Will a lawyer cost more than the demand?
For a letter listing a handful of calls that your own logs confirm, often yes, and a good lawyer will say so. For a letter that signals a wider campaign, names an officer, or where you hold real consent records, the fee is well spent.
Often, yes, for a small letter. A demand listing a few calls that your own records confirm, with no consent on file, will usually be for a figure below the cost of having a lawyer contest it, and far below the cost of a filed case. That is not a trick. The statute makes each call worth $500 to $1,500, which is too small to litigate one at a time and too large to ignore, so the demand stage exists to close matters cheaply for both sides. The arithmetic is different when the letter is a signal of something bigger.
Put three numbers on one page
- The statutory exposure on the listed calls: count times $500, count times $1,500, plus the Florida figure if it applies.
- The demand, which is usually below the first number.
- The estimated cost of each path: an hour of advice; a negotiated response; a defended case. Ask a lawyer for these in writing.
If the calls are yours and the consent file is thin, the demand is usually the lowest number on the page and the only one that comes with certainty. If the calls were not yours, or the consent is documented, the cost of a documented dispute is money that removes items from the count.
When the fee is clearly worth it
Class exposure. An officer named personally. A sender that has already filed. Consent records and a vendor contract that need to be used properly. In each of those the lawyer is not a cost to compare with the demand; the lawyer is how the larger exposure is managed. See do I need a lawyer and should I settle.
People also ask
Is it a trick that the demand is lower than a defence?
No. It is the economics the statute creates. $500 to $1,500 per call is small enough to resolve and large enough that nobody wants to litigate it one call at a time, so both sides save by closing at the demand stage.
What if I pay the lawyer and still end up paying the demand?
That is the common outcome where the calls are yours and the consent file is thin. Counsel reviews, advises settlement, and you pay the demand plus the fee. Decide whether the review is worth it before buying it.
Can a lawyer get the number down?
A lawyer can present evidence that removes items from the count. Evidence moves the figure; a letter from a lawyer with no evidence attached rarely does.