My colleague Carolyn has written a good blog post about the cost of hiring an attorney and how our firm works. Many sources make it sound like an attorney won’t touch a case that isn’t worth something well into the 5 figures or more, but that simply isn’t our way.
Don’t get me wrong: we’re happy to take cases that are worth more. Um, duh! But a big part of the reason Carolyn created the firm in the first place was to serve the underserved photographers out there who don’t have huge cases but do have legitimate claims. As a virtual firm, our overhead is significantly lower than many more traditional firms so we don’t have to say “no” to many of the smaller claims.
We can’t take all cases–some just are never going to be cost-effective (this is too often the situation if you have not registered your copyrights in advance, see my last post)–but it doesn’t hurt to ask and you may be pleasantly surprised.