Consultation

To Set Up an Initial Consultation with our distinguished attorney, Mr. Aly Ebrahimzadeh, Esq., Please Follow These Three Easy Steps:

OPTION ONE:

OPTION TWO:

OPTION THREE:

An Excellent Value

Compare us with other law firms, and you will appreciate the difference immediately. Unlike other law firms that seem to extend your litigation costs and time to their own benefit, we at Prometheus: are determined to provide our clients with Compassionate, Intelligent and Cost-Effective Legal Representation. Most other Law Firms charge their clients very expensive hourly rates and expensive repeating Retainer Fees. Quite the contrary, Prometheus: is focused on providing cost-effective, top quality, and powerful representation to low income clients. We provide competitive rates for top quality services. For low income clients, we also provide sliding scale rates that are based on clients’ gross annual household income and the complexity of their case, among other factors; and we may charge low Retainer Fees of $2,500 to $5,000. We also provide Limited Representation Special Appearances in Court, Settlement Hearings, or Depositions at Affordable Rates.

“The initial consultation was very helpful. I was able to gain information, including the relevant municipal code, to protect my rights. Also, I was informed of the limits of law and limits of my rights. Mr. Ebrahimzadeh gave an explanation of the law in layman’s terms and I was able to move forward fully knowledgeable.”

- Client Testimonial, December 9, 2010

Initial Consultation Appointments

We invite you to make an appointment via one of the three options above for an Initial Consultation with Mr. Aly Ebrahimzadeh, Esq., where we may discuss the facts of your case, talk about some possible legal strategies to deal with your concerns, and discuss an affordable budget for representation. Mr. Ebrahimzadeh does not perform any substantive legal work or provide any concrete legal advice to any prospective client during an initial consultation. Before Mr. Ebrahimzadeh offers any specific legal advice to any formal client, he needs to perform substantial review and analysis of the relevant legal documents, facts, and law, possibly conducting extensive investigations and discussions with the parties involved in your matter; and such work cannot possibly take place during a mere initial consultation appointment, but rather only after a formal Attorney-Client contract has been signed by both the attorney and the client. Generally, an initial consultation appointment is a tailoring session of sorts, where we determine how and whether our attorney can provide you any future legal services, and how much of a down payment may be required to initiate an Attorney-Client contract with our attorney. During a paid initial consultation, Mr. Ebrahimzadeh can only briefly review a couple pages of documents that you may provide to him, whether you have a face-to-face office meeting or a phone consultation. If you have a phone consultation appointment confirmed, you may provide such digitally scanned documents by sending them to us as an email attachment to PrometheusLaw@Gmail.com. Please note that an Initial Consultation does not in and of itself form an Attorney-Client Relationship beyond the mere review of your case’s most basic facts to determine if the Attorney will represent you in your case in a Limited or Complete Representation. We ask that you please bring the following to our first meeting to facilitate our work together: (1) a photocopy, not the originals, of a few of the non-Confidential public documents that are most relevant to your case, neatly and chronologically organized in labeled folders; (2) a 2-page maximum, typed, double-spaced summary of the complete history of your matter; and (3) your most recent pay stubs (or your most recently filed tax forms if you are self-employed or unemployed) to help us determine whether we can provide you with any discounts in our rates. The only way to formally request and pay for an Initial Consultation is via our PayPal Options above.

Please note that all payments for Initial Consultations must be paid at least three business days in advance to confirm your appointment. We make multiple good faith efforts to contact you to set up a consultation meeting by calling you at the phone number you provide at the time of your payment. It is very important that you remain flexible about the location, date and time for your appointment, and that you are timely responsive to help us provide you with a consultation after you pay for one. Please note that all consultation payments made without prior written approval of an available appointment time, date and location will be applied to arranging a consultation appointment that will take place within seven (7) calendar days of the time of your payment, and such appointment time will be based solely upon our attorney’s schedule and availability. We cannot accept or approve any requests for a cancellation or rescheduling for any appointment, given our demanding schedule.

We usually provide paid, Phone-based initial consultations daily during business hours, but an appointment is always required. Office consultations may take place in our Oakland or Campbell office location, and office consults usually take at least a week to arrange. Under some circumstances, however, we may provide an immediate office consultation, but this must be verified with us via phone or email before you pay for and arrange an appointment. We generally find phone consultations to be functionally similar to office consultations. We may briefly review up to 3 pages of documents during any paid consultation, and if you elect a phone consultation, you can email us those documents after you’ve paid for and we’ve confirmed an appointment for a half-hour or hour-long initial consultation. We find that the main advantage of a phone consultation is that you can have a phone consultation occur sooner than an office consultation. We may be able to provide you a paid Phone Consultation the same day or within a day or two of your payment, while Office Consultations may take at least a week to arrange. Finally, conducting an initial consultation by phone is more convenient and environmentally friendly, while office consultations may provide a more personal touch.

REFUND POLICY: If you do not use all of the time of your initial consultation appointment, we do not refund you for the unused portion of that time. Requests for a refund must be made at least three (3) business days before the appointment time. A “business day” does not include weekends and national holidays. An administrative and expense fee of $25 will be deducted from any approved refund for a consultation, regardless of when you request a refund (even if it’s within the same hour you made the payment for the consultation) and regardless of the reason you request a refund (even if it’s because we cannot provide you a consultation appointment that is at a time, date, or manner that is convenient for you, or even if it’s because you prefer to have an office consultation when all we have available is a phone-based consultation). We cannot refund any part of a payment for an initial consultation if you notify us that you wish to cancel the appointment less than three business days before the scheduled appointment, and thus if you fail to appear for your appointment, you will totally forfeit your payment for the consultation. We do not provide refunds for initial consultation appointments that are scheduled to take place less than 3 calendar days after we receive your payment. We reserve the right to totally refuse any refund request if we rejected another prospective client’s appointment request in favor of yours. Please first call us to check our attorney’s availability to meet with you for an Initial Consultation, as your payment alone will not guarantee an appointment time, date and location that is convenient to you. We must confirm any such requests with you. When you contact us prior to payment, we will provide you some likely times, dates and locations for an appointment. Once you submit your payment via one of the two PayPal links above, immediately call or email us to set up and confirm your appointment. Thank you kindly for your understanding.

“Dear Aly, I just wanted to say thank you for seeing my daughter and me yesterday regarding our inquiries to get some peaceable communications set up between parents. You were so encouraging to the both of us. I look forward to some positive outcome from what has been a rather bumpy road. Thank you again.”

- Emailed Comments after an Initial Consultation, Jan. 28, 2010.

Contingency Fees

If our attorney, Mr. Aly Ebrahimzadeh, Esq., agrees in writing that he will take your case on contingency, this means that he will be paid only if your case is successful at trial or if you achieve a favorable settlement of your suit with the opposing party. If you are awarded any funds from litigating or settling your suit, Mr. Ebrahimzadeh will take the agreed-upon percentage of that award first to compensate him for his services to you. If you are not awarded any money from litigation or settlement, he may not get paid any money at all for his services. Therefore, we usually only take a case on a pure contingency agreement if your case is very likely to result in a favorable award for you. Otherwise, we may be able to negotiate a suitable mixed contingency and hourly rate structure.

Statutory Fees

The opposing party may pay the attorney’s fees if we are bringing suit under certain rare statutes that mandate the losing party to pay the other party’s attorney fees. Similar to contingency rates, statutory fees are only awarded if we are victorious in the resolution of your case. Thus, unless you have a particularly strong case and little financial means to pay for my services, we may combine such statutory fee structures with our sliding-scale hourly rates to form a compensation program that best suits your matter.

Justice Should Have No Price

We are committed to providing excellent representation to clients who are truly in need. As a Public Interest law firm, all our rates are fair, often far lower than standard attorney’s fees, individually tailored, and negotiable. There are subjective and objective elements that factor into our rate structures, based on the strength of your case, our level of expertise and interest in your particular matter, whether you are a defendant or a plaintiff in the case, and of course your actual financial means. Our attorney, Mr. Ebrahimzadeh, performs hundreds of hours of Pro Bono work every year. So in certain rare situations, we may take your case Pro Bono, i.e., free of charge, because we believe it will serve a great social good. Usually, a positive resolution of such cases will beneficially impact the public more than it may positively change your own life. Landmark civil rights cases are excellent examples of lawsuits that are well-tailored to Pro Bono work. When we discuss your matter with you, we will clarify by way of a written contract the details of Mr. Ebrahimzadeh’s work and pay. Therefore, we invite you to contact us soon.