« Headline v. Text «
Value of Time
I’ve heard all the arguments about billable hours being unfair for clients, but does anyone know how to make flat fee clients actually respect an attorney’s time. Just the little things like return phone calls and show up at scheduled meetings. Anyone? Anyone? This is the same issue I had as a public defender (many, many moons ago) – too many people don’t care about your time unless it also costs them something, and simply slapping them upside their heads seems to be frowned upon by the bar.
This has been a Howling Point Business of Law™ moment. If you’re a client of the author, please consider the above to be entirely fictionalized.
Phone calls could be tough because they could always say that they didn’t get get message. Not showing up for scheduled meetings though? Unforgiveable for anyone, anytime. Tehre are unforseen circumstances, but almost everyone has access to a cell phone.
Those should be billed to the client since you’ve cleared x amount of time for them that could have been used for another client who actually cares about his case.
Um…ditto physician’s time, but not billable unfortunately. Think about the people who don’t bother to cancel and just don’t show and waste time that could’ve been spent on another patient. We aren’t allowed to charge for that. And neither for the time spent returning phone calls or emails.
Time Stalkers:
I only use flat fees for transactional work. And then, only when I know exactly how much time I will have to spend to accomplish the work. The defense attorneys I know that use flat fees are VERY hard to reach by phone and guard their appointment books like a tigress her cubs.
I usually resort to hourly billing with a discount. I use a high hourly rate – which the client agrees to – and then discount it if they have been good little clients. The PIMA’s (pains in my ass clients) get to pay my full rate. This keeps the good ones coming back due to the service and “preferential” discount and ensures that the bad ones pay well to make up for their inconsiderate time wasting ways.
My own method of “Value” billing tries to balance the worth of the service against the worth of the client so we are all equally happy – or unhappy.