Gagne, Scherer & Associates publishes the price for each stage instead of making you talk to an attorney first to find out what you need to come up with. This page describes what the work for each stage costs, how the stages evolve, why you only pay for the stages you hire us for, what a flat fee covers, and whether the fee can ever increase after you hire us. It also explains how we price overseas cases, the rare exceptions to our published figures.
What does it cost to hire Gagne, Scherer & Associates?
Our flat fees are $6,500 for the investigative stage, $10,000 to $12,000 for an Article 32 preliminary hearing, $15,000 to $20,000 for a separation board, and $25,000 for a court-martial trial. “Fees” are what you pay for our work and our time. Fees are separate from “costs.” Costs typically mean the travel expenses (flight, hotel, rental car, and a per diem) if there’s a hearing, trial, or board. Costs are billed separately and can add several thousand dollars to the total expenditure. The table below shows our flat fee for each potential stage of a case. You pay for the stage your case is in when you hire us, not for stages already behind you or ones that haven’t started.
| Stage | Our Flat Fee |
|---|---|
| Investigation | $6,500 |
| Preliminary hearing | $10,000–$12,000 |
| Court-martial (trial) | $25,000 |
| Separation board | $15,000–$20,000 |
Gagne, Scherer & Associates Fees FAQs
How do the flat fee stages work?
Every UCMJ action starts at the investigative stage, whether it’s a command investigation or law enforcement investigation. That’s usually when a civilian military attorney enters a case. Many investigations are followed by NJP or a reprimand and an uncontested administrative separation. If the case gets charged as a general court-martial, the next stage is the Article 32 preliminary hearing. If the prosecution then decides to take the case to court-martial, there will be a trial as the final stage of the case. For a special court-martial, there is no preliminary hearing, so there are only two stages: investigation and trial. Many general court-martial cases get resolved at or after the Article 32 and never reach a trial stage. If the command decides to process the member for an administrative separation instead of a court-martial, and if the member has the option to contest it, the stage after the investigation is a hearing generally referred to as a separation board.
If I hire Gagne, Scherer & Associates for one stage, am I committed for the rest of the case?
No. You pay for a stage only if you hire us to cover it; hiring us for one stage doesn’t lock you into the next. If you retain us for the investigation and you receive general court-martial charges, you can decide at that time whether to keep us in the case for the Article 32; if formal court-martial charges then get served, you decide again whether to have us represent you for that final stage. You make an independent decision for each stage about whether to continue our representation.
What is a flat fee, and what does it cover?
A flat fee should cover all of the attorneys’ work and time spent on the stage you’re paying for. That’s how Gagne, Scherer & Associates’ fees work. The investigative stage covers everything through the investigation and any NJP, reprimand, or uncontested administrative separation that follows. In addition to time and effort, part of what you’re paying for is securing the firm’s availability and putting an attorney’s name on your case. Fees should also include every phone call, text, and email with the client; every communication with the court, the prosecutor, and your command; and all research and writing. Gagne, Scherer & Associates doesn’t think of our clients’ cases in terms of hours we can bill in 6-minute increments. Sometimes advice or intervention in the first few hours can save a case. Other times the case can grind on for many months. It’s not uncommon for more than a year to pass before the prosecution or command decides what to do with a case. However long a stage might take, the fee we quote is the only fee.
Can the fee go up after I hire Gagne, Scherer & Associates?
No. We honor our agreements. And we don’t impose bad-location pricing: Minot in deep winter is quoted the same as midsummer. We don’t charge for longer days in court: a 16-hour day costs the same as a regular work day. And we eat the hours if a court-martial runs longer than expected: if the case spills into the next week, we don’t ask for more fees. We also don’t bill separately for travel time: travel days are included in the fee.
Is anything billed on top of the flat fee?
Actual travel costs are separate from fees but they don’t apply in every case. They include rental car, flight, hotel, and a small per diem. These are the “costs” described above, billed apart from fees, and they apply only when a hearing, trial, or board takes us away from the office. Nothing else is added to the flat fee.
Does Gagne, Scherer & Associates charge more for overseas cases?
Usually not. We charge our standard flat fee for cases in most overseas locations, including Germany, Italy, the UK, South Korea, and Japan, where we’ve represented service members at Ramstein, Aviano, Lakenheath, Camp Humphreys, Okinawa, and other bases for the same fees we charge stateside. There are a limited number of locations that can be an exception.
Are there any exceptions to your published fees based on the case and not the location?
A rare, unusually complex case can fall outside these figures; when one does, we quote the fee before you decide whether to hire us, and it won’t change after we enter the agreement.
Talk to a lawyer about your case.
If you’re facing an investigation, board, or court-martial and want to know what your defense would cost, call us at (224) 935-6172. We’ll tell you the fee up front and put it in writing.