You should always have a DCF Lawyer present when speaking to DCF. DCF involvement can have serious consequences for you and your children. DCF will give you a parent pamphlet after speaking to you. Inside this parent pamphlet it states that you are entitled to “counsel at anytime.” Heed DCF’s advice, if DCF tells you that you need a lawyer, you need a lawyer.

The ONLY cases Attorney Seaver handles are DCF cases. He is an experienced, trusted lawyer that has been successfully fighting DCF since 1991 throughout Massachusetts. Throughout his career, Attorney Seaver has handled thousands of DCF cases similar to yours. Attorney Seaver has been recognized by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly as an “expert in DCF law.” He is a New York Times Lawyer of Distinction with a 10/10 Avvo Rating and over 300 five-star ratings on Google My Business, BBB, Yelp, Lawyers.com, Facebook, and Avvo. Attorney Seaver was named Avvo top contributor award, Avvo Clients Choice award, and Birdeye best Law Firm. Attorney Seaver will create a strategy and plan to get DCF out of your life. Attorney Seaver fights for his clients, making sure that DCF does not bend or break you and your families’ legal rights. But don’t take our word for it, read our client testimonials.

The first step in retaining Attorney Seaver as your lawyer is to agree upon contracts term, this includes the cost, and payment methods.

The second step is to sign the fee agreement and releases. There different types of fee agreements.

Flat Fee: A flat fee is a fee where you pay a flat amount and nothing more. This means that you and the lawyer you are retaining agree on a fee and it does not change during the course of representation. This means that if the case ends in a week or goes on for months, you pay one amount and you know exactly what that amount is. This fee is recommended because during a case a client is the best ally in terms of information. Why does that matter some may ask? A flat fee again, means that you pay one set amount. The importance of that is you have complete and unfettered access to your lawyer and you are not constantly getting billed for it. Phone calls, emails, office visits, and DCF Home Visits, it’s all included in your one flat rate.

Hourly Fee: Some clients choose to retain an Attorney on an hourly basis. This is not recommended. Many people on an hourly fee agreement hesitate to communicate with their attorneys. The reason being is every second of communication is being billed. That bit of information you’re not sure if it’s important or not might come too late to your Attorney’s ear if you’re not willing to call on the phone for a couple of minutes knowing you’re paying for it. Again, this kind of fee agreement is not recommended.

IQualify Loan: We understand that sometimes finances can be tight. It’s not always easy to round up money for a fee agreement right up front and you may need some help. If friends and family are unable to assist you, we can. We have signed on with a program specifically designed to help clients pay for their legal services from our office. This program is called IQualify Loan. We send you a quick application similar to any loan application and then IQualify reviews it and gives you an offer depending on your credit worthiness. If an offer is provided to you, you can accept it and paying it back is as simple and easy as paying your phone bill every month. Please do note that not every person is offered a loan and many factors play into being offered one or not. Nothing is guaranteed to be available.

In Massachusetts, there are different kinds of fee agreements that you can choose from when retaining a lawyer. It depends on the type of case. Each case is separate, distinct and apart because every family is unique. The cost will depend on your case and what stage of litigation you’re in.