Start with the bill that will arrive first
Lior reads the lawyer’s email at the kitchen table while Noam checks the hotel rota on his phone. She is a bilingual healthcare translator who invoices clinics for completed assignments. He is a hotel chef whose salary arrives on a regular payroll date. They think they can afford the proposed legal work between them. What neither can tell from the email is whether they can pay the first invoice when it arrives. Most of Lior’s earnings for this month are still on paper. Noam’s salary has landed, but part of it already belongs to the household grocery and rent budget.
In this fictional family, the first useful calculation has little to do with the eventual terms of a divorce. Lior writes down what she needs to be able to do after the next appointment. She wants to understand a proposal concerning their jointly owned apartment before she responds to Noam. Noam wants to know what documents he would need to explore taking over the apartment himself. They had pencilled in a sum for someone to “do the agreement.” Once they describe their immediate needs, they can see that commissioning a finished agreement would leave an earlier question unanswered.
Start your own budget with the next decision for which you need professional help. It might be whether to sign a document already on your desk, how to respond to a contested request concerning your child, or what it would cost to take a signed agreement through approval. Beside that decision, write what you expect to receive for your money. An appointment during which you can discuss alternatives is a different purchase from written advice you can reread in English. A draft ready for your comments sits at a different point in the process from an agreement ready to submit.
Give each expected expense two places on the page. One holds the expected total for the work you are considering. The other holds the amount you would actually have to find before the next payment comes in. Leave either space open if the figure is unknown. Record a payment already made against the work it bought, even if the money came from a different account. You now have the beginnings of a budget that can answer two quite personal questions. Can you undertake this part of the process, and can you undertake it this week? For people living on different billing cycles, the answers can be quite different.
Decide whose advice you are buying
Suppose Noam has received a lawyer’s proposal for drafting an agreement and offers to pay the entire bill. Lior is grateful. It would save her from drawing on money set aside for quieter working months. Yet the most important line for her to read is the one naming the client. A lawyer instructed by Noam may produce a document that both spouses are invited to read and sign. Lior needs to understand whether anyone has undertaken to advise her personally about what signing that document would mean for her. The name on the payment card cannot answer that question.
Think about a single sentence in a proposed agreement giving Noam time to arrange the apartment buyout. He might need advice about leaving enough room to obtain financing. Lior might want advice about what happens to her housing plans while she waits. Both questions are reasonable, and an answer favourable to one person can leave the other carrying an expense. A shared interest in getting the paperwork finished does little to settle who should bear that expense. Independent advice gives each person somewhere to explore the issue privately before deciding what to say to the other.
When arranging a first consultation, useful questions are “Who would be your client for this appointment?”, “Could I discuss a concern privately with you?”, “Has your office already undertaken work for my spouse that affects what you can do for me?” and “What would I receive if I wanted your advice in writing?” If a professional proposes to do work involving both of you, get a plain description of the role, what information would be shared, and what would happen to the engagement if your interests diverged. A conflict that changes who can continue doing the work can also change your budget.
You can make a modest, useful record without sharing private legal advice. On your own copy, put the name of the person receiving each service beside the name of the person expected to pay for it. A joint household spending sheet might show that money is reserved for two separate reviews. It need not contain either spouse’s questions or the answers. If you later receive a proposal addressed to “the parties,” you can check whether the price covers work for both people, one drafting engagement, or a contribution expected from each spouse. A price that initially looks twice as high as another may simply describe the whole job where the other describes one person’s share.
Read a fee proposal as a description of work
An hourly quote is easiest to understand when you picture an ordinary exchange. You send a draft on Sunday, remember an omitted attachment on Monday, and call after reading the lawyer’s reply. Which parts of that exchange count as working time? Does someone charge for reading the attached records as well as for the call? If time is rounded, does the office round each separate task or the combined time? One long, well-organised message may make the sequence easier to follow. You still need the office’s own billing terms before you can estimate what the exchange will cost.
Consider a purely fictional rounding example. Imagine an arrangement that bills in units of ten minutes and rounds each task up to the next unit. Two separate calls lasting four minutes each would use two units, or twenty billed minutes. Under an arrangement that combined those same calls before rounding, eight minutes would use one ten-minute unit. There is no need to guess what an Israeli office does with short calls. A concrete question is “If we spoke twice briefly on the same day, how would those calls appear on my invoice?” The answer also helps you recognise an error without disputing time the lawyer actually spent.
A stage price gives you a different reading task. Find the event that opens the stage and the event that closes it. “Through preparation of the application” and “through the first appearance” leave you with different work to fund. With a hearing price, check whether preparation, waiting, attendance and a discussion afterwards sit in the same charge. With a package, identify the version of the document or other deliverable you will receive, how many opportunities you have to comment, and what happens when a new subject enters the discussions. A package can be easy to budget even when some later tasks sit outside it, provided you can identify those tasks.
Compare figures on the same tax basis. Record whether the quoted private professional charge includes any applicable tax, whether tax will be added, and whether the final payable amount has been confirmed. Keep the official filing charge and separately billed expenses visible alongside it. A blank line for an interpreter means you do not yet know the expense. A written statement that a particular follow-up call carries no additional charge means you know something quite specific. Give those entries different wording. Otherwise an attractive total can conceal the very items you will have to pay for in cash.
Match the drafting work to the agreement you need
Two people preparing a prenuptial agreement may know exactly why they want one and still struggle to describe what they are asking a lawyer to draft. Imagine that one owns a small business and both expect to contribute to a future home. “Keep the business separate” captures a wish. It leaves open how they expect to deal with money drawn from the business and put into the home. Preparing a short account of what each person owns, how they anticipate using it, and which questions they have yet to discuss gives the drafter a better starting point for describing the work.
A divorce agreement begins from a different place. There may already be standing payments, school routines, an apartment loan and two adults trying to run separate households. Drafting can involve turning a practical understanding into instructions that still make sense when someone moves, a payment is late or a document goes missing. Lior and Noam agree in principle that he should explore buying her share. Their first drafting conversation changes when Lior explains that she expects to use the proceeds for another home. The date at which she can use the money matters to her as much as the figure in the agreement.
Prepare a drafting note in ordinary English. Give each subject a short paragraph saying what you both understand, what remains open and which document contains the relevant detail. If you agree who will collect your child on a regular school day but have never discussed school holidays, say precisely that. If a business value appears in a conversation but nobody knows how it was calculated, describe it as an untested figure. Mark a proposal made by one person as a proposal. A drafter who mistakes it for settled instructions may spend paid time polishing language you will immediately have to reopen.
Before accepting a drafting quote, picture the route from that note to a finished text. Who will take instructions, who will circulate the first draft, and who will collect comments from each side? Would a correction to a wrongly recorded account number use up an included revision? What happens if you introduce a pension issue after the first draft? Will you receive an English explanation, an English document or a Hebrew document for which translation is a separate expense? Those questions let you decide whether the proposed work fits how you actually read and make decisions. They also give you a sensible stopping point if a financial issue needs investigation before drafting continues.
Commission the right kind of agreement review
A prepared agreement can save you the cost of starting with a blank page. It can also be a difficult document to price for review. Ten pages that closely reflect settled instructions present one task. Ten pages referring to an unseen valuation, an earlier agreement and a schedule in another language present another. Send a list of the attachments with the draft and identify any you have never received. You can then find out whether the proposed price covers a review of the complete arrangement or only a reading of the document currently in the lawyer’s hands.
The form of the answer matters. If you want to talk through two points before a conversation with your spouse, a focused consultation may give you the opportunity you need. If you will have to pass changes to a drafter, an annotated copy or proposed wording may be more useful. A written opinion addressing the agreement as a whole is a different undertaking again. Try the question “If I buy this review, what will I have in my hands that evening?” Follow it with “If the other side sends a revised version, what would it cost to check whether my concern was addressed?”
An existing signed agreement presents another kind of review. Perhaps you have followed the parenting routine for some time, and a new school timetable has exposed a point you understood differently. Perhaps a payment was made, but you disagree about which expense it covered. Set out the wording you are trying to understand, the event that made it important, and the practical decision facing you now. Supply the signed version and distinguish any later correspondence or draft amendment. Advice about how the existing text applies, work to prepare a possible change, and action over an alleged failure to comply deserve separate descriptions in a quote.
A version log makes this manageable, especially if your documents move between English and Hebrew. Give each version a recognisable name, record who sent it, and note whether it is a draft, a translation for reading, or the signed text. Under the version currently being reviewed, write your questions in your own words. “Does this paragraph address the apartment payment if financing falls through?” is more helpful than colouring a page yellow. When a replacement arrives, record which questions appear to have been answered and which still need professional attention. You can hand over a compact history without paying someone to reconstruct it from a crowded inbox.
Separate approval, divorce formalities and the certificate
Look at the name of the court and the action on the payment notice. The Family Court fee is ₪541 for approval of a spousal agreement arising from the relationship when there is no pending claim in the matter or appeal in that court. The rabbinical court schedule separately lists ₪536 to give a divorce agreement the effect of a judgment under its specified conditions. The ₪5 difference tells you nothing about which court is appropriate for your family. If approval has already been paid for, keep the receipt with the decision and ask what the new charge would cover.
Holding a signed agreement can feel like finishing the job. As a budgeting matter, it helps to pause there and describe the next result you need. Bringing a signed agreement for approval involves a different set of tasks from negotiating or drafting it. Depending on what professional help you commission, the work under discussion might include checking that the papers are ready to submit, preparing the submission, dealing with a request for another document, or attending an appearance with you. An agreement drafted for a fixed sum tells you little about which of those tasks you have already paid for.
Use three separate entries for approval of the agreement, the divorce formalities relevant to your circumstances, and obtaining a divorce certificate. Ask which steps apply in your situation and who can confirm what you need to do. Keep the descriptions specific enough that you can recognise completion. “I have an approved agreement,” “I have completed the applicable divorce formalities” and “I have the certificate I need to present” describe different outcomes. An English speaker dealing with an Israeli process may hear all three loosely described as getting the paperwork done. That shorthand is a poor guide to what a quoted service will deliver.
For each applicable step, distinguish the official amount due for the particular filing or document from the private price of having someone handle it. If a lawyer collects money to pay an official charge for you, find out how the payment will appear on your statement and what record you will receive. Paying the lawyer an advance for that charge and later seeing the official receipt should not turn one expense into two. Conversely, paying the official filing fee yourself gives you no basis to assume that a lawyer’s attendance has been covered. Enter the recipient and purpose of each payment so you can see the difference.
Consider the certificate from the perspective of the person who will use it. You may need a copy for an organisation that conducts its business in English. Before ordering extra copies or commissioning a translation, identify the document the recipient wants and the form in which it will accept it. Then find out who will obtain the document, who will pay the relevant charge, and whether delivery or translation is separate. You can put this task aside if you have no present need for additional copies. What matters is that the word “approval” on an invoice has not silently become a promise to deliver every document you might later use.
Budget contested representation one decision at a time
When a dispute becomes contested, “represent me in the divorce” can be too broad a request to produce a meaningful price. One lawyer might understand that you need immediate advice on a document you received. Another might assume you want someone to prepare a response, correspond with the other side, organise supporting material and appear with you. Explain what has actually happened, give the lawyer the papers carrying any dates, and identify the decision you face first. Have the professional check those dates. A budget built from someone else’s recollection of their case can put money aside for the wrong work.
Draw the present dispute on one page in words. What has one person requested? What does the other accept? What remains disputed? Which facts could be established from records you already have? Suppose both spouses accept that they own an apartment together and disagree about its value. An estimate premised on proving ownership as well as value deserves a conversation. Now suppose they also disagree about how money went into the purchase. Locating statements and reviewing the payment history could become substantial work even if the physical apartment and the proposed sale price stay exactly the same.
Separate litigation choices can change the budget because they change what someone must prepare and attend. Responding to a pending request, making a separate application and pursuing a second disputed issue might call for different documents, evidence, official charges or appearances. You need professional advice about the choices open in your own circumstances and what each choice might accomplish. For budgeting, a useful follow-up is “Which work would we have to do anyway, and which work would arise only if I chose this route?” Give the optional work its own estimate so that exploring a choice does not quietly turn it into an instruction to proceed.
Agree on a point at which you will receive an update before committing to the next substantial stage, where circumstances permit. That might be after counsel has read the other side’s papers or after both sides identify which financial figures they accept. Record what the current instruction covers and how urgent developments will be communicated if you are unavailable at work. Someone translating during a medical appointment or cooking through a hotel dinner service may be difficult to reach by phone. Knowing how you will receive a cost decision can matter as much as knowing the hourly rate, particularly when a choice affects several later pieces of work.
Describe the parenting work in terms of your child’s week
Parenting arrangements can sound settled until you try to follow them on a wet Tuesday when the school closes early. Start with a week your child actually lives. Who takes the child to school, who is available at dismissal, where does a school bag go, and how would either parent learn about a change? Include the practical detail that affects the disagreement. A full family diary is rarely a useful opening brief. A clear description of the one handover that repeatedly fails can help a professional distinguish a wording problem from a disagreement about the underlying arrangement.
Lior sometimes accepts assignments before clinics open, while Noam may work through the evening meal. They can agree on most overnight stays without much discussion. Their particular difficulty is that the person available at the start of a day may already be at work when a child needs collecting early. A request to draft their ordinary weekly schedule is therefore only part of the job. They also want wording they can both use when a shift changes. Before paying for a broader negotiation, they can identify the circumstances they already handle successfully and concentrate the paid discussion on the missing arrangement.
Make a one-page routine sheet with an ordinary school day, a non-school day and one disruption that has actually occurred. For each, describe the current practice, the proposed practice and the decision still needed. Use neutral observations. “The school called Noam, who was unable to leave the kitchen” gives the reader something concrete to work with. A judgement about whether Noam cares enough about collection adds heat without describing an arrangement. Keep sensitive information about your child limited to what the professional needs to advise on the question. You can check how to send more detailed records if they become relevant.
The price depends partly on what you commission from that starting point. Advice to one parent about a proposal, drafting agreed wording, corresponding over disputed details and representing a parent in a contested matter involve different work. A quote for the first need not answer the price of the last. Useful questions include “Will you read the routine sheet before we meet?”, “Does the quoted work include wording for holiday changes?” and “If we agree on the routine during the appointment, who prepares the revised text?” If an existing agreement already covers most of the week, identify the relevant paragraphs. That gives the reviewer a chance to price the actual change without beginning with an entirely new parenting plan.
Keep the child support issue in two accounts
A child support matter puts two very different sums into the same conversation. One concerns money for a child. The other concerns the professional fee for advice, drafting, representation or another service relating to that money. Give them separate pages or separate columns from the outset. A quote for reviewing a support provision tells you what the review will cost. It does not establish what support is payable, what either parent should propose or what a decision would be. Likewise, a transfer towards a child’s expenses should remain identifiable even if it happens to leave your account on the day of a legal invoice.
Define the question before collecting every household receipt. A parent trying to understand the wording of an existing agreement may need the signed text and a short history of how a particular expense has been handled. A parent disputing whether a transfer was made may need the transfer record, its description and the corresponding entry on the other account. Someone seeking advice about a proposed support arrangement may be asked for a different set of financial information. Knowing which task the professional is pricing helps you avoid spending an evening sorting supermarket purchases that have little bearing on your immediate concern.
Take a school expense that both parents recognise but each believes they have already contributed towards. An expense log can show the original bill, the person who paid the provider, any transfer between parents, and the balance each person believes remains. Keep a disputed figure visibly disputed. If one parent pays the school and the other reimburses part of that payment, the child has incurred one school expense. Recording both movements of money is useful for tracing who bore it. Adding both to the original bill as fresh expenditure would make the child’s costs look larger than the records support.
Use the log to narrow the professional instruction. “Can you advise me about this paragraph and these two disputed entries?” is a different request from “Can you represent me on all outstanding support issues?” Find out whether the proposed charge covers checking your calculation, advising on the meaning of the agreement, writing to the other person or bringing a matter forward if it remains disputed. If the answer branches according to how the other parent responds, keep the first task in the committed budget and the later task in a conditional column. You will then be able to explain why a higher legal invoice changed your spending that month without accidentally presenting the increase as a change in your child’s support.
Give the apartment, business and pension separate treatment
Lior’s question about the apartment initially sounds like a request for one number. How much would Noam pay her? They soon discover several different numbers on the table. One is a proposed value for the apartment, another is the outstanding borrowing shown on a statement, and a third is the amount Noam believes he could finance. Those figures answer different questions. None tells them the cost of legal work on the agreement, the charge for an external appraisal or the practical cost of carrying out whatever arrangement they eventually adopt. Writing the figures on separate lines makes the remaining uncertainty easier to discuss.
Before commissioning an appraisal, describe the asset and the decision the report should inform. Will the professional visit the apartment? What written product will you receive? Who may use it, and would answering further questions or attending an appearance involve an extra charge? Two spouses may be willing to share the cost of a report while reserving their positions on what to do with the result. Record how the invoice would be divided and check with your respective advisers whether the proposed instruction meets your needs. Paying half of a report that cannot answer your question can be an expensive saving.
A business deserves its own description. The value of an interest in a business, the cash available in its account and the income someone receives from working there are distinct subjects. A hotel chef who owns no part of the hotel presents a different financial picture from a chef who owns a catering business and pays staff out of its receipts. If an accountant is needed, identify whether the assignment is to organise records, explain particular transactions, assess an ownership interest or comment on someone else’s figures. Find out which records must be available before the accountant can give a meaningful estimate and whether follow-up work sits outside it.
Pensions introduce another distinction. Reading a statement, understanding what an entry represents, assessing pension interests and drafting terms that reflect professional advice are separate pieces of work. Keep a list of the statements you have, the periods they cover and the names under which the accounts appear. Ask who will interpret the information, who will turn any agreed position into wording, and whether further implementation work is included. An asset sheet with one row each for the apartment, business interests and pensions can hold the relevant document, unanswered question, professional responsible and proposed expense. It prevents the household’s largest asset value from distracting attention from a smaller pension question that nobody has yet agreed to handle.
Price interim applications and extra appearances without overlap
An immediate problem can interrupt work you already authorised. Perhaps you need advice about a temporary parenting difficulty while a broader disagreement remains open. Or there is a pressing question about an apartment expense while financial information is being collected. Explain the immediate practical problem and let your lawyer advise about available steps. An interim application, if pursued, may involve preparing material, responding to papers, an official filing expense or an appearance. The fact that the issue is temporary gives you little information about the professional time needed to address it.
Read the existing stage agreement before adding a new hearing allowance. Suppose, purely as a worked planning example, that a fictional stage costs 4,800 shekels on a stated tax-inclusive basis and includes preparation and attendance for one reserved hearing. A separate line in the same fictional proposal prices an additional appearance at 1,200 shekels on the same basis. If the reserved hearing is the only appearance, the professional total for the described stage is 4,800. If another appearance takes place and the additional charge applies, the resulting professional total is 6,000. Putting 6,000 in the committed column the moment the first hearing is scheduled would count an untriggered charge.
The detail worth settling is what makes an appearance additional. “Does the stage cover this particular listing?”, “What would I pay if the appearance were postponed after you prepared?”, “Does the extra appearance price include fresh preparation?” and “Would a separate application carry its own preparation charge even if heard on the same occasion?” are all questions with practical consequences. A date reserved in a diary, completed preparation and actual attendance are different events. Check how the engagement treats each one. Avoid assuming that a postponement will cost either the full attendance price or nothing at all.
Keep a short appearance record. Enter the issue, the date shown on the notice, whether attendance is confirmed, the fee provision you believe applies and what actually happened. After the event, note who attended, whether another date was set and what financial question remains open. If the invoice includes both stage work and an appearance, you can point to the specific entries and request an explanation. This leaves room for a legitimate extra charge while giving you a reliable basis to challenge duplication. It also keeps a potential official expense visible if the lawyer confirms that the separate step requires one, without treating every new date as a fresh filing.
Follow the documents from sender to recipient
The smallest-looking line in a proposal can conceal several different jobs. Imagine an English-speaking parent who has a Hebrew agreement, an English bank statement and a relative overseas holding the clearest copy of an old document. The parent wants to read the agreement accurately, provide the bank information in an acceptable form and get the old document into the right hands. One person may call all of that “paperwork.” For budgeting purposes it involves distinct decisions about copies, translation, delivery and, where applicable, formal service of process. Each has a recipient whose requirements are worth identifying before you buy anything.
A written translation and an interpreter solve different problems. A translation gives you text you can read again. An interpreter helps you understand and communicate during a conversation or appearance. Bilingual Lior knows this distinction professionally, yet still finds it hard to judge how much Hebrew she wants to handle in her own case. She can read routine emails comfortably and would prefer English when discussing pension language. She can therefore obtain a price for the specific pages or meeting that matter to her. She also needs to confirm what language arrangements are acceptable for the actual proceeding, independently of her preference for a private appointment.
Describe the unit when you seek a price. For translation, that means identifying the documents, their language, whether they are legible and what the recipient requires. If the charge is per word or page, find out which document determines the count and whether checking a later amendment costs extra. For an interpreter, explain the setting and language direction, then check the booking unit, waiting time and any cancellation terms. For copies, find out whether an ordinary readable copy is sufficient or a particular form is required. An official document charge, a professional’s time obtaining the document and the cost of delivering it can all belong to the same errand.
Service of process deserves a separate entry because formally delivering papers can involve work beyond sending a courtesy copy. Have the responsible professional identify what your situation requires, who will arrange it, what the charge covers and what evidence of completion you will receive. If an attempt fails, how would another attempt be priced? Maintain a document movement log containing the item, version, sender, intended recipient, purpose, quoted unit and confirmation received. You can use it to spot a translation already commissioned by your lawyer or a copy already paid for by your spouse. It is also a practical way to locate a receipt months later without exposing the document’s sensitive contents in a shared budget.
Reconcile deposits, invoices and different pay periods
Return to Lior and Noam’s kitchen table. For an entirely fictional illustration, suppose Lior commissions a defined block of independent professional work for a total of 3,600 shekels, inclusive of any applicable tax in this example. The engagement requires 1,200 now as a deposit credited against that total. If the work is completed on the agreed terms and no extras arise, the eventual balance is 2,400. The cost of the work is still 3,600. Adding the deposit to the total would overstate her budget, while writing only 1,200 under “cost” would leave most of the commitment invisible.
Lior expects a clinic payment after the deposit is due. Rather than treating that expected income as cash in her account, she marks it as pending and checks whether the proposed payment arrangement is workable. Noam’s salary is already available, but his situation would look artificially comfortable if he counted money needed for the next household payment as spare. Their private legal budgets can sit alongside a shared calendar of household obligations. If Noam advances money for an expense Lior commissioned, they can record the transfer and its intended purpose separately from the professional invoice. That preserves the distinction between funding a bill and receiving the service.
Keep a payment ledger that connects each transfer to a bill or a stated purpose. Start with the agreed total if there is one, enter the amount requested now, then record the date paid and the credit shown on the later invoice. If the office asks for money on account against hourly work, the amount deposited may tell you very little about the eventual total. Find out how the office reports time used, when it expects the balance to be replenished, and how it handles unused funds under the engagement. When an invoice arrives, match the opening credit and the new work before reading the final amount due.
If paying for a necessary step is difficult, frame assistance as a question specific to that expense. “Is there an exemption route I can check for this official charge?”, “Is there a grant or assistance service I can approach about independent advice?” and “Who can tell me what information is needed to consider a request?” keep separate possibilities distinct. Until you receive an answer that applies to you, leave the full expense visible and record the enquiry beside it. A request under consideration cannot cover an invoice in your bank account. A confirmed contribution, if one becomes available, can then be entered against the expense it actually covers.
Make a decision sheet you can use at the next appointment
Enforcement often enters the picture well after a family thinks it has finished paying for legal work. A signed or approved agreement may specify an obligation, yet the people involved can disagree about whether it was fulfilled. Before commissioning action, assemble the relevant wording, the record of what occurred, any payment or delivery evidence and a short description of what you want to happen now. “I want to understand whether this transfer covered the agreed expense” gives an adviser a different starting point from “I want advice about enforcing an outstanding obligation.” Allow space for the answer to the first question to change your view of the second.
Price that decision in steps. You may first want advice on the existing agreement and the records. Correspondence, an application, formal service, further representation and any additional appearance can then be described individually if they become relevant. Find out which work the professional proposes to undertake immediately and which would require a fresh instruction. Check whether an official charge or third-party expense would arise at the step you are actually considering. If your immediate aim is to obtain a missing document, identify the document and what would count as receiving it. That clarity helps you judge whether the proposed service addresses the difficulty you came to resolve.
Bring the information together on a single decision sheet. Across the top, write the decision you must make next in ordinary language. Under it, name the person who needs the advice, the person instructed to do the work, and the result you expect to receive. Put the agreed professional price or billing unit on the next line with its tax basis. Give official expenses and outside professionals their own lines. Record included work, credits already paid, the balance due now and conditional extras. Wherever an amount is unknown, put the actual unanswered question in the space. “What would the interpreter charge for waiting?” gives you something to resolve before making a booking.
At the bottom, leave room for your instruction after the appointment. Lior might write, “Proceed with reviewing the apartment wording. Send me the review in English. I will decide about a valuation after I have read it.” Noam’s separate sheet might record that he wants advice on the documents needed to investigate financing before commissioning a revised draft. Date your own instruction, keep a copy with the proposal it refers to, and add the next payment to your calendar. When you next open the file, you will be able to see what you bought, what you owe and which decision is still yours to make.
