Written By: Law offices of Zoller | Biacsi

People often telephone our office, asking questions, to schedule an initial consultation, or, sometimes, for advice as soon as they can receive, usually that day.

As someone who used to take those calls – and who sometimes still does – I know that they can be really stressful for you, the caller. In most cases, it’s because you are deciding to leave your spouse or because your spouse has decided to leave you. That’s a tremendously difficult thing to share with a stranger.

I suppose I’m writing this because I want to prepare you for some of the questions we will ask and some of the questions we will not ask, so you don’t feel like you need to scramble for information, like we’re prying, or as though you need to tell us everything before you come in. We want to know a little bit about your situation before we meet you, but we don’t want you to have to tell your story twice. John or Mary will want to know all of the particulars but as the attorneys, they will know best what they need to ask. We won’t ask about income, social security numbers, assets, or anything specific.

When you call, we’ll need to know things like your name, a good contact number, your county, the type of case with which you are coming to us, and some of the basic particulars. For instance, if you could summarize your situation in two sentences or less, that’s the kind of information we are looking for. Another reason for this is that as paralegals and secretaries, we cannot give out any legal advice on the phone (or, well, ever) and it’s really important that we leave just the basics for the attorneys to review.

Essentially, the first phone call is all about information gathering on our end and scheduling time for you to meet with an attorney to review your matter. We want to make it very quick and easy for you so that when you come in you can spend more time talking through things with the attorney.