Home » Video » What Is Involved In A Free Consultation?
I want to talk to you today about what is involved with our free consultation at Kruse Law Firm. You come to our office, you phone us, you’ve been newly charged with a criminal offence and you want some information and you’re reaching out to us because we offer that free consultation. What is involved in that process? Well first of all we will meet with you whether it’s on the phone, whether it’s in person or zoom or skype and we’re going to go through the nature of your charges with you, we’re going to review the law with you, go through your version of events and receive what you say is alleged by the police or the alleged victim as well. We are going to receive all that information from you. You know, basically go through some strategies, all of the court process A to Z and what you can expect in the court system and also discuss with you some common defences, how you might be able to defend this particular charge.People are often looking for a very firm opinion during that initial consultation and that’s really impossible to provide. Sometimes we can give you some ideas or hints about your case and I’ll give you an example, let’s say it’s a domestic assault charge and you’re telling us there’s no injuries, you acted in self-defence and your wife has a certain version of events or your husband does than you do. I can tell you this, I can probably safely give this opinion that those cases always start out at at least a 50/50 percent chance of winning if not higher. So there’s an example where we could give a tentative opinion but the real legal opinion’s impossible to provide you until we receive all of the police reports, the videos of the alleged victim, the police notes and statements. It’s called the disclosure. It’s a package of materials it can range from even on a minor case 50 to 100 pages up to even literally up to literally 1000s of pages in more complicated conspiracy or drug case or murder case. Until we receive that disclosure we can’t really give you a particular legal opinion but we can really point you in the right direction, make you feel comfortable with what you’re getting into if you decide to retain us, know what our role is and know where we’re headed and we can also give you some ideas about range of sentence if you decide to plead guilty but many of our clients claim they’re innocent and want to have trials but that’s if you decide to plead guilty.So that’s what’s involved in a free consultation. The thing is about it, I analogize it to going to a doctor. When you go to a doctor and you discuss symptoms they can give you some general ideas about it but they really can’t diagnose it as serious symptoms in many cases until they send you for blood tests, x-rays, MRI’s. That’s kind of an analysis to the police reports. We are only able to receive a little bit of information. We need the complete information before we give you a firm legal opinion after you retain us. Our consultation takes place anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour. You’re going to receive a lot of information. We are also going to provide you with quotes for legal fees and you can decide to retain us and if you don’t at least you have some good guidance and information to go on your way and either represent yourself or decide what you’re going to do with your criminal charges.