Fortune_Hunter - 3:13 pm on Sep 17, 2005 (gmt 0)

One time I had some questions on how to set up a business entity and I emailed my attorney. The messages went back and forth several times. At the end of the month I received a bill for 30 minutes of time with the description "Email correspondence on corporate entities".

It was charged at his normal hourly rate. I was a little surprised at first, but as I started thinking about it I decided it was fair and right. He only has so many hours to sell in a day and when those hours are gone he has nothing left to sell. All of us are no different no matter if we are designing sites or answering questions we only have so many hours in a day to "sell" to a client. Therefore given the finite nature of those hours I would be billing for every one of them.

It doesn't matter if the advice you are giving is over the phone, email or snail mail. It takes time and you (we) should all get paid for it.

Fortune Hunter