A man in his forties arrived at a consultation with two years of bank statements, a printout of his 401(k) balance from the week before, and the deed to a house he had bought before the marriage. He had no pay stubs, no tax returns, and no idea whether his wife's name had ever been added to the deed. The lawyer spent eleven minutes of a paid hour reconstructing what he had not brought. That is the ordinary shape of a first meeting: the value of the hour is set before anyone sits down, by what is in the folder.
The folder, assembled the night before
Three years of filed federal returns, complete with schedules and W-2s or 1099s, do more work than anything else, because income drives support and the IRS is the authority on what a household actually reported. Add recent pay stubs, the most recent statement for every account either spouse can reach, mortgage statements, the deed, vehicle titles, and any loan or credit card balance in either name. If there is a prenuptial agreement, a prior court order, or a written parenting schedule, bring the signed version rather than a description of it. A one-page timeline of the marriage, separation, and any moves gives the lawyer a spine to hang facts on.
Who will actually open the file on Tuesday
The person across the table is often not the person who drafts the discovery requests, calls the opposing paralegal, or stands up at a scheduling conference. Ask directly which attorney will be assigned day to day, what that attorney's rate is, what a paralegal costs, and which tasks get delegated downward on purpose. A firm that answers with names and numbers has thought about staffing; a firm that answers with reassurance has not. Ask who covers a hearing if your lawyer is in trial elsewhere that week. The answer reveals bench depth, which matters more in month seven than in month one.
How you will be told things, and what telling costs
Communication is a billing category, not a courtesy, and the terms differ sharply between offices. Ask whether calls and emails are billed in tenth-of-an-hour or quarter-hour increments, because the same three-minute call costs materially more under quarter-hour rounding, repeated across a year. Ask what the expected response time is, whether there is a client portal, whether copies of every filing come to you automatically, and who sends the monthly invoice. A lawyer who volunteers that short questions are better batched into one email is telling you something useful about how to keep the bill down.
Timelines, and the tell inside the estimate
A careful answer to "how long will this take" comes in ranges tied to events: so many weeks to serve and answer, so many months to complete discovery if the other side cooperates, a contested hearing date set by the court's own calendar. A lawyer who names your county's typical wait for a custody evaluation, or explains that a trial date twelve months out is normal there, is describing conditions rather than selling an outcome. Certainty is the warning sign. So is any prediction about what a specific judge will do, offered before the file has been read.
Poor fit, and the mechanics of leaving
The signals accumulate quietly: invoices that arrive late or without task descriptions, calls returned after a week, a strategy that changes each time you ask, filings you learn about from the other side. Before switching, read the fee agreement's termination clause, request a full accounting and a copy of the complete file, and identify what unearned retainer should be refunded. Most jurisdictions let a client discharge counsel at almost any point, though a substitution of attorney form must be filed and a judge may need to approve it close to trial. Retain new counsel first, then substitute, so nothing sits unattended.
The reader who checks carefully treats the first meeting as a mutual audit. You are buying judgment and availability over a long stretch, and both are visible in how plainly a stranger answers questions about money, staffing, and time.