs through technology, the fees charged are substantially below what can be expected at large firms, especially for those senior level partners who have the level of experience of Mr. Borrego. In an effort to reduce fees even further, Mr. Borrego uses the services of a legal assistant where that utilization is possible.

Clients should understand that fees charged by transactional lawyers are hourly; while every effort will be made to keep fees as low as possible, clients can have a substantial impact upon the ultimate cost of legal fees. Clients who understand what they desire, outline those desires in advance and state their expectations clearly, ultimately will reduce their legal costs. Generally, if a client can express the objectives and allow counsel to best determine the manner in which to reach those objectives, it will reduce time. Clients that tend to micro-manage lawyers usually end up with high legal costs, as they tend to take up much more of the attorney’s time than necessary. Clients that insist upon conferences rather than relying on telephone calls and electronic mail will also find that fees are increased. Clients that are inexperienced in utilizing legal services are encouraged to ask how to reduce those fees. Mr. Borrego’s objective is to provide the best legal service he can, while keeping the costs to the client at a minimum.

Clients may reach Mr. Borrego directly; all communications are returned as soon as possible, and in most instances on the same day as received. Clients should provide electronic mail, fax and telephone numbers and addresses.

Technology & The Legal Profession

In the thirty years that Mr. Borrego has been practicing law, the legal profession has evolved from automatic typewriters to personal computers. Beginning in the early 1980’s Mr. Borrego began to convert his practice from a typewriter and paper practice to a computerized, paperless office, and today he maintains a practice which utilizes sophisticated technological equipment and software. Mr. Borrego maintains equipment and software that will allow him to access his clients’ documents and information from any location he finds himself via wireless connections or through the internet. By using integrated databases and specialized software, all of a client’s documents, e-mails, faxes and other information are cross-indexed and stored, in multiple, secure, firewall protected computers and storage devices. These can be accessed by Mr. Borrego in any location, at any time. Mr. Borrego utilizes the services of IT professionals to ensure that all equipment, software and peripherals are as up to date as reasonably possible, and to ensure that client security is maintained at all times. Since deployment is for an individual, there is no delay in implementing or acquiring the latest version of software, and hardware is replaced and updated as needed, but at least every two years.

In practice this has resulted in years of documents being stored and indexed, which means that initial drafts of documents can be generated quickly, reducing both turn around time and legal time, resulting in substantial savings to clients, both in financial and other terms. Documents are delivered in Adobe Acrobat’s proprietary document format, allowing them to be reviewed and printed by virtually any platform on any printer. Utilizing a number of third party add-ins and the experience of over twenty years of using computer assisted word processing programs, turn around time for documents has been dramatically reduced.

Research of legal issues is conducted through either Lexis® and Westlaw® research. Mr. Borrego maintains both programs, and through licensing, has unlimited use of either research system. Standard form operating agreements (AAPL 610 variants) and accounting procedures (COPAS) have been licensed and various document templates for normal situations are pre-loaded, resulting in operating agreements which can be returned to a client in a matter of minutes, rather than hours or days.

Mr. Borrego also maintains internet telephones, which result in a single telephone number for clients to utilize, but which reach Mr. Borrego at a variety of locations. Faxes are received via internet as well, which results in Mr. Borrego’s receipt of faxes at any location as well. Since Mr. Borrego’s clients are located in diverse areas of the globe, and in different time zones, the result is that communications are received immediately after they are sent, without the necessity of waiting for next day returns.

Security of clients’ documents and information is critical. Mr. Borrego has researched and has installed security software and procedures which are continually updated to ensure that all clients’ documents and information are as secure as possible. All incoming and outgoing e-mails are scanned to ensure freedom from viruses and other malware; while it is impossible to guarantee security, every reasonable precaution has been taken to ensure security.

All documents and information are backed up and protected to the maximum extent possible. The use of mirrored drives ensures immediate duplication of all data, and offsite storage is utilized for additional security of documents and data as well.

As new innovations in technology, hardware, software and communications come into use, they will be tested and evaluated, with the goal of providing the best of each that is then available. All those, however, are designed to reduce the time and legal expense necessary to produce results that clients need and deserve.