Practice Management

There are nothing like fee disputes.  Sometimes they come in the form of an objection to your fees, and sometimes they come as an objection to your services.  Generally, they relate to the same thing -- overly high expectations.

There are a lot of lawyers now recommending fixed fees even involving one-shot litigation.  I would not advise it.  But, no matter what your policy and what you believe is best for you and your firm, the one thing that you must do is to create a transparent billing and payment policy and then to stick to it.

You need to make sure your fees, how they are calculated, and when they are due extremely clear and in writing before the work begins.  I would not be bad if you also got a partial payment or full payment up front if at all possible.  A sizable retainer is good.

At the beginning of representation you have some leverage to get the client to understand, acknowledge and accept your requirements.  You can completely lose that leverage once work begins.

The other thing that you have just got to do is to lower your clients expectations and sense of entitlement.  Sometimes not only do attorneys not make their billing and payment practices clear, they sometimes over hype the case fearing they might not be retained if they do not.  Not only should you not make promises, you should do everything you can to lower those expectations starting out.

Clients have a bad habit of spending their potential recovery in their mind.  If it then does not come or it is less than what they expected it to be, you will have trouble and I can guarantee you that it will center around your billing and payment practices.  I am now going to call it the Exxon Mobile Factor.  Exxon Mobile just reported the largest profit every made in U.S history for a three month period.  (Did I say more money every)?  Yet, its stock price fell because it did not meet Wall Sreet's expectations, as amazing as that is.  So, Wall Street started dumping the stock.

For a client the same thing can happen.  You do not want to get a reasonably good result and not have the client appreciate it because you did not meet their expectations.  So, downplaying the outcome is so important in a transparent billing and payment policy.