What are you paying for legal these days, Operating Agreement

Question

Hi All,

I'm admitting a new member to my operating agreement and need to make several changes. My attorney now charges $470/hour. I appreciate their skill, and recognize the importance of the document, but can't believe how high rates are. I'm curious: What are your experiences and what rates do you pay your trusted RE attorney. I do subscribe to Rocket Legal, which is great, but feel this is higher level and want to go outside of platform for counsel. His estimate is $3000-$8000 for completing the OA. Previous OAs have cost in 7K range.

Genna Golden · Answer

Amit, thank you for your response. Look forward to seeing what else you wrote. I will keep you posted on how my back and forth with my partner and AI goes and share the final cost. Def worth doing the OA well, but making a large effort to keep the cost below 3K. It's the attorney's job to protect you, but I feel it often gets taken too far.

Amit Patel · Answer

Those numbers are high, but they are not unusual for a trusted real estate attorney on an operating agreement with a new member. Four hundred seventy an hour and a three to eight thousand dollar estimate can make sense if the document needs real changes, tax language, and buyout terms. It feels painful when Rocket Lawyer covers the simple stuff.

What I have seen work better is asking for a flat fee for a defined scope: admit the new member, update the ownership percentages, and clean the sections that actually change. Hourly billing on an open ended rewrite is where the bill runs. Some owners use a business attorney who does a lot of LLC work rather than a full real estate litigator for this piece.

The document is worth doing right. A sloppy operating agreement costs more later than the legal fee. Just get the scope in writing so you are not paying for a full redraft if you only need a membership admission.

If you want to compare how o

Mel White · Answer

Amit, you got cut off here, just an fyi in case this wasn't intended!

Genna Golden · Answer

Yes, we are going back and forth with AI right now, which is great. it suggests copy and analyzes for me. I will have my attorney review it prior to signing, however.

Harry B. · Answer

Since no one answered in a month,,,, Have you tried a basic AI platform to save you a ton of money? I'm not selling any platform, just suggesting that paying $470 per hour for a 5 minute task is bananas.

What are you paying for legal these days, Operating Agreement

5 Replies