Costs for Elder Law Attorney - $500 for two hours, could go into the thousands depending on how much needs to be done - this sound right?

Steve, the first two hours at $500 would be $250 per hour. There is also work that the Attorney can delegate to his/her paralegals where the hourly rate charge is less.

I live in the Washington DC burbs and the hourly rate is much higher. Some Elder Law Attorneys will do a package deal for items needed that an Elder needs, such as a Living Will, Power of Attorney, Medical Directive, and whatever else. One price for everything.

Now if you want to get a Revocable or Irrevocable Trust, that will be an hourly rate as such Trusts can be quite complicated. The paralegals can also help the Elder Law Attorneys with this. That in itself can run into over $1k. But I feel it is money well worth.

I used an Elder Law Attorney who is in a large firm. That way, if my Attorney is on leave, then there are other Elder Law Attorneys who can step in. Never need to worry about the office closing up.

Yes, it sounds about right. When we did it, we shopped around. There were some lawyers that were willing to do it for cheap, but they were not elder law/trust lawyers. They didn't even answer the questions I knew the answers to correctly. In the end we went with the guy with the best reviews on Yelp. He was definitely not the cheapest but he also wasn't the most expensive. The initial meet cost about $500 and the whole package including a trust is about $4,000 - $5000. According to the cost estimates I've seen nationwide for setting up a trust. That's right in the range.

Lawyers typically charge by the our and $250 and above sounds right. They will also charge for things like letters and phone calls. Depending on the job they may want a retainer up front.
There is a lot of information and legal forms on the Internet that you can view before seeing the lawyer so you are already familiar with the information thtat is likely to be requested.

I was charged $2000 for the guardianship and they chased down the doctor for his letter declaring my wife as incompetent and the other necessary forms and scheduling the court dates. This was his flat charge unless there was something additional work required. I did have forms to fill out and needed to provide additional information. However in the end it was worth the expense. I have court ordered restrictions but they were for the betterment and protection of DW. The restrictions regard limits on what and how much money I can take from her accounts to provide for her. No problems.
Please note that the attorney was considered to be the wife's attorney and not mine. But still provided me with guidance and advise.

Our lawyer just charged us $250 an hour for his work on our trust. That's the standard rate, so I'm told. (My son is an attorney and he says for most situations, that's the fee, within a few bucks.)

GO PREPARED with as much info as you can think of. Will the attorney's office email you some forms you can pre-fill and send back? We did this and it saved us a lot of time, plus it gave us time at home to talk and decide what we wanted. Being in the actual office was daunting and we felt like we had already made the "big" decisions.

Good Luck.

Thanks for all the help! Greatly appreciated !