One person worked through a separation, kept track of what the filings cost and which arguments the court would hear, and wrote it down for whoever hits the same wall next.
A first meeting is usually an hour, sometimes free and sometimes billed at the same rate as everything that follows, and most people spend the bulk of it narrating the marriage. That narration matters to you and almost none of it matters to the court, which is why the hour so often ends with a warm feeling and no usable information. The useful version of the meeting is closer to an interview you are conducting. You are trying to learn what this file will cost, who will actually touch it, and whether the person across the table describes uncertainty honestly.
1. Bring the paper that answers questions before they are asked
The documents worth carrying are the ones a lawyer would otherwise ask you to gather over three billable emails: the last two or three years of federal returns, recent pay stubs for both households if you have them, mortgage statements, the most recent statement for every retirement and brokerage account, a rough list of debts with balances, and any written agreement already signed. The IRS is the authority on what a filed return actually shows, and a transcript ordered in advance beats a memory of what you earned. Bring a one-page timeline of dates. Separation, moves, and any prior court involvement.
2. Ask who opens the file on a Tuesday morning
The person selling the representation is frequently not the person doing it, and that is neither scandal nor secret; it is how firms staff work at different rates. What you want is the specific answer: which associate or paralegal handles discovery, drafts the financial affidavit, and answers the phone when opposing counsel calls, and at what hourly rate each of them bills. A careful reader asks the follow-up too. If the senior attorney appears at the hearing, does she read the file that morning at her rate, or has she been on it throughout?
3. Ask how a five-minute phone call becomes a line item
Communication is where retainers quietly drain, and the billing rules governing it vary more between firms than the hourly rate does. Ask about the minimum increment, whether it is a tenth of an hour or a quarter, and whether that increment applies to a two-line email. Ask who reads your messages and whether a paralegal's response costs less than an attorney's. Ask what a monthly invoice looks like and whether you get one every month regardless of activity. Then ask what happens when the retainer runs low, because the replenishment terms are usually in the agreement and rarely in the conversation.
4. Distrust the confident forecast
Someone who tells you in the first hour that you will get primary custody, or keep the house, or pay no support, has predicted the behavior of a judge who has not read a single filing. That confidence is a sales instrument, and it is expensive later, because it sets an expectation you will spend money defending against reality. The better answer sounds hedged: a range of likely outcomes, the two or three facts that would move you within that range, and a straight admission of which judge or county tends toward which result. Hedging in the consultation usually signals accuracy in the case.
5. Compare two very different quotes by what they include
When one firm quotes a retainer twice the size of another, the gap is rarely the hourly rate; it is the assumed scope. Ask each of them what the number assumes: how many depositions, whether a custody evaluator or business appraiser is anticipated, whether the case settles at mediation or is priced for trial. Ask what is billed on top of the retainer, since filing fees, service of process, court reporters, and expert costs are usually passthroughs. The higher quote is sometimes the honest one. Get both scopes in writing and set them side by side.
Leave the meeting with three things: the fee agreement to read at home rather than sign at the table, the name and rate of everyone who will touch the file, and a written estimate tied to a stated scope. Anything a lawyer will not put on paper is not yet a term of the arrangement, and asking for it in writing is normal, expected, and the cheapest hour of diligence available to you.