Why Some Lawyers Chase Bills

I recently saw a lawyer in my network post on LinkedIn a lamentation about how she works so hard, late nights and weekends, but always has to chase bills from her clients. Her reasoning was that lawyers are simply not respected in their work. Despite all the long hours, come billing time, clients will ask her, “why am I paying for a draft, for a few emails, or a few comments”. The post concluded that lawyers should not stay silent about this issue and the legal industry should raise awareness about this issue. This comment was liked and reposted by over 100 other lawyers which surprised me.

I agree that making sure a client respects your work and how you are paid is crucial and to part ways from a client if the respect isn’t there. However, I would advise any lawyer including this person on Linkedin that not being paid will not be solved by making everyone aware of the “lack of respect for lawyers”. Instead, the issue will be solved by improving poor communication and lack of perceived value of your service. In other words, we shouldn’t be “raising awareness” about the issue of clients not paying or respecting lawyers; we (clients and experienced lawyers alike) should be teaching lawyers about billing transparency and how to convert a lawyer’s hard work into a service that clients will pay for.

Transparency is crucial in the solicitor client relationship because there is a massive gap between what the client expects in terms of service and payment and what the lawyer is expecting, even with a written retainer agreement. This is because most people on average do not transact with lawyers often so their experiences are only what they’ve seen on TV or observe from anecdotes. Clients enter into lawyer relationships believing a range of fallacies including:

·      Lawyers are available at all hours to answer all of their questions with little to no cost;

·      Retainer deposits are pretty much everything a client will have to pay;

·      That drafting emails or reviewing documents and thinking of strategy costs nothing to the client;

·      That a lawyer will continue working even without money until the client accomplishes his or her goals.

But lawyers also enter into client relationships believing a range of their own fallacies including:

·      Clients know how hard and how long a lawyer is working even without showing the client any records of it;

·      Clients understand based on the retainer agreement they signed that the relationship is time-based so client has to pay regardless of whether their goals have been accomplished

·      Clients don’t need to be checked on or updated if nothing is happening in their file.

To fix this clear gap in expectations, lawyers need to do a better job explaining to clients what their legal fees are and what the client is getting in exchange for this money. Most lawyers hate having money conversations with clients. But when you avoid this conversation, it slowly builds resentment until either the client feels they overpaid or the lawyer feels they have not been paid enough. Lawyers need to explain how their fees work (fixed fee or hourly ) and bring it up many times when there is an imbalance in discussions. If clients feel they are being ripped off, that is the time to re-budget or strategize together. This is no different than any other service provider. If you hire a painter to paint your house but before they can paint they have to patch all the walls, pick colours, tape etc and the client has paid large sums; the client will feel ripped off unless they understood exactly the different the phases the job will take to end up with a painted house.

Lawyers have a much harder job than a painter in this context because in many cases, the client is not aware of what the end result will be – it is not a painted house. What a client is paying for is less tangible - they are looking for guidance through a period of uncertainty, and they will pay for this service.

This leads to the next point: clients respect and will pay for value. This is true of any service. A lawyer’s time is not valuable just because they have a license and bill for their time spent. A lawyer’s time is only valuable to a client if the client feels they are getting value out of the time – they feel they are getting guidance through a period of uncertainty. This is true whether it is litigation, buying a house, preparing a will, a divorce etc. This means the lawyer needs to provide updates and show the client how hard they are working for them in a lawyer’s voice, manner, and presentation. If there are complaints about cost from the client, instead of pushing back against the client and show the time spent; re-explain (kindly) what the transaction is all about with options and solutions, and the client will pay or move on if there are affordability concerns.

Clients don’t care and will never care about how hard or how much time a lawyer or any service professional works for them unless they see results. Failing that, they want to feel well-served by their service provider. If after all that, a client still does not wish to pay, then they are not suitable to be served by any lawyer and no amount of awareness or respect will help the situation.

Respect must be earned. Same goes for money. If a client does not feel you did anything, they won’t pay you. Tell the clients what you’ve done, show them with your actions, explain the costs and provide solutions and a lawyer will be paid. If you find yourself chasing bills for good legal work – you may want to look inwards.

This article was originally published by Law360 Canada, part of LexisNexis Canada Inc. https://www.law360.ca/ca/pulse/articles/2378715/why-some-lawyers-chase-bills