The first conversation with a lawyer: what to bring and what to ask

Bring the letter, your call and text logs for the listed numbers, any consent records, every vendor and call-centre contract, your written do-not-call policy and scrub reports, your insurance policies, and a one-page timeline. Ask seven questions: whether the lawyer has handled TCPA matters at the demand stage, which listed items the evidence can remove, what the exposure is beyond this letter, what each stage will cost and on what basis, whether to ask for more time, what to stop doing today, and what the written reply should contain. With that in hand a first conversation is an hour. Without it, it is a second conversation.

Finding one

Search for TCPA defense together with your state. Look for lawyers who describe demand-stage work and settlement, not only class-action defence; the skills overlap but the cost structure does not. Every state bar runs a lawyer referral service, usually with a short first consultation at a fixed fee, and that is a sound route for a small business with no existing counsel. Your business insurer, if you have a cyber or media policy with a TCPA endorsement, may have a panel. This site does not name or recommend firms.

What to bring

• The letter and the envelope. The postmark fixes the date of notice.
• The logs. Every call and text to each listed number, with who placed it, from what number, and what preceded it. See before you call anyone for how to pull them.
• Consent records. For each listed number, whatever you hold: the web form as the person saw it, the timestamp, the IP, the lead certificate, the recorded verbal agreement. Or a note that none exists.
• Vendor contracts. Lead generators, call centres, SMS platforms, affiliates. The compliance clauses and the indemnity are what the lawyer will read first.
• The do-not-call policy and scrub reports. The FCC rules at 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(d) require a written policy, and the registry must be scrubbed at least every 31 days.
• Insurance policies and the broker's reply. General liability, umbrella, cyber, E&O, D&O.
• A one-page timeline. When the campaign ran, who ran it, when the letter arrived, what you have done since.

The seven questions

1. Have you handled TCPA matters at the demand stage? How many resolved before filing, and how.
2. Looking at the listed calls, which items could the evidence remove? Consent in the form the rules require, a reassigned-number check made before dialing, calls not made by or for the business. A good answer is specific to rows in the table.
3. What is the exposure beyond this letter? The same list, script and dialer reached other people, and the federal limitation period is four years. The lawyer should give a view on whether this is one letter or the first of several.
4. What will each stage cost, and on what basis? Review and advice; drafting or negotiating; defending a filed case. Flat fee or hourly. Get it in writing.
5. Should we ask for an extension, and who asks?
6. What should we stop doing today? Beyond suppressing the listed numbers: the campaign, a vendor, a lead source.
7. What should the written reply contain? And whether it goes under the lawyer's name or yours.

The money conversation

Have it in the first meeting. Counsel is paid whether the matter is resolved, won or lost, and the TCPA gives a winning defendant no right to recover fees. For a letter listing a handful of calls that your own logs confirm, the cost of a full defence can exceed the demand, and most lawyers will say so. For a letter that signals a wider campaign, or names an officer personally, or where the consent file is strong, counsel earns the fee. Ask the lawyer to put the demand figure, the statutory exposure and the estimated cost of each path on one page.

What a lawyer cannot do

Make the calls not have happened. Recover your costs if you win. Guarantee the sender will not refer the matter. Protect records you have already deleted. Undo a call you made to the sender in which you said things. The lawyer works with the facts and the records as they are on day three, which is why days one and two matter.

After the meeting

Decide on a path before your internal deadline: dispute with evidence, propose a figure, accept, or ask for time. Put the reply in writing, quoting the reference, before the date on the letter. What that date controls, and what passes with it, is on whether the deadline in a TCPA demand letter is real. Then turn to why the letter came at all, because the campaign that produced it has produced others.