Legal Research

"How Do You Talk to Your Clients About Fees?"

Posted by Allison Shields: "When my clients tell me that they're having difficulty getting paid or that they are having problems with an alternative billing arrangement with their clients, the first two questions I always ask are:

"What did you tell your client about your fees when you first met with them?"

and

"What does your engagement agreement say about this issue?"

Almost every problem related to fees, billing or getting paid relates back to the original meeting with the client and how well the fee arrangement was explained.

Lawyers are now beginning to experiment with alternative billing arrangements, and that means that they need to change the way they speak to clients about their fees. Under an hourly billing system, the client is quoted an hourly rate. Sometimes a client will request an estimate of the total legal fees that are likely to be expended, but many clients won't. Even if an estimate is given, when the estimate is exceeded, the bill will reflect the number of hours worked on the client's behalf. While this may be 'easy' for the lawyer to explain and to demonstrate to the client, it opens up discussions about why certain tasks took so long to perform, or why the lawyer devoted so much time to a specific item. These conversations don't occur until after the work has been performed, and they place the emphasis on hours, rather than on outcome and the services provided...

Full text is available at the source site listed below.

Source: Legal Ease Blog, 9 September 2009 

Full post as published by Stark County Law Library Blawg on September 09, 2009 (boomark / email).