Contact the office to set up an appointment. We often receive telephone calls from people who want to do everything over the telephone; however, we are not able to properly obtain all the information without setting up a time for you to come into our offices. Please make a point of advising us how you heard about us, as we often receive referrals from other attorneys and former clients and wish to express our thanks whenever possible.
Where you have been served paperwork, you should always make an effort to bring a copy of it together with copies of any other relevant paperwork with you to the appointment. Having represented clients for more than 50 years between Mr. Mangi and Mr. Graham, it is sometimes quicker and provides us a better understanding of your circumstances for us to review the paperwork in addition to gathering the relevant information from you.
Appointments typically take somewhere between 45 minutes and one hour and will be with either Mr. Mangi or Mr. Graham. Our office assistant, Nicky, handles the calendar for both Mr. Graham and Mr. Mangi and is always the best person to contact regarding scheduling appointments. If you are contacting our Nassau County family law firm from out of state or out of the country, as sometimes occurs in the course of our practice, Nicky will make best efforts to accommodate you with an alternative means of having a conference with us.
During the course of the appointment, we will typically first complete a potential client information questionnaire with you, which ranges from two to five pages, depending upon the matter you are consulting with us about. We do this so that when we open up the floor for you to ask the questions you may have, we have an intelligent and knowledgeable basis to answer your questions, as everyone’s case is different. We can assure you that you will have sufficient time for us to answer your questions. We also encourage people to email us any follow-up questions they may have, as questions inevitably pop into people’s heads after leaving the appointment that they forgot to ask about, or that they didn’t think about until later.
We make it a practice to discuss our retainer with you during this first meeting as well, discussing the amount of retainer required for your case (which, of course, varies depending upon the type of case and the specific facts of your case), as well as what the possible range of cost may be and the factors that would affect the cost. Potential clients may pay their retainers by cash, check, or major credit card. For your security, we encourage people paying by credit card to do so at the office so we can verify it is you who is using your credit card. In addition, where a relative may be assisting you with paying your retainer, we encourage the relative to pay with their credit card at the office for the same security reasons.
We do not require people to sign a retainer or use hard sales tactics to encourage you to use our firm to represent you in your matrimonial or family court proceedings. We encourage our potential clients to take the retainer agreements home with them to read them carefully and formulate any questions they may have regarding the retainer prior to their signing it. We want our clients to fully understand their rights and responsibilities pursuant to our retainer agreements before we form an attorney-client relationship.
Finally, we will discuss the billing policy of the office so that the potential client understands that they will receive an invoice at least every 60 days so that they can stay advised of the status of their retainer credit as the case progresses. This is required by court rules, and it can assist clients in fixing their priorities.
Contact us to receive a confidential free consultation at our Nassau County family law firm. Mangi and Graham are happy to answers questions related to family law and your case.
