Design mockup. Not a real law practice. Name, address and telephone number are invented.

Renfro Law OfficeClay County, Missouri

Call (816) 555-0142

Five kinds of matter, counted by how many people are on the other side.

Before anything else it is worth knowing who is actually across from you. It is rarely the person you are angry at, it is often an office rather than a person, and in one of these five there is nobody there at all. That one is first.

A man sitting at a kitchen table in the morning, holding a letter with both hands and reading it.

0

Clearing an old record

Nobody is on the other side. There is no one to beat and no one to out-argue. There is a file, a judge who decides whether it stays readable, and a form that has to be right. This is the only matter in this office that is not a fight, and it is the one people put off the longest.

A wall of old painted card-catalogue drawers, each with a handwritten label in a brass holder.
Who is against you
Nobody.
What is being asked
That an old case stop being something a stranger can read.
What we need from you
The county, the year, and the case number if you kept it. If you did not, we look it up.
Why it is first here
Because people carry an old case for years assuming nothing can be done, and never ask.

1

A charge, a ticket, a warrant

One office is across from you: the prosecuting attorney for the county where the paper was written. Not the officer. The officer is a witness to what he saw and nothing after that is his to decide. Most first-time clients spend the first week angry at the wrong person.

Four tall stacks of tabbed case files on a desk under office ceiling lights, one folder labelled Police Report.
Who is against you
The county prosecuting attorney's office.
Who is not
The officer. He wrote it and he is done deciding.
What we need from you
Whatever you were handed, and the date printed on it. Read us the date before anything else.
What we ask of you
The whole thing, including the part you would rather leave out. We would rather hear it from you than read it later.

1

A divorce

One attorney is across from you, and it is not your spouse. Almost everything that makes this hard happens between two people who are not in the courtroom, and almost everything that gets decided in the file is about property, debt, and a schedule. Keeping those two lists apart is most of the work.

A half-packed bedroom with two open moving boxes on a bare wooden floor, coats piled on top and a bed pushed against the wall.
Who is against you
Your spouse's attorney, once they retain one.
What gets decided in the file
Property, debt, and if there are children, a schedule and support.
What we need from you
A rough list of what you own and what you owe, written out before the first meeting. Rough is fine.
What we will tell you
Which of your questions are legal questions and which are not. Some of the hardest ones are not, and you should not be paying an hourly rate for those.

2

A DWI

A DWI usually arrives as two separate problems rather than one, and they are not handled by the same office, on the same paper, or on the same calendar. Which two you are looking at depends on what you were actually handed that night, so bring all of it and we will read it with you.

A two-lane road curving away into the dark, lit by one streetlight over the trees at the bend.
Who is against you
Two offices, and they do not coordinate for your benefit.
The mistake we see
All the attention going to the court date, because that is the part with a room and a time on it.
What we need from you
Every piece of paper you were given, including the ones you did not read.
When to call
Before you decide anything is fine. There is more than one clock running and we would rather read your paperwork than guess at it.

2

Custody, changed

Two other people may be involved and only one of them is against you. The other parent's attorney is across from you. The other person who may appear is a guardian ad litem, appointed to speak for the child, and that person is on neither side. First-time clients read the guardian as an opponent almost every time, and it costs them.

A child's purple canvas shoes on a porch board beside two pairs of adult work shoes, next to a screen door.
Who is against you
The other parent's attorney.
Who is not
A guardian ad litem, where one is appointed. That person answers to the child.
What we need from you
A plain calendar of the last year. Who actually had the child, which nights. Not what the paperwork says. What happened.
What we will not do
Put your child in the middle of it, or help you do it.

How the first call goes

You get the attorney. Renfro Law Office is one lawyer, Dale Renfro, and one assistant, so there is nobody to be passed to. The first call costs nothing and usually runs about twenty minutes, most of it you talking and us reading whatever you were handed.

We do not quote a fee before we have read the paperwork, because a number given blind is worth nothing to either of us. If the matter belongs somewhere other than this office, we say so on that call and tell you where. That happens often enough to be worth saying out loud.

Renfro Law Office

(816) 555-0142

Office
123 N Main St, Suite 2
Kansas City, MO 64118
Hours
Monday to Thursday, 9 to 5
Friday, 9 to noon
Email
office@example.com